Every year, forest stands suffer from pests and diseases. This also applies to pine stands, which primarily die due to the spread of a dangerous infectious disease - pine sponge, which literally destroys pine stands in our country.

"Recently, there has been a deterioration in the sanitary condition of pine stands in the South-Eastern part of Ukraine," notes Marina Babadzhanyan, lead engineer - forest pathologist of the diagnostics department of SSE "Kharkivlisozahyst", - "according to long-term observations conducted by specialists of our forest protection enterprise, the most common cause of pine stand dieback is pine sponge." Indeed, in 2014 this disease was the predominant reason for prescribing sanitary and health improvement measures.

Pine sponge is a wood-destroying fungus that causes the tree to rot from the inside. Externally, such a tree appears healthy and shows no signs of weakening. Recently, specialists of SSE "Kharkivlisozahyst" conducted a special survey with sampling of model trees in SE "Poltava Forestry" of Poltava Regional Forestry to detect the spread of this disease.

The final stage of this pathogen's development is the formation of fruiting bodies (shelf fungi) on the tree trunk. They indicate that the affected tree is hazardous, posing a threat to forest visitors, and could break at any moment from wind.

Thus, timely implementation of sanitary and health improvement measures is an integral part of the complex of forestry works to increase forest resistance to negative external factors (diseases, pests, fires, windthrows, etc.).

It should be noted that after clear sanitary felling (complete removal of trees from the area), new young stands are established in the near future.