Forest Pathology Section
Forest Health Guide for Georgia Foresters
Written by Terry Price, Georgia Forestry Commission
Adapted for the web by the Bugwood Network
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Forest pathology is the science that deals with the study of forest tree diseases. Organisms that can cause tree disease are fungi, bacteria, viruses, mycoplasmalike organisms (MLO’s), parasitic plants and nematodes. The fungi are probably the most important group to forest pathology. Many fungi require a weakened host yet others are perfectly capable of infecting healthy plants. Extensive deviations from the normal such as drought, flooding, freezing, defoliation and transplanting shock often predispose trees to disease.
The economic and environmental impacts that diseases have caused are illustrated best by the devastation wrought by Dutch elm disease and chestnut blight. Both diseases were introduced into North America in the early to mid 1900s. Since then, most of the American chestnut and elm trees have been killed. Georgia currently faces the threat of sudden oak death caused by the fungus Phytophthora ramorum (see page 109).
As the U.S. expands its trade with foreign countries the threat of new diseases being introduced into American forests becomes more imminent.
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