Boxwood Blight: A New Scourge, a New Paradigm for Collaborative Research

The genus Buxus (commonly referred to as boxwood in North America or box in Europe and other areas of the world) is prized for its use as individual specimen plants, hedges, parterres and landscape groupings. Due to high resiliency under heavy pruning, boxwood plants are frequently grown as topiary or bonsai. Most boxwood species are tropical with the most diversity found in Cuba, China, and Madagascar, but native species are also located in additional areas of southern and eastern Asia, the Caribbean, Central America, Mexico, northern South America, western and southern Europe, and Africa. Only the European and some Asian species can survive in temperate climates. In general, boxwood suffers from few pests or diseases, which is one reason the recent introduction of boxwood blight disease to Europe and North America has been so significant to people who grow boxwood. The U.S. addressed this devastating disease by fostering an unprecedented level of collaboration among scientists, growers, regulators, and the crop protection industry. AmericanHort and IR-4 facilitated the formation of a research team comprised of government and university researchers to study key factors in disease development and mitigation under U.S. conditions. The U.S. research team is collaborating with European and New Zealand scientists, where this disease has been present for a number of years. This article summarizes research to date on disease epidemiology and mitigation strategies and highlights current research activities sponsored by the United States Department of Agriculture Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS).