Free Republic

A local state forester is "spreading the word" about a way to spread a disease to stem the proliferation of one of Pennsylvania's most dreaded invasive plant species -- mulitflora rose. Thomas Fitzgerald, of the state Bureau of Forestry, has been sharing with colleagues a recipe of sorts for using rose rosette disease to kill the tenacious thorn bushes choking some fields and forests. Believed to be of viral origin, the disease is spread by a microscopic mite species, said Fitzgerald, a service forester with District 4 in Laughlintown, Ligonier Township. "But this method bypasses the mite and speeds up...