Alien Invaders

[jus_young]

Having gone for a walk in the woods opposite my place today I was shocked to see the number of diseased trees. I haven't been through the woods for a good while as the paths are steep and hard going for the good lady, and I found that things have changed in a relatively short time. These were mature specimens that I am having trouble identifying due to the level of destruction that exists from insect and woodpecker attack and the disease or insect attack seems to be hitting a number of trees in close proximity. The other surprise was the extent of Japanese knotweed that seems to be spreading unchecked.

Being that this used to be a very well managed local nature reserve, I was wondering how your local woods seem to be suffering from the recent explosion in Alien insect and diseases and what is being done to deal with it?

[Edwin]

The Forestry Commission are very informative if you give them a ring and the person I spoke to about the diagnosis of current diseases in woods did say that they would welcome any intelligence of woods in trouble, even if they already had the problem recorded.

[Ashley Cawley]

The Forestry Commission are very informative if you give them a ring and the person I spoke to about the diagnosis of current diseases in woods did say that they would welcome any intelligence of woods in trouble, even if they already had the problem recorded.
That sounds great, very helpful.

At the woods where the Cornwall RV event is hosted (Grampound Road, Cornwall) they have just had to drop 5 acres of trees due to Larch disease I believe.

[jus_young]

The Forestry Commission are very informative if you give them a ring and the person I spoke to about the diagnosis of current diseases in woods did say that they would welcome any intelligence of woods in trouble, even if they already had the problem recorded.

Give this one a go, cheers. It seems they may have dropped a few trees a while back but for some unknown reason they left the felled trunks in the wood. I know there can be access problems but this just seems a little backward as the problem has not been 'removed'