Does removing trees with fusiform rust disease help prevent its spread?

[Winchman]

There are a lot of pines around here with various amounts of damage from fusiform rust disease. I've removed several where the damage was so severe that I thought were a real danger. I've still got this one in my front yard.

It seems to be doing OK, and it's not a threat to the house, so I've left it alone. However I'm wondering if it is spreading the disease to healthy trees. Would it be a good idea to take it out for that reason? Is that just a scar from the disease remaining after the tree has compartmentalized the damage, and there's no active fungal infection there?

 

[KTSmith]

Do you get bright orange sporulation on the stem in the Spring? Do you know the species of pine?

The usual recommendation with respect to specimen trees is "no", there is not much enhanced likelihood of infection of healthy pine nearby by the infected tree. Now, some of that may come from what those orange spores do. To complete it's lifecycle, the fusiform rust needs two different species of plant to infect. In the case of this rust, those spores from pine infect developing foliage of certain oak species. So you need both species handy to have repeated infection.

Rust cankers can both stimulate wood production and kill cambium and phloem (inner bark) for it's nutrition. So you get those odd growth forms and the woundwood or cankerwood does not close over the necrotic cambium caused by the rust fungus.

I'll stop before everyone is completely glazed over.