Document Type
Review
Publication Title
Maine Woodlands
Publisher
Maine Woodland Owners
Publication Date
2025
Publisher location
Augusta, Maine
Issue Number
12
Volume Number
49
Abstract/ Summary
For over a century, beech bark disease (BBD) has weakened American beech in Maine, causing bark lesions and vigorous resprouting. More recently, the non-native beech leaf disease (BLD), caused by a nematode, arrived in Maine in 2020 and rapidly spread across 15 counties by 2024. BLD attacks leaves and buds, further threatening beech as a foundational species and critical mast source. Soil-drench treatments using phosphate fertilizer and stem injection with fungicide can conserve individual trees but are impractical at any meaningful silvicultural scale. The combined impact is expected to accelerate beech decline. Silvicultural methods to reduce the abundance of BBD-affected trees such as understory removal, combined with crop-tree release of isolated BBD-resistant trees, may offer some benefit but remain largely untested.
Repository Citation
Seymour, Robert S., "Beech Leaf Disease on American beech (Fagus grandifolia): History, Ecology, and Control" (2025). Silviculture and Management of Maine’s Forests. 1.
https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/silviculture/1
Version
publisher's version of the published document
