Red tape blamed for delaying ash dieback cure

A company called Natural Ecology Mitigation Ltd (NEM) says it has created a formula which could prevent the spread of ash dieback but told Channel 4 News that trials are not being done fast enough.

Copper sulphate is added to deionised water and mixed with nitrates and phosphates to create a nutrient which can be applied directly onto the leaves or at the roots of the trees.

The tree takes up the nutrient and it gets distributed around the tree without killing it but does cure the disease. Because the solution is in diluted form it is not harmful to the environment or people. It costs roughly 50p for a hectare to be treated with added costs for the actual distribution of the solution.

Potential

The company is concerned that if there is a much longer delay, it will be too late to spray ash trees as they will start to lose their leaves. The treatment can be applied to the roots, but is more effective when applied to leaves.

There are around 2.2m ash saplings currently in nurseries which may need treating if they are to be planted. Of the outbreaks so far recorded in trees, a number have have been traced to nurseries.

In a statement, the department for food and rural affairs, Defra, told Channel 4 New: “We’re using government scientific experts to approach companies with proposed treatment solutions and rapidly review and evaluate them to see if they have potential for further testing and development.”

Read more: Q and A ash dieback

Ash dieback (or chalara fraxinea) was discovered in Poland in 1992. In February 2012 it was found in Buckinghamshire in a consignment of trees which had came from the Netherlands.

Since then, it has also been found at a number of locations in both England and Scotland including Leicester and Knockmountain, near Kilmacolm, west of Glasgow. The Forestry Commission said ash dieback has also been identified on a college campus in South Yorkshire and at a property in County Durham.

It said that all these sites had received stocks of young ash plants from nurseries within the past five years. But in October 2012, government scientists “confirmed a small number of cases in East Anglia which do not appear to have any association with recently supplied nursery stock”.

The Forestry Commission told Channel 4 News it is still trying to establish the extent to which the disease has spread across the UK.

Meanwhile Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith tabled an early day motion in the Commons to urge the government to take more action over the outbreak as well as others affecting UK woodlands such as acute and chronic oak decline, chestnut blight and oak processionary moth andphytophthora ramorum.