Post a Comment Print Share on Facebook

More than 900 horse chestnuts felled in Hamburg

In Hamburg, many chestnuts have been felled in recent years due to a tree disease caused by bacteria.

- 4 reads.

More than 900 horse chestnuts felled in Hamburg

In Hamburg, many chestnuts have been felled in recent years due to a tree disease caused by bacteria. According to the environmental authority, 918 horse chestnuts were lost in Hamburg between 2013 and 2021. They were affected by the so-called complex disease. This is the symptom of a bacterial infestation that was first registered in the Hanseatic city in 2007.

The infestation of this introduced bacterium (Pseudomonas syringae pv. aesculi) led to the horse chestnut die-off in the city's public green spaces for the first time about five years later. According to the information, around 15 percent of Hamburg's horse chestnuts are currently suffering from the disease. According to the digital street tree register, there are a good 226,000 street trees in the Hanseatic city, around 5,700 of which are chestnuts.

Bark tissue dies where the bacterium has penetrated the wood of the tree. “Wood-destroying fungi then settle there and lead to white rot in the wood body. The bacterium is the door opener, so to speak, and the colonization with the fungi leads to a complex disease," explained a spokesman for the authorities.

The problem: The trees that have died as a result are then no longer safe and there is a risk that branches, for example, will break off. In technical jargon, this means that the trees are no longer roadworthy - then they have to be felled.

Incidentally, the symptoms are only recognizable in autumn, winter and spring. If chestnuts already look like autumn due to brown, puny leaves in summer, this is not due to the complex disease, but to the leaf miner. It's been around in Hamburg since around 2000 and has nothing to do with the complex disease. According to the city, this pest can be effectively counteracted by continuously removing leaves for the following year.

Avatar
Your Name
Post a Comment
Characters Left:
Your comment has been forwarded to the administrator for approval.×
Warning! Will constitute a criminal offense, illegal, threatening, offensive, insulting and swearing, derogatory, defamatory, vulgar, pornographic, indecent, personality rights, damaging or similar nature in the nature of all kinds of financial content, legal, criminal and administrative responsibility for the content of the sender member / members are belong.