THE AUTHOR 



NEIL E. MARTIN is a research plant pathologist at the 

 Intermountain Research Station's Forestry Sciences Lab- 

 oratory in Moscow, ID. He has researched the physiology 

 of blister rust, damage due to dwarf mistletoe in various 

 habitats, and the biology of root-rot-causing fungi on 

 western conifers. Current research emphasizes ecology, 

 pathogenicity, and fruiting of Armillaria species. 



RESEARCH SUMMARY 



Amounts of soluble sugars in certain tissues of 12- to 

 16-year-old western white pine [Pinus monticola Dougl.) 

 trees, each with a blister rust canker girdling about 50 

 percent of the bole circumference, were compared with 

 rust-free trees. Fructose, glucose, sucrose, raffinose, and 

 stachyose extracted from needles and healthy and 

 diseased bark were identified with thin-layer chromatog- 

 raphy and quantified with a densitometer. The host's 

 seasonal growth cycle induced changes in sugar concen- 

 trations in current, 1-, and 2-year needles, but the bole 

 cankers did not. Amounts of bark sugars characterized the 

 activities of the rust fungus {Cronartium ribicola J.C. 

 Fisch.) as well as the fall, winter, and summer seasons. 

 The amounts of sugars in the bark decreased toward the 

 cankers' centers except for raffinose and stachyose. The 

 greatest differences in amounts of sugars in rusted and 

 nonrusted bark tissues were found in February. 



July 1987 



Intermountain Research Station 

 324 25th Street 

 Ogden, UT 84401 



