Bark necrotic disease in a beech thicket

Abstract

Symptoms of non-specific bark necroses in beech trees of all ages have lately been described. We investigated the occurrence of bark necrotic disease in beech thicket and health status of the trees. Our objective was to examine how bark necrotic wounds persist and the regenerative potential of young beech thicket. The research experiment was carried out at two isolated localities in the Western Carpathians in the period 2015–2017. A terminal shoot (stem) and a lateral shoot (branch) of each of the 30 sampled beech trees were examined. Young beech stands were affected by the necrotic disease in 87–94% cases (stems 69–83%, branches 33–56%). Shoot diameter and age had a significantly negative linear correlation (P < 0.05) with the development of all analysed disease characteristics on the beech bark. The encouraging finding is a positive regenerative capacity of young beech trees. Over the same period more annual shoots were healed in comparison with those that were newly infected (10.8% on stems and 0.6% on branches).