Phytophthora ramorum, a kind of microscopic fungus, can cause great damage to oak trees by infecting them. In the reading material, the author proposes three methods to keep them away from oak tree forests. Nevertheless, the lecturer in the listening material argues what the author proposes is ineffective and impractical for preventing the disease.

First and foremost, the author argues that human-assisted spread is the main way infecting oak trees, so keeping hikers clean and making sure they don’t carry fungus can be an effective solution. However, the lecturer offers an opposite stand that human spreading just account for a small proportion of infection ways. The major reason why oaks get infected is the rain water, which can absorb fungus from one tree and then spread out through the flow and stream. So, there will be a tenuous influence if we just take measures from the perspective of human kind.

Second of all, the author proposes that utilizing a few fungicidal chemicals to defense the fungus’ invasion. This can be viable for one oak tree technically, but the fact is that there are thousands of trees in the forests so that we can’t make sure every susceptible oak tree can receive the chemical protection. It is not practical at all.

Finally, the author comes up with a way of cutting the diseased oaks and potential infected vegetations. But some species of trees are rare and on the verge of extinction. Cutting these trees literally contributes to making things bad to worse and even damages the ecosystem of forests. Therefore, this method also cannot put into effect either.