Expert says Dutch elm disease could be on the rise in Saskatoon

City crews in Saskatoon have started to cut down trees that were identified to be infected with Dutch elm disease.

Over the coming days, the City of Saskatoon said it could cut down as many as 31 trees that have been impacted directly by Dutch elm disease located on the corner of Central Avenue and Attridge Drive.

The city announced the discovery of the infected trees on Friday.

Other trees located directly to the south of that stand of trees are currently being tested for Dutch elm disease and might have to be removed if they test positive.

Robin Adair, the owner of Arbor Crest Tree Service in Saskatoon, explained what’s going on in Saskatoon.

“Dutch elm disease moves quickly. We’ve been lucky and Saskatchewan as a whole has not really had a lot of Dutch elm disease compared to out east in Ontario and the northern United States. We’ve kind of been out on an island here in Saskatoon,” Adair stated.

“Once you have a tree infected, that means the beetle was there and the Dutch elm disease comes along with the beetle. It’s a fungus and once it hits the tree, it impacts the water uptake. It actually will go down through the system and through the roots of the next tree close to it. It can really progress really fast, so usually where you have one tree infected, you can usually look to the next trees beside it and they’ll be infected.”

Adair noted the best ways to find out if a tree has been infected with Dutch elm disease is if there is unnatural flagging or if branches in the top canopy of the tree are dead. That’s what homeowners need to be on the lookout for.

Because Saskatoon is surrounded by the prairies, Adair says that has made it very difficult for the infectious elm beetles to go from tree to tree infecting them.

“There’s a progression over the last two to five years where little pockets of Dutch elm disease have been showing up,” he said. “We’re probably going to start to see an increase in elm problems and Dutch elm disease showing up.”

Because of how quickly the disease can spread, Adair is hopeful it hasn’t spread to any further neighbourhoods — particularly the older ones. He adds he’s not surprised to hear the city is cutting down so many trees because of just how dangerous Dutch elm disease really is.

In early July, the city removed several trees in the Pleasant Hill and Sutherland neighbourhoods following other confirmed cases of the disease.