heres the article...
'DED treatment looks promising.
It all started with a cab driver.
By Shirley Byers
They may some day be know as the Saskatchewan couple who developed a cure for Dutch Elm disease, but according to Bob and Linda Mullen, it was a chance remark by a cab driver in Granada that started it all.
The driver recommended nutmeg oil for muscle aches and pains. Bob got some and it worked well. Back home in Ceylon, Sask., the horticulturalist and former Regina greenhouse grower decided to see what else the essential oil could do.
Quite a lot it turned out. Mixed with some other ingredients it made a very effective bug killer. The Mullens had a shore fly infestation on some of their house plants. The same plants were also struggling with damp off. "We treated for the shore flies and it also killed the damp off. That's what got us thinking-this will work as a fungicide," he said.
And it did. From root diseases to powdery mildew-every plant fungus they could find the new product could annihilate.
"...That's why we got the idea for DED," Bob said. "We felt we had a good chance it might work there."
Dutch Elm disease is essentially a fungal disease that blocks water movement in elm trees and eventually leads to the death of the tree. Could the Mullens' natural product, now patented and known as X371-2, have any effect on this tree killer?
The Mullens treated three elms infected with DED in Saskatchewan's Qu'Appelle Valley last year by injecting X371-2. The landowner later cut one of the trees down. The remaining two are both alive. One, which was ten to fifteen percent damaged is doing well. A report from the Provincial Lab confirms that it had DED last year and now it doesn't. The other tree was much more seriously infected, only one limb was not affected. It is now growing some new limbs but Bob feels it will probably die.
Nevertheless the Mullens are encouraged by the results they have seen. They continue to work with DED infected trees. LaValle University is doing some research on the new product while a researcher at a Florida college has been testing X371-2 on local funguses, mainly palm fungus all of which succumb to it. Here at home the provincial government has invited the Mullens to apply for a grant to carry on their work.'
Interesting enough, what are your thoughts??
