Pine wilt disease (PWD) represents a major threat to forest ecosystems worldwide. Although PWD is
now better understood, effective control measures for this disease have still not been devised. Here, we
report several years of field studies on preventative silvicultural control of PWD. Silvicultural control
through preventative clear-cutting and the manual removal of logs was implemented between 2005 and
2009 in 16 Korean districts that had newly PWD-infected stands. Preventative clear-cutting of neighboring
asymptomatic pine trees (within a 10–50-m radius of wilt trees) and the removal of felled logs
or branches suppressed spread of PWD. Occurrences of PWD wilt pines in districts (city or county) subjected
to this silvicultural control method were significantly reduced compared with those in districts
using conventional controls (physical or chemical treatment of wilt pine trees). Through silvicultural
control, PWD was successfully suppressed in 11 of 16 districts investigated. In contrast, successful control
was achieved in only 1 among 18 districts subjected to conventional control. Our results will be of
considerable interest to those engaged in the very difficult battle against the global spread of PWD