Our battered beech tree is in bad shape
“A relationship to the earthbased only on its use for economic enrichment is bound to result not only in its degradation, but also in the devaluation of human life.” - Rene Dubois
The last 130 years have been challenging for our native beech tree. Decimated by the beech bark disease, and then treated as a weed due to the effects of this disease, our Nova Scotia beech tree has fallen from its glory as a beautiful and valued Acadian Forest tree.
It’s usually gnarled and cankered bark does not please the eye, nor can its wood be put to the useful purposes for which it was once known, such as a strong, hard building material. At best, beech is usually cut for firewood, where its density makes it one of the best firewood species. However, many woodland owners would rather get rid of it.
The downfall of our beech began with a shipment of ornamental beech from Europe in 1890.
These European beech trees carried with them a disease that, while not a major problem in Europe, proved to be deadly to our native beech. The beech scale insect feeds on beech trees and introduces damaging fungi that form cankers under the bark that can eventually misshape and kill beech trees. Unable to be contained, the beech bark disease spread like wildfire, and by 1950 most of the Maritime beech population was affected.
Huge amounts of beech trees were killed quickly, while most others were gravely damaged. But as woodland owners know, beech can reproduce from roots and stumps and thus may end up encouraging more young beech stems to grow. These, in turn, were also usually infected by the disease.
This vicious circle continues today and is a major problem for many woodland owners and foresters who would rather have something more economically valuable growing in place of beech. It is not unusual to see a foreground of ugly, twisted, and suppressed stems covered with cankers in most beech stands.
But all hope for beech is not lost. Thanks to a fortunate genetic twist of fate, it seems some individual trees are naturally resistant to the beech bark disease. Here and there in most beech forests, one happens upon the odd disease-free, or clear-barked, tree surrounded by diseased ones. These disease-free beech trees are easy to distinguish: their bark is characteristically smooth, with no cankers or other evidence of the disease.
Researchers now know that these clear beech trees are resistant to the beech bark disease and will grow to their normal large, beautiful form. In addition, the resistance can be handed down from parent to offspring, much like the trait for blue eyes can be passed down in humans. So, any beech trees arising from root sprouts of a resistant beech will also be resistant. As well, resistant beech that cross with each other are likely to produce at least some seedlings containing the gene for resistance.
This is good news not only for beech, but also for the many animals that feed on beechnuts, including black bears, whose fall diet largely depends on the tree’s nutritious nut.
Unfortunately, but perhaps understandably, beech trees tend to be cut indiscriminately during forest harvesting, and the valuable, resistant trees are lost in the shuffle. Given that resistance is found in less than one per cent of beech trees, losing even a few is bad news for the Maritime beech population.
What can be done? Most important for woodland owners is to identify healthy, clear beech and save these trees from being harvested or damaged.
Ideally, the diseased trees should be selectively cut, while the resistant ones are left unharmed to increase the number of resistant trees for future forests in the area. Seeds from the disease-resistant trees can be planted all over, in an attempt to bring back this beautiful tree to its former grandeur