Disease Hitting Iowa’s Burr Oaks

 (Des Moines, IA) — The only oak species that are native in all of Iowa’s 99 counties is facing some disease issues. The D-N-R’s Tivon Feeley says they are seeing a lot of Bur Oak Blight, which is a fungus that appears on the leaf. He says Burr Oak Blight numbers have been “kind of fluctuating,” and the number of trees will decline without treatment. But treatment isn’t cheap — Feeley says it only works in small capacities like one or two-yard trees, and that can’t be used to treat “a forest worth of bur oaks.” People who think their Burr Oak trees are blighted can send samples to the Iowa State University Plant Diagnostic Clinic for testing.