The forestry sector in south west Scotland has been working alongside Forestry Commission Scotland to combat the impact of the deadly larch disease, P ramorum.
Harvesters and processors have been working with the commission since August to fell infected and dead trees, both in a bid to slow its spread further east and north and to salvage as much marketable timber as possible.
John Dougan, of Forestry Commission Scotland, said: "This is going to be a long, demanding and challenging job but we are working flat-out on responding to this and working closely with our existing customer base we have secured the necessary resource to have fifteen operational harvesting teams working on larch across Galloway.
"So far they have cleared around 700ha of larch - that’s about 700 international rugby pitches - which is a 300% increase on pre-disease levels.
"The focus has been on the eastern and northern parts of the District – the two fronts if you like – where essentially we’ve been trying to widen the gap between diseased trees and healthy trees, making it more difficult for the disease to spread."
The commission’s response to the disease, which affects as much as 5,000ha of larch, is likely to require at least two years to complete and involves felling infected trees and any larch within 250m.
Comments