In the late 1990s, researchers studied thousands of Glacier's whitebark pines and found that 44 percent were dead and more than 75 percent of living trees had been infected with
blister rust. The devastating tree loss led to an extensive restoration project.
The second program at Dorena, the white pine
blister rust research, addresses a bigger problem, as white pines - and the
blister rust - are spread throughout the United States.
NRDC fears that this one-two punch--beetles attacking mature whitebark pines and
blister rust killing smaller ones--could have a devastating impact on high-altitude forests across the American West.
His research delved into four areas: (1) forest tree diseases, especially white pine
blister rust, (2) decay in building timbers and toxicity of creosotes to wood-destroying fungi, (3) language of mycology, and (4) taxonomy of boletes and hydnums (types of mushrooms and fungi).
The main problem for whitebark pine is
blister rust, a fungus that arrived in the United States around 1900 on seedlings from Europe.
Similar efforts have been to combat white pine
blister rust. There is also the possibility of developing a hybrid, blight-resistant species of chestnut, or even some form of inoculation against the blight that would allow for the chestnut's reintroduction from nursery stock.
However, the commercial growth of the plant was forbidden in the 1920s when it was discovered that White Pine
Blister Rust was hosted by the plant, and transferred to the pine trees -- thereby threatening the North American timber industry.
White pine
blister rust (Cronartium ribicola), a Siberian fungus, landed in the port of Vancouver in 1910, and a decade later it was thriving in the pine forests of northern Idaho.
Trees can be pretty nice, especially if they don't get overrun with caterpillars, Japanese beetles, canker rot or
blister rust.
Adorned in spruce green trousers, T-shirts, sack coats, and caps, the men at CPS 108 at Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee worked nine-hour days six days a week, repairing roads, fixing telephone lines, planting nurseries, clearing trails, managing fire strikes, and eradicating white pine
blister rust, a destructive disease that is lethal if allowed to spread from branch to trunk.