A Giant, Dead Elm Tree Comes Down To Support Dutch Elm’s Disease Research
Almost an hour into the process, Brown’s crane service has trimmed the lower limbs, and a crew is moving them onto a truck to take to the woodshop.
Credit: Kathleen Masterson / VPR
One of the largest remaining elm trees in New England has died. But the wood from the 109-foot-tall slippery elm tree is heading on to a new life — as custom furniture. And a percentage of the sales proceeds will support research to breed elms that are resistant to Dutch elm’s disease.
The fungal disease — carried by an invasive insect — killed millions of stately elm trees across the country beginning in the early part of the last century.
The Nature Conservancy researchers first learned of the massive elm tree in Charlotte last year. They were hoping to visit the tree and take a pollen sample, to breed this tree’s genes with others in effort to grow elms that are disease-resistant.