The ways to protect the trees from the infectious fungus called Phytophthora ramorum.

Recently, there's been a constant drumbeat over the discussion of the method used to protect a microscopic fungus called Phytophthora ramorum, or P. ramorum. This kind of fungus would cause a lot of harms to oak trees. There are three methods proposed to claim the protection effect; however, all of them are been disputed in the lecture due to being ineffective and not practical. First of all, the way of cleaning shoes and bicycle trail is said to be an effective and economical way to stop the spread of the disease. Yet, this is refuted by the speaker because its' help is little. Since the spread of spores is not only by human tracks, but also by rainfall. The rain would pick up the spores and carry it elsewhere. Thus, simply cleaning one's shoe and bicycle is not so effective. Secondly, although it posits that a few fungicidal chemicals could be used to help oak trees, this would only do the tricks when the number of infection is small. Because there would be a lot of workers needed to help inject the chemicals into the trees, it would be impractical if there are, say, thousands of ill trees. This method can only apply to a small-infection situation, and it's too expensive to force. Lastly, the speaker argues that the practice of " clear-cutting" has its own limits. Obviously, even if one of the tree is infected, it doesn't mean that the surrounded trees are all infected. Cutting them all down is going to have greater ecological damage. For example, in the west United State, there are some rare species in the forest. This method, if applied, will have more bad's than good's. In conclusion, the reading materials provide three methods to curb the spread of the fungus disease, yet they've all been refuted since the methods have limited effect and is impractical.