A PLANT disease threatening trees, plants and bushes in the New Forest could mutate into an even deadlier strain if it is not contained quickly enough, a meeting heard.

As previously reported in the Daily Echo, garden centres, nurseries and landowners have been put on alert for the lethal strain dubbed Sudden Oak Death. The fungus, Phytophthora ramorum, has already killed tens of thousands of trees in the US.

Officials at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) have warned there is a "significant risk" of an outbreak in the Forest after reports of cases in Cornwall and Sussex.

Oak trees are not at risk in this country as the misleading tag Sudden Oak Death applies to the Canadian tanoak. Beeches are currently the only trees in serious danger of deadly attacks by the disease, residents at Lyndhurst Community Centre heard.

However, if the fungus is not contained quickly enough it could adapt to infect other species, Whitehall officials said.

Joan Webber, a Forestry Commission tree pathologist, told the meeting it was important to stop the disease before it develops a strain which can infect other species.

She said: "I don't think we can assume the pathogen won't change. Organisms like this are very good at their own genetic modification. Potentially we've got a big problem."

Derf Paton, owner of Pinetops Nurseries in Lymington, called for tougher import controls to prevent infected plants being brought into the country.