SavATree - Tree Service & Lawn Care

Bark Beetle Bind-Tree Pests

Conifer bark beetles are tree pests of the genera Dendroctonus, Ips, Scolytus who prey primarily on pines (Pinus) but also additional evergreens such as fir (Abies), spruce (Picea), arborvitae (Thuja), others. Trees that are already under stress from drought, insufficient root area or damage, transplanting or disease are at higher risk for a bark beetle infestation. Young, healthy trees…

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SavATree - Tree Service & Lawn Care

Intolerable Invasion

Invasive species find their way into the country via unchecked boxes, pallets, luggage and hitchhiking on animals. Once here they can multiply and spread unchecked due to the lack of natural predators and because it may take some time before we realize there is a problem, containment and elimination becomes near impossible. Unfortunately, often the…

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SavATree - Tree Service & Lawn Care

Seed Storage

A new mandate to conserve the genetic diversity of their forests spurred the Natural Resources Institute of Finland to launch a new seed banking venture. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault opened on February 26, 2015, located on Spitsbergen Island, it is heavily guarded by permafrost. Prior to opening the seed bank the primary method for…

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SavATree - Tree Service & Lawn Care

Precision Production

Precision agriculture is a modern farming practice employed to make production more efficient. Precision agriculture, also referred to as “site-specific agriculture”, allows farmers to work smarter rather than harder by tailoring management and cultivation practices according the actual needs of the site. Farmers and site managers can take vast expanses of fields and treat them…

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SavATree - Tree Service & Lawn Care

Symbiosis Stipulation

Recent research has uncovered the critical mechanism involved in the symbiotic relationship between fungi and trees. As it turns out, the fungus is able to take control of its tree host by injecting a small protein that neutralizes the tree’s immune defenses thereby allowing the fungus to colonize the plant. This is a critical advance in our understanding…

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SavATree - Tree Service & Lawn Care

Chestnut Blight Changes

Collaborative research conducted by scientists from U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and scientists from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF), funded by the American Chestnut Foundation has found that the addition of a gene from a wheat variety to the American Chestnut’s genome produces increased resistance…

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SavATree - Tree Service & Lawn Care

Bladderwort Biology

Utricularia gibba, commonly known as the humped bladderwort, is a carnivorous, obligate wetland plant native to most of the contiguous United States. A study recently published in the Journal of Molecular Biology and Evolution investigates the unique genome of this aquatic plant. What sets the bladderwort’s genome apart from other plants is its ratio of…

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