Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site - Diseases<br /><br /> (U.S. National Park Service)

Fomes fungus eats to the heart of a green ash tree.

Seventy-five percent of the park’s forest has a fungus disease. The disease is readily visible by its conk mushrooms along the outer bark of the tree. The visible conks are like the tip of an iceberg, beneath the surface there lies ten times the amount of heart rotting disease. This disease is killing all the mature green ash trees and many of the younger saplings. Since no natural succession can occur, the forest is in a dire state. The park is in the process of removing the infected trees and allowing for the succession of younger disease resistant trees to replace the dead and dying trees. Although the evaluation of the project success will have to wait many years to be determined, other immediate benefit are readably evident. Immediate benefits include a reduction in fire hazards, the spread of exotic flora, neutralizing forest diseases, and promoting safer hiking trails while optimistically promising a healthy state of succession in the forest.