Modified Sudden Oak Death Blitz
To maintain public health during the COVID19 pandemic, the Napa Sudden Oak Death Blitz will be held as an outdoor event with no group meeting.
The event is on schedule for Saturday April 11, 10:00 to 11:30 at the Ag. Commissioner’s Office Building front porch, 1710 Soscol Avenue. Coordinator Bill Pramuk will be onsite to supervise, answer questions, and ask everyone to respect “social distancing”. No more than nine people at a time can be present.
There will be a bin marked “Pick Up” containing the collection packets, which will be sterilized by the lab beforehand. Each packet will contain materials for sampling ten bay laurel trees. There will be a limited number of packets, so participants are asked to take only one or, if needed, two packets.
Participants may sign up online at: www.sodblitz.org where you will view a brief Powerpoint presentation and a 15-minute training video.
Click on ”Register for the 2020 SOD Blitz” and fill in the required information. Be sure to download the SOD Map Mobile app to your smart phone, available at your app store online or find it through the UC Berkeley Forest Pathology Lab’s website.
After signing up online and completing the online training, and then picking up their sampling packet, participants are free to collect symptomatic California bay laurel leaves at any location they choose.
Return the completed sampling packets to the same location – 1710 Soscol – by 10:00 AM Tuesday, April 14 and drop them in the “Drop Off” bin. Berkeley Lab personnel will pick up the bin. Results will be posted online in October.
For tree care professionals, consider signing up for the OakSTeP Program, which provides for direct testing of symptomatic oak trees. Details are available at UC Berkeley Forest Pathology Lab.
In the mean time, if you have any questions, you can contact www.treefaqs.org or call me at 707-363-0114 or email info@billpramuk.com
SOD BLITZ PROJECT INTRODUCTION
Sudden Oak Death (SOD), a serious exotic disease, is threatening the survival of tanoak and several oak species in California. Currently SOD is found in the wildlands of 14 coastal California counties, from Monterey to Humboldt. While patchy in distribution, with each passing year, the swath of infection continues to become more contiguous. Researchers have discovered that Phytophthora ramorum, the pathogen that causes SOD, spreads most often on infected California bay laurel leaves. Symptomatic bay leaves are often the first sign that SOD has arrived at a location, and generally precedes oak infections. Some management options are available (sanitation, chemical preventative treatments, bay removal), but they are effective only if implemented before oaks and tanoaks are infected; hence, timely detection of the disease on bay laurel leaves is key for a successful proactive attempt to slow down the SOD epidemic.
WHAT IS A SOD-BLITZ?
SOD-blitzes are regarded as one the first programs in the world to train volunteers to become scientists and work with career researchers to understand the distribution of an invasive and lethal tree disease. The SOD-blitzes are all locally organized by community environmental leaders with the support of U.C. Berkeley. SOD-blitzes inform and educate the community about Sudden Oak Death, get locals involved in surveying for the disease, and produce detailed local maps of disease distribution. The map can then be used to identify those areas where the infestation may be mild enough to justify proactive management. The public sharing of crowdsourced data in real time through the web (SODmap.org), an App (SODmap mobile) and the media is unique in the world and allows for large scale dissemination (millions of people) of information necessary to prevent oak infection. Blitzes are appropriate for people of all ages, and collection of plant material (leaves) can be done in private properties, along roads or in natural areas, depending on the interest of each participant. In a few cases, more precise sampling areas (normally within parks or preserves) will be assigned to each participant.
Learn more at the event page here.