Community Corner

CCE Reports Boxwood Blight Disease Found in Garden City

The disease can cause whole sections of a plant to die in as little as one week, officials said.

Story by Danielle De Souza

Nassau County’s Cornell Cooperative (CCE) Extension's Diagnostics Team at East Meadow Farms confirmed the presence of Calonectria Pseudonaviculata or “boxwood blight disease” in Garden City last week.

The Garden City resident brought the sample to the East Meadow CCE-NC diagnostic center July 2, stating that her shrubs appeared healthy just one week before she noticed leaf drop and dead branches.

The team identified it and transported the sample to Cornell University’s Plant Pathology Laboratory at the Long Island Horticultural Research and Extension Center in Riverhead for confirmation of the findings.

The aggressive exotic disease that affects boxwood, a longstanding element common at older estates in Nassau County, has been detected in 10 other states, including Connecticut.

Boxwood Blight Disease favors moist, spring and fall weather conditions.

Early symptoms include small black spots and cankers on leaves and twigs.

Temperature and moisture levels affect the rate of disease progression, which can cause brown leaf spots and brown tips, leaf drop, bare twigs and whole sections of plants to die in less than one week, according to Vincent Drzewucki, a CCE diagnostician who first identified the recent blight sample.

The fungus was first discovered in the U.S. in 2011. It also has been found in Europe, as well as in Canada and New Zealand.

Photos courtesy of Margery Daughtrey (Cornell-LIHREC) and Virginia Tech Pest-Disease Clinic


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