Development of the Dutch elm disease epidemic in southern England, 1971-6

The current epidemic of Dutch elm disease was studied by recording the fate of individual hedgerow elms (Ulmus procera) in five plots in the West Midlands, and by analysing data from successive Forestry Commission surveys of non-woodland elms in 234 plots in southern England. Ninty-five percent of the individual trees died between May 1972 and September 1975. The average infection rate (r) was found to be 1 -35 during the period when the proportion of disease, x, increased from 0–16 to 0–42. In the plots of the main survey the average infection rate was 0–65 and the cumulative loss increased from 6 to 62% between 1971 and 1976, with little evidence that the course of the epidemic was influenced by variations in the weather from year to year. These infection rates are as high as those recorded in Dutch elm disease epidemics elsewhere in the world. The infection rate in English elm was higher than in either the wych elm or the heterogeneous ‘smooth-leaved elm’. The study of English elm in four geographical areas of southern Britain showed that there was an initial drop in infection rate until x = 0–12, when a steady infection rate obtained in all four areas, ranging from 0–56 in the Midlands to 0–76 in the south-east. It is concluded that the epidemic is likely to continue at a high rate until most non-woodland elm have died. Most trees which survive are likely to be smooth-leaved elm in East Anglia. Few communities in southern England have been able to practice vigorous sanitation control programmes, but data from two, in East Sussex and Brighton, are analysed and the effect on disease progress discussed.