This is bad news since I love currants, gooseberries, and healthy pine trees.

My understanding of the problem is that the fungal biology of the white pine blister rust needs to be better understood. Perhaps the breakdown of resistance is due to the presence of new fungal strains. Plant breeding efforts will need to accompany better knowledge of the white pine blister rust organism to create new resistant cultivars of pine, currants, and gooseberries. I will monitor my presence plantings of currants and gooseberries and will destroy the plants and the first site of any fungal infection. There are many beautiful and stately pine trees in close proximity that I want to see stay healthy for many decades into the future.

Jostaberries are said to be resistant to this rust. I did not see any mention of them in the article. Hopefully they're not included.

Jostaberries are ribes so they are included unfortunately. The whole problem is that in this survey they found rust on resistant varieties.

I have never seen any rust on my ribes, but I will continue to look carefully.

Scott

It seems odd that this fungus is restricted to Ribes and Pinus which are very different from each other. I wonder why other plants are not known to be hosts.

As I recall, the restrictions in NY were based largely on a thriving white pine lumber industry that has since been reduced to economic insignificance. I believe it is still an important industry in NH.

The relationship has other parallels. Look at Cedar-Apple rust.

DarJones