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82 °F 5 Day Forecast Saturday, October 25, 2003 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | eSouthernOregon | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People CLASSIFIEDS Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Find a Rental Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Email Story to a Friend June 10, 2003 Five locally sold camellias carry oak death infection By PAUL FATTIG Mail Tribune If you’ve bought a camellia from an Ashland or Medford nursery this spring, you may want to check in with the Oregon Department of Agriculture. But only if it is labeled "Camellia Sasanqua variety bananza" and was sold in a five-gallon pot. It could be one of five camellias infected with the sudden oak death fungus and sold at a pair of unidentified Rogue Valley nurseries, according to a department spokesman. "If anyone purchased that variety this spring and it’s unhealthy looking, then we are interested in hearing from them," Bruce Pokarney said. Advertisement The department’s nursery inspection section can be reached at 503-986-4644. The department has refused to provide the name of the nurseries involved, citing concern that publishing the names would be unfair to the businesses. "We don’t want to hurt the nurseries — they have done nothing wrong," Pokarney said. "We’ve inspected everything on site. There are no more infected plants at the nurseries." In a poll of several nurseries by the Mail Tribune late last week, no nursery acknowledged having had the contaminated plants. The poll included Grange Co-op Garden Centers, Southern Oregon Nursery Inc., Ray’s Garden Center and Valley View Nursery. At the time, an administrator with the department’s plant division said all the diseased plants found in Jackson County nurseries had been destroyed. But Pokarney said the department has now determined that five infested plants were sold. He said 17 infected camellia plants were shipped Jan. 28 from a nursery in Stanislaw County, Calif., to Jackson County. Ten of the plants arrived in 5-gallon containers while the other seven were shipped in 1-gallon containers. Five of the plants in 5-gallon containers and the seven in 1-gallon containers were destroyed after the California nursery informed the department that the plants were infected, Pokarney said. "Five of the plants are still unaccounted for," he said. "We know that two were sold in Ashland and the other three in Medford." The department is working with the nurseries to find the purchasers, he said. No other plants were found to be contaminated in the nurseries, he said. "This is a very, very small spread," he stressed. "These plants came in, we caught it and those plants were destroyed." The goal is to stop it from spreading into nursery stocks or into native trees, he said.The fungus spreads via water. With sales of about $714 million a year, the nursery and greenhouse industry is Oregon’s leading agricultural crop. Although quarantined in more than a dozen counties in Northern California, sudden oak death was discovered in a small area of Curry County in Oregon two years ago. Laboratory tests confirmed the pathogen in four tanoak groves near Oregon’s southwest coast. A strict quarantine has been placed in a 9-square-mile area around the four infected sites in Oregon. "Curry County was a natural spread of the disease — this case was a regulatory incident," Pokarney said. However, it is the second time in two months the fungus has been found in Oregon nurseries. In April, it was discovered in a nursery in Gresham. There is no evidence linking the Gresham outbreak, which involved thousands of plants, with the Jackson County case, Pokarney said. The department is working with the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the Oregon Department of Forestry to stop the spread of the pathogen. Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected] Sudden oak death emerged in 1995 Sudden oak death, or SOD, has killed more than 100,000 trees and plants in Northern California since it was discovered in 1995. The fungus, which scientists call Phytophthora ramorum, attacks the bark of trees and causes cracking, weeping, stem cankers, leaf spotting and branch dieback before killing the plant. It prefers cool, moist conditions. Large numbers of tanoak, coast live oak and California black oak have died from the fungus in Northern California. Up to 80 percent of oak groves in some areas of California have died. In addition to the oaks, known host plants include Pacific madrone, evergreen huckleberry, honeysuckle, myrtlewood, rhododendrons and viburnum. Some plants, such as redwood and Douglas fir, act as hosts for the disease but aren’t significantly damaged by it. Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2003 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions Website Feedback 3 WEEKS FREE! ADVERTISERS SPECIAL SECTIONS Auto Finder Job Finder Home Finder Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Tempo Real Estate Showcase Food for Thought Hike of the Week Wellness Connection Outdoor Journal Moving to Southern Oregon? Volunteer Openings Prime Times