Effects of leaching on fungal growth and decay of western redcedar

We tested the effect of leaching on the concentration of western red cedar (WRC; Thuja plicata Donn ex D. Don) heartwood extractives that are known to exhibit antimicrobial activity and correlated this with fungal growth and decay. We assessed the extractive tolerance of the following fungal species: Acanthophysium lividocaeruleum, Coniophora puteana, Heterobasidion annosum, Pachnocybe ferruginea, Phellinus sulphurascens, and Phellinus weirii by measuring their growth rate (mm/day) on media with or without WRC leachate. These data were correlated with the ability of the fungal species to grow on and decay leached versus nonleached WRC. We used an ergosterol assay to estimate growth and a standard soil-block test to assess decay. We estimated that leaching reduced the concentration of 5 major extractives: (-)-plicatic acid, beta-thujaplicin, gamma-thujaplicin, beta-thujaplicinol, and thujic acid by approximately 80%. Phellinus sulphurascens exhibited the lowest extractive-tolerance in vitro, grew poorly on and caused minimal decay in nonleached WRC, but it grew well on and decayed pine and leached WRC. Coniophora puteana, H. annosum, and P. weirii displayed moderate to high tolerance to leachate, grew on and caused decay in nonleached as well as leached WRC, but their growth and decay were always greatest on leached WRC and pine, suggesting that leaching enhances decay by these fungi. Acanthophysium lividocaeruleum and Pachnocybe ferruginea exhibited high extractive-tolerance. Whereas A. lividocaeruleum clearly caused decay on all types of wood, no decay was observed with Pachnocybe ferruginea, which grew very slowly in the different wood species, and it may or may not be able to decay wood.