Disease Note

First Report of Cryptococcus fagisuga, Initiator of Beech Bark Disease, in Virginia and Ohio. M. E. Mielke, USDA Forest Service, Morgantown, WV 26505. D. B. Houston, Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, Wooster 44691; and D. R. Houston, USDA Forest Service, Hamden, CT 06514. Plant Dis. 69:905. Accepted for publication 11 June 1985. Copyright 1985 The American Phytopathological Society. DOI: 10.1094/PD-69-905g.

The beech scale (Cryptococcus fagisuga Lind.) predisposes bark of American beech (Fagus grandifolia Ehrh.) to several Nectria spp., resulting in the fatal or disfiguring beech bark disease. The scale, brought from Europe to Nova Scotia about 1890, until recently had been found only in New England, New York, and northern and eastern Pennsylvania. An isolated outbreak of beech bark disease was discovered in 1981 on the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia and in 1983 on the George Washington National Forest in Highland County, Virginia, near the West Virginia infestation. In September 1984, the scale was found in the Holden Arboretum in Lake County, Ohio, and more recently in low numbers elsewhere in Lake County and in parts of Ashtabula, Trumbull, Portage, and Geauga counties. Infections by Nectria spp. have not yet been seen in Ohio.