Stumbled on a stat about oak root fungus that caught me off guard

I was reading through some old UC IPM notes last night, trying to figure out why a client's oaks have been declining in Redding. Turns out, oak root fungus can stay alive in dead stumps for up to 50 years or more. I always knew it was persistent, but that number surprised me. Got me wondering how many times I've planted new trees right where we ground out old ones. Has anyone else dealt with this in their own jobs?

3 comments

3 Comments

lucas_price8324d ago

Hate to be that guy but I think u got the wrong fungus or maybe the wrong region. Oak root fungus is Armillaria mellea and yeah it stays in stumps for a long time but not like 50 years plus. The mycelium can survive maybe 10-15 years in big old stumps if conditions are perfect but after that the wood rots too much and the fungus dies out too. Might be confusing it with something like annosus root rot or maybe the honey mushroom that grows on dead stuff in forests but that's different too. The UC IPM site actually says 5-10 years for most cases not 50. Still a pain to deal with though I agree on that part.

diana_park23d ago

Yeah the "5-10 years for most cases" part really jumped out at me too. I had a big oak stump in my backyard that I just kind of ignored (rookie mistake, I know) and ended up dealing with oak root fungus spreading to my young maple tree about 8 feet away. What worked for me was getting the stump ground down to about 6 inches below grade, then I dug a trench around the area and lined it with heavy duty landscape fabric to try and slow the roots from mingling. I also poured some beneficial nematodes into the soil around the remaining roots, which supposedly eat the fungus. It's been 4 years now and the maple is doing fine, so either I got lucky or the combo actually helped. Still keeping an eye on it though, cause that stuff is sneaky.

lily8923d ago

Wow that info gap seems like one of those things where common sense is just totally wrong lol.