DOES COMPOSTING ERADICATE THE PATHOGEN RESPONSIBLE FOR BOXWOOD BLIGHT? AN OUTLINE OF FUTURE INVESTIGATIONS^©

Boxwoods (Buxus spp.) have been a staple ornamental in both Europe and the United States for hundreds of years (Bir et al., 1997; Henricot and Culham, 2002; Varela et al., 2009). Controversy exists surrounding the current naming of the pathogen responsible for boxwood blight. This stems from the pathogen being isolated and proposed as a new species independently by two different lab groups in 2002. The first of these reports (Crous et al., 2002), documented a new species of fungus infecting boxwoods in New Zealand and described it as Cylindrocladium pseudonaviculatum. Shortly thereafter, Henricot and Culham (2002), published a paper documenting their findings and named the fungus Cylindrocladium buxicola. Although the teleomorph has yet to be observed, the name Calonectria pseudonaviculata has been proposed for the sexual stage by Lombard et al. (2010). However, within the research community Calonectria pseudonaviculata is becoming the preferred name, and will be used in this paper.