Albro Woods, a beloved forest and trail system in Middletown, is vulnerable, sick, and needs help. It has become the next victim of beech leaf disease.
Beech leaf disease is a relatively new disease affecting trees in North America. It was first discovered on the continent in 2012 in Ohio, and it has since spread through the Southern Great Lakes region to Ontario, Canada, to New York and the Northeast. As the name suggests, beech leaf disease affects the leaves of beech trees, causing the trees – especially American beech trees in comparison to European and ornamental types of beeches – to lose their canopy. While the cause of the disease remains unclear, researchers have identified a new nematode, a microscopic worm, in relation to trees with the disease. One theory for its rapid spread is birds: they eat buds infected with nematodes and the disease, and when the birds defecate, the disease spreads, which makes it incredibly difficult to control and to stop. If the theory holds true, the American beech is facing its very own bubonic plague.
Albro Woods is about nine acres of forest, filled with mostly American beech trees, and acts as a habitat for salamanders, squirrels, hawks, and owls. Now, it is almost all infected with beech leaf disease. “Beech leaf disease started to rear its ugly head two to three years ago,” says Karen Day, Chair of the Middletown Tree Commission. Last year, the Tree Commission noted that almost every American beech tree is affected by the disease in Albro Woods, which is about eighty percent of the forest.
Singular beech trees, like those found in a private yard or a large public park with a couple of trees for shade, have a chance to be saved via experimental practices – there is not yet an official treatment or a cure – or at the very least they can be quarantined to limit the spread of the disease. The best hope for a singular infected tree is to keep it strong after defoliation. Four years is when most trees will succumb to the disease; deciduous trees can lose their canopy for about two years and still come back, but the trees can’t keep losing it, otherwise the tree is doomed. For homeowners, there is a chance. But for a forest, the outcome is dire. “You can’t protect a huge number of trees in a public place like that,” Karen Barbera says, a member of the Middletown Tree Commission.
Without any type of intervention, Albro Woods will be completely lost. That is why the Tree Commission has teamed up with the Open Space Committee to create a program to rehabilitate the forest, with permission from the Town of Middletown. Their goals are to save Albro Woods’ canopy and to have community education and outreach about the benefit of trees and the various attackers of trees like disease, invasive species, climate change, and more. Both groups want to keep this public space open and functional and to continue to have trees on Aquidneck Island.
Using a pilot area of 50 by 50 feet, the Tree Commission wants to plant trees to diversify the site, choosing native saplings based off types of trees already in the forest: red and white oaks, tupelo, sassafras, swamp red maple, American black cherry, black walnut, and shagbark hickory. “What we’re basically trying to do is recreate what nature would have done if there was greater biodiversity in the forest,” explains Day. They chose the 50 by 50 plot because it is already open to the sky after a couple of large beech trees fell during the storm; this area cleared of canopy is what the forest would look like if no action is taken.
“The main goal is to make the woods sustainable and biodiverse, so you don’t have just one species making up the canopy,” Barbera explains. The adverse effects of monoculture are already apparent. “If they [the beech trees] all come down, we’ve basically created a field, and invasives will take over,” Day laments.
Keeping Albro Woods as a forest is imperative to the health of our local ecosystem. Not only will it help keep invasive shrubbery at bay, but there are also few woodland habitats on Aquidneck Island due to massive clearcutting and deforestation that occurred during the era of colonial settling, and woods are vital for insects, birds, frogs, and other types of wildlife. Woods are also beneficial for carbon sequestration, air production, and air cleansing, not to mention the positive effects woodlands and natural space can have for mental health. “We want in 50 years to have the same amount of canopy,” Barbera affirms.
Besides the planting aspect of the project, the pilot involves tree care and monitoring. Day is hopeful that community members will work as volunteers to help water the saplings as well as monitor the site for diseases, invasive pests like the spotted lanternfly, and deer stripping the young trees of their leaves. All notes about the site will be reported back to the town. There will also be an informational kiosk in the parking area of Albro Woods to showcase information about the program and updates about the project. Day has high hopes that the funding needed to buy seedlings and the kiosk (just over $2,200) will be attained through the Urban Community Forest Grant by the RI Department of Environmental Management (RI DEM) and the Merritt Neighborhood Fund by Aquidneck Land Trust.
Rehabilitation of the woods is a multi-year project. If the pilot is a success, the project can be expanded to slowly cover and rehabilitate the entire canopy and forest area. “It’s a battle,” Day says resolutely, but there is a plan in place and hope for a good outcome. All it takes is the willingness to try, community support, and some time.
