Death by Cavitation - Mysterious Juniper Death
In May 2003, as the orange brown color of death began to finger its way through Central Oregon’s juniper forests, local forest and rangeland extension agents began to field calls from concerned people…
What could be killing the trees? Was it a new disease or insect attack? Simply freezing damage from an unusually frigid cold spell the previous October….? Or was it something more fundamentally sinister….?
To answer this riddle, we must travel deep into the inner workings of plants themselves….we must enter the Xylem zone….