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July 1, 2016 Subscribe to our weekly California email newsletter at CapitalPress.com/newsletters Volume of dead trees could make removal dificult By TIM HEARDEN Capital Press ANDERSON, Calif. — The sheer number of dead and dying trees in Central Califor- nia forests could make their harvest and removal dificult, an oficial of one of the na- tion’s largest timber compa- nies says. Drought and pests are among the causes for a record 66 million dead trees in South- ern Sierra Nevada forests, the U.S. Forest Service concluded after conducting aerial sur- veys. Sierra Paciic Industries could postpone some of its harvests of green timber from federal and private lands to ac- commodate removing and us- ing some of the dead trees, said Mark Pawlicki, the company’s director of corporate affairs and sustainability. “However, the amount of dead and dying timber on fed- eral lands greatly exceeds our ability to process the timber into lumber,” Pawlicki said in an email. “That’s primarily due to the fact that the greatest mortality is in the area east of Fresno, and there is only one sawmill in that region,” he said. “We take volume from the area mostly north of Yosemite (Na- tional Park) into our Sonora and Chinese Camp sawmills.” Forestry oficials an- nounced on June 22 that they had identiied an additional 26 million dead trees since last October in a six-county region on the San Joaquin Valley’s eastern edge in addition to the 40 million that had died since 2010. Four consecutive years of severe drought, a dramatic rise in bark beetle infestations and higher temperatures were the leading factors in the tree die- offs, according to the Forest Service. Pawlicki said Sierra Paciic is also seeing some mortality on its private forestlands as the beetle infestation moves northward in the Sierra. The infestation is already north of Highway 50, which links Sac- ramento to Lake Tahoe, but it is spotty and mostly in the middle to lower elevations, he said. “We have loggers who are solely dedicated to salvage logging to make sure we har- vest the dead trees as soon as possible,” he said. The Forest Service has set aside $32 million for “safe- ty-focused” forest restoration along roads, trails and rec- reation sites, oficials said. To date, the Forest Service has felled over 77,000 haz- ard trees, treated over 13,000 acres along 228 miles of roads around communities and rec- reation areas, and created 1,100 acres of fuel breaks, according to an agency news release. Work on 15,000 addi- tional acres is ongoing. The die-offs set an omi- nous tone for ire season, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in prepared re- marks. “While the ire risk is cur- rently the most extreme in California because of the tree mortality, forests across the country are at risk of wildire and urgently need restoration, requiring a massive effort to remove this tinder and im- prove their health,” Vilsack said. The secretary called anew for Congress to reform how the Forest Service pays for ireighting — a goal that’s been elusive for several years despite bipartisan support. For the fourth straight year, the House of Representatives has passed a bill known as the Resilient Federal Forests Act, which would allow the Fed- eral Emergency Management Agency to give disaster fund- ing to the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management when they have exhausted their ireighting budgets. CapitalPress.com 13 California New citrus-funded lab to tackle huanglongbing By TIM HEARDEN Capital Press The citrus industry and University of California-Riv- erside are teaming to build a top-notch laboratory that will enable researchers to tackle the deadly tree disease huan- glongbing. The grower-funded Cali- fornia Citrus Research Foun- dation has raised $8 million to construct a biosecurity-level 3 building near the universi- ty, which has more than 100 years’ experience in citrus re- search. The facility will enable Georgios Vidalakis, director of UC-Riverside’s Citrus Clonal Protection Program, and others to do work with plant patho- gens that previously couldn’t be done in Southern Califor- nia. The nearest high-level pathogen lab is at UC-Davis, and materials often must be sent as far away as Texas or Florida to be tested, Vidalakis said. “We are involved in re- search of the disease but in collaboration with research- ers who are 3,000 or 4,000 miles away,” Vidalakis said. Courtesy of UC-Riverside An artist’s rendition shows a planned new laboratory near the University of California-Riverside that will specialize in research into defeating the deadly citrus tree disease huanglongbing. The project will be built with the help of $8 million in donations from the citrus industry. “It makes it very dificult .. It doesn’t make sense for a land- grant institution like UC-Riv- erside, especially with our ex- pertise in citrus, not to have a facility like that.” The level-3 lab will enable scientists to house the live bac- terium and develop resistance and tolerance in plants, he said. Researchers can study interac- tions between the pathogen, vector and plant — “the three corners of the triangle that cause the disease,” he said. Scientists are making “a big effort” at genome editing of citrus trees in an attempt to make them not as attractive to Asian citrus psyllids — the carrier of huanglongbing — or “deal with the disease a little better,” Vidalakis said. “It’s not a question of why we need it,” he said of the lab. “The question is why we don’t have it already. It cannot be more important. We need it immediately.” Huanglongbing — which has devastated the citrus in- dustries in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina and Texas — has been found in 21 citrus trees in California. Huanglongbing isn’t harm- ful to humans or animals but causes discoloration of fruit and leaves and eventually kills the tree. Nearly one-third of Califor- nia’s land mass is now under quarantine for the psyllid, requiring shipped fruit to be free of leaves and debris. The state’s Citrus Pest and Dis- ease Prevention Program has been talking to growers about adopting a regional quaran- tine structure under which fruit moving between regions would have to undergo a wet wash. The new lab will accept projects from researchers around the world, said Al- yssa Houtby, public affairs director for the more than 2,000-member California Citrus Mutual. “The priority is inding solutions to huanglongbing,” Houtby said. “It’s very sig- niicant. Until now, there was not a facility in California that was solely dedicated to HLB research.” Construction is set to begin in October, and researchers are already preparing to seek permits for planned experi- ments. Vidalakis said he expects the new laboratory facility to be functioning by next sum- mer. Reap the Rewards Find Your Next Job in Capital Press Print and Online. 1.800.882.6789 www.cpmarketplace.com www.capitalpress.com 27-1/#04N 27 -1/#13
