Hawk Stern

Blister Rust and the Triple Whammy: a Memory by Hawk Stern

Blister rust is a disease that attacks white pine trees. Disease spores are spread from diseased trees but require intermediary hosts to survive. The intermediary hosts are gooseberry bushes. For the US national forests (and elsewhere) the proposed eradication of blister rust was to interrupt the spread of the disease spores by pulling up the gooseberry bushes. After the end of the second world war this activity was contracted out to private partnerships. This is the story of a partnership, called the Triple Whammy, comprised of students at the University of California at Berkeley who contracted with the Forest Service for three summers at two national forests. Here we tell how and where the Triple Whammy did it?s work, the adventures they had, and the successes and difficulties they experienced.