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Dutch elm disease invades Hill
By PAULA MYERS
Death is silently ransacking our campus.
The victims are the 1,800 susceptible elms. The disease is the Dutch elm disease, which is the result of an unusual partnership—a bark beetle working with the killing fungus that parasitically infects elm trees but does not harm the beetles.
THE DUTCH ELM disease is a progressive disease that sometimes results in a 90 per cent loss. Its ransacking has definite markings; barren avenues, baked grass, unshaded houses and rows of tree stumps.
First in a series
In a 1960 census taken by the buildings and grounds men, KU had 1800 elms. Now the number has dropped to 1,723 just from the Dutch elm disease. Old age and other vascular will infections have claimed more elms.
But "the Dutch elm disease is the most positive death" says Harold Blitch, director of buildings and grounds.
Lecture series on speech starts
Robert L. Scott, professor of speech at the University of Minnesota, will speak tomorrow and Friday in a lecture series sponsored in part by the department of speech and drama.
"Two Views of the New Rhetoric" will be the topic tomorrow at 3:30 p.m. in 504 Summerfield, and "Performance as Content in the Basic Speech Course" will be the subject Friday at 1:30 p.m. in 303 Summerfield.
GETS FILM RIGHTS
HOLLYWOOD — (UPI)—Actor Don Murray has received film rights to "Jean Christophe," Romaine Rolland's Nobel Prize-winning novel.
It has now become the most complicated disease situation ever faced in the history of plant pathology, according to Abraham Epstein, professor of botany and plant pathology at Iowa State.
THE DISEASE was unknown in the Americas before 1930, but since then it has spread and is now found from the east coast to the Rocky Mountains and from North Carolina and Arkansas to the Canadian Provinces of Ontario, New Brunswick and Quebec.
On October 1957, the Dutch elm disease was discovered in Kansas City, Kansas, and has spread rapidly westward.
The disease hit KU in 1980, when the first American elm was cut down north of Potter Lake. Seventy-two stricken elms, mostly American and Augustine, have been cut up, burned or buried since then.
BOW WILL OUR campus look in the future if no cure is found? Raymond Hall, curator of the Natural History Museum and noted zoologist, said:
"If, the elms on Jayhawk Boulevard are mostly American and Red elms, we can expect a marked change within seven to fifteen years. We will lose most of the American and Red elms whether they are sprayed or not.
And, said Blithe, Jayhawk Boulevard is lined mostly by American elms with some maples and hackberry trees.
THESE ELMS along the boulevard were group planted for aesthetic reasons some 40 years ago. Now it seems these trees are in the direct pathway of the progressive disease.
Hall wrote in a service leaflet:
"It seems that the American elm will not be exterminated by the Dutch elm disease. Resistant trains of elm probably are propagating themselves."
is using only the sanitation program, which consists of one man, Frank Unfred, whose primary job is to work on and inspect the elms when there is nothing else to do. Blitch said.
"Nevertheless, most mature elms in many cities and towns of eastern Kansas will die of the non-native Dutch elm disease before it dies of something else."
KU AT THE PRESENT time
Up until 1963 the buildings and grounds men sprayed the elms with DDT. But, the spraying has been discontinued because of administrative policy.
According to figures from Blitch, the number of trees cut yearly has doubled since 1663: one in 1961, eight in 1962, seven in 1963, fifteen in 1964, eighteen in 1965 and seventeen in 1966.
"WE ARE INSTRUCTED not to spray, but I would if I had the say-so." Blitch said. "I presume we have the money to afford to spray."
Each year said R. Keith Lawton, vice chancellor of operations, the administration decides what course of action to take.
"We have tried spraying and the direct insertion of bidrine, but we were disappointed with the effects. These past several years we have elected to try the sanitation method. There is no cause for alarm, we are using the best program - sanitation and replanting." Lawton said.
THE JAYHAWK Boulevard elms are not growing under the
most ideal conditions says R. W. Lichtwardt, professor of botany. The boulevard elms are surrounded by concrete—the sidewalk and the street. The soil on the "Hill" isn't the best.
"There are some years that will be effected more than others. Kansas has gone through a drought period which could have weakened the trees," Lichtwardt said. "In another 10 years, Jay-hawk Boulevard might be a little different because of the greater variety of trees present."
According to a bulletin published by the Manhattan agricultural experimental station, "trees weakened by drought and disease are attractive to bark beetles. They attack such trees, tunnel through the bark to the surface of the sapwood, and thus infect them with fungus spores."
THE BEETLES will only breed in dead or elm trees or stacked elm firewood because of the low water content. It is part of the sanitation program to get rid of the dying or dead elm wood because it can harbor beetles, Blitch said.
Our campus has been afflicted. The Dutch elm disease is here and will stay. "Marked changes" will affect the campus and Jayhawk Boulevard.
Huge discounts with the International Student ID Card
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Also
4-Day $31 Expo'67 Tour
Lists student hotels, restaurants,
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1355 Westwood Blvd.
90246 USA
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Please send info on ID Card □ The Official Guide (payment enclosed) □ Details on Expo '67. □
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Address
CITY UNSA is non-profit for students.
State
USNSA is non-profit for students.
Daily Kansan Wednesday, May 3, 1967
KANSAS CITY AREA STUDENTS!
Are you over 21?
Are you looking for a profitable and interesting job this summer?
Come in and talk with us! Pick your own working hours.
YELLOW CAB CO.
505 West 23rd St.
K.C., Mo.
PEOPLE TO PEOPLE
Announces its last
INDUSTRIAL TOUR
Saturday, May 6th
are urged to see the Kansas City Athletics play,
All foreign students and interested American students
The bus leaves at 12:30 from the Union and will return around 6 p.m.
Anyone interested sign up in the People-to-People office in the Union.
1424 Crescent Road
Snappy bikini and top under a short shirt, a swinging trio for dorm and back-yard sunning, too! Yellow or pink in sizes P-S-M.
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