DutchTrig

Vaccination to prevent Dutch elm disease.

DutchTrig is a biological and organic control agent. This vaccine consists of spores of a specific strain of Verticillium fungus that activates the elm’s natural defence mechanism.

DutchTrig makes it possible to retain existing healthy trees so that greenspaces, long-established tree lined avenues and parks with beautiful mature trees, can be retained for future generations and reduce the cost of sanitation felling.

In practice, it can be compared with an influenza vaccination. Instead of making healthy elms sick, DutchTrig ensures that they respond sufficiently to infection by Dutch Elm Disease. In other words, it induces an immune response. Because elm trees grow a new outer layer of sapwood every year, the treatment has to be repeated every spring.

DutchTrig® is effective for all elm species and cultivars of any age all around the world:
• when used on healthy trees
• when injected on an annual basis

The vaccine has no curative properties. Vaccinating elm trees which already have Dutch Elm Disease or have had contact via root grafts with previously infected elms is of no use.

DutchTrig is safe for people, animals and the environment because Verticillium is not a human or an animal pathogen and has no chemical or toxic substances. DutchTrig has been injected into several tree species to see if the vaccine would induce any wilting. None of the injected species showed any signs of wilting after injection.