Emerald Ash Borer

[X-Rated]

All joking aside, these beasts are horrible. If you live in the south or anywhere far from areas hit by these bastards AND you have an ash tree, contact your extension agent (a.k.a. Mr. Kimball) or some agriculture authority in your area to find if there are ways to protect your ash tree(s) from these massive menaces.

In the Chicago burbs, the streets are bare from where they had ash trees and now they are all removed. It is really noticeable. They will have killed your tree before you even know there is a situation. You won't see them. You just know a few years later that you have a dead or dying tree.

EAB.jpg

[K7SGJ]

I don't know where else there are, but northern AZ has been hit hard with the bark beetle. They have destroyed a lot of the pine trees and certain areas have had to be burned to try to control them. It's amazing how destructive some of these little bastids can be.

[W2NAP]

got the ash bug here in Indiana. nasty buggers

[KC2UGV]

Yeah, we actually have the DEC inspecting the street trees regularly here for them... And, the remove/burn the tree on site when it's found. If anything, it's good business for the tree folk.

[VE7DCW]

We have the pine beetle in the parts of British Columbia that have pine trees,nasty little bugs that do a lot of damage! .......we hardly have any pine trees here on Vancouver Island, pretty well all firs,cedars,spruce and the odd hemlock trees which are fairly hearty..........

[WØTKX]

I've fought in the front lines against the pine beetle a few years ago. Effectively as a well paying short term gig, when the nymphs become adults and bore out of the trees. You can freaking hear them munching out. Scary.

The ash borer has showed up here on the front range, we are pulling up ash trees and destroying them at work.

[koØm]

got the ash bug here in Indiana. nasty buggers

We also have them next door here, it's a big crisis, the State of Ohio and the counties are inspecting, marking and cutting down trees left and right.

There are also billboards advising against moving Firewood because so many Elm tress are lying around, it looks like free wood but the problem is by relocating the downed wood, you could be moving the beetles to a different area.

Leave it to Ohio, there was a minor scandal when one of the relatives of one of the Tree Inspection Service guys was following behind him cutting down trees and shredding them up; some of the trees he cut were questionable and, he was selling the wood chips.

.

[n2ize]

We used to have a huge and very beautiful ash tree in our back yard. It was a massive tree. It had an enormous main trunk witth three large trunks branching off in 3 different directions. Talk about shade, in summer it was dark in our yard as the tree was both massive and dense and beautiful. It was clearly a very old tree that predated not just our house but any of the older homes around here (many of which date way back). It seemed sttrong and healthy. Then suddenly in the early autumn of 1989 it lost its leaves and went dormant early. The next spring it was DEAD... no buds, no leaves, no nothing. Towards the end of the summer it started becoming britttle and dropping branches even in moderate winds. By fall we had a tree man remove it. He practically burned out his saws cutting that monster down. I doubt it was the Emerald Ash Borer back then. I was told that it was due to another disease that was affecting ash trees in those days.

[n2ize]

All joking aside, these beasts are horrible. If you live in the south or anywhere far from areas hit by these bastards AND you have an ash tree, contact your extension agent (a.k.a. Mr. Kimball) or some agriculture authority in your area to find if there are ways to protect your ash tree(s) from these massive menaces.

In the Chicago burbs, the streets are bare from where they had ash trees and now they are all removed. It is really noticeable. They will have killed your tree before you even know there is a situation. You won't see them. You just know a few years later that you have a dead or dying tree.

EAB.jpg

Most likely came here via shipping from overseas.

[ka8ncr]

Most likely came here via shipping from overseas.

It came into KDTW from China on pallets made from wood that had not even been de-barked. Just a few years shy of twenty years ago, it flew in SE Michigan and there simply are no more ash trees here. The good news is that eventually, it will be unable to find enough ash trees to sustain any reproduction and it will go away on its own.

I have seen people try to treat trees with neonicotids/amicloprid, but that is extremely expensive for the amount needed and I haven't seen much success.