Are your beech trees looking ill this spring? It may be beech leaf disease. What to know.

Beech leaf disease is out there once again, decimating beech trees in Massachusetts, as it has in the past.

It's a relatively new tree disease, which first appeared in 2012 in Ohio, and has since spread from Virginia to Maine. Apparent when the trees are first leafing out, the Garden Media Group said this week that it's back this season.

"It's growing, and still pretty rampant," arborist Josh Fritz, of Hartney Greymont in Needham and a member of the Massachusetts Arborists Association, told the USA Today Network in a previous interview. "Beech trees provide food for wildlife, so as they disappear, our ecology changes. People are really nervous about it."

What is beech leaf disease?

Beech leaf disease is caused by microscopic worms called nematodes, which eat the trees and can cause the beech to die rapidly.  

"Nematodes are thread-like roundworms that live in a wide range of environments including soil and fresh and salt water," according to Penn State Extension . "There are species of nematodes that feed on fungi, bacteria, protozoans, other nematodes and plants. They can also parasitize insects, humans and animals."

The disease affects both American and European beech trees, which Fritz said are among the most well known species of trees in Massachusetts, some of which are 200-300 years old.

How to identify beech leaf disease

The symptoms of beech leaf disease are pretty easy to spot.

The tell-tale sign is striping or banding between the leaf veins, according to arborist Natascha Batchelor of Hartney Greymont. Stripes are visible in the spring at early leaf-out and remain visible throughout the growing season. 

She added that sapling-sized trees could die in two-to-five years, once infected. 

In addition to the banding, it's possible "the leaves will be very crinkled, smaller, and leathery," according to the University of Rhode Island. "In severely infested trees, some buds won’t open because the buds were killed. Banded leaf symptoms can best be seen by backlighting infected leaves against the sky."

Is there a treatment for beech leaf disease?

Scientists are working on a remedy for beech leaf disease, according to Fritz, but there isn't a fix yet.

Peter Hanlon, an integrated pest management specialist and arborist representative for Bartlett Tree Experts,  previously told the Cape Cod Times that Bartlett's scientists had seen promising results in trials with a nematode-attacking fungicide product.

Beech leaf disease:What's happening on Cape Cod

But Fritz stressed that all people can do with beech trees "is buy time" by having an arborist evaluate the trees and perform maintenance like fertilization and "vertical mulching," which helps refresh the "root mass" of the tree.

"Right now, all we have is defense mechanisms for beech leaf disease," Fritz said at the time. "Hopefully, we can figure out a cure for it soon. It doesn't make sense to try to attack the nematodes — that could be tough because they are mobile. We need to isolate the pathogen that causes the disease. That would help a lot. It's a new disease (that) we are all still learning about."

Why is the disease dangerous for the environment?

Along with changing the ecology of the area, beech trees provide a lot of shade, Batchelor said. If a given area suffers a loss of beech trees, “that area is no longer shady — it becomes a sunny spot at that point… it’s always a concern when we start losing a whole species of trees," she said at the time.

The National Parks Service states on its website that beech trees "are an important part of a forest ecosystem."

"Beech nuts produced by the trees have been a culturally important food source for Indigenous people traditionally associated with this area," the National Parks Service states. "They also are a part of the diet of many forest dwelling animals including black bears, deer, squirrels and many kinds of birds.

When did beech leaf disease come to Massachusetts?

Batchelor said beech leaf disease only recently made it to Massachusetts, having been first discovered in Plymouth County in 2020. Since then, it's traveled across the whole state.

Mass.gov states, "As of July 2022, (beech leaf disease) had been confirmed in 83 communities in Massachusetts."

Where can beech leaf disease be reported in Massachusetts?

People can report beech leaf to Massachusetts's Forest Health Program using this online form that goes to the state's Forest Health Program. The forms asks for details like location, severity of the disease and photos.