Destructive Asian beetle has wiped out more than 25 million trees in five states.
Pastor Dale Morgan
Destructive Asian beetle has wiped out more than 25 million trees in
five states.*
By Allison M. Heinrichs
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
A small, green beetle with the potential to kill trees lining streets
and wreak havoc on the baseball bat industry is in Pennsylvania,
officials confirmed Tuesday.
The emerald ash borer, an exotic, invasive insect from Asia, was found
in Cranberry, according to U.S. and Pennsylvania Department of
Agriculture officials. Since it first appeared in North America five
years ago, the beetle has wiped out more than 25 million trees in five
states.
"The impact is that all ash trees are probably going to fall, the
healthy ones and the sick ones. There won't be any left," said Scott
Simpson, district manager for Davey Tree and Lawn Care Co., which is
based in Gibsonia and serves the North Hills, including Cranberry.
"I would not be planting ash trees," he said. "I would not be doing
anything with ash until we see the long-term ramifications of this."
State and federal agriculture officials would not provide more
information yesterday about where and how the ash borer was found in
Cranberry.
In 2002, the beetle took hold in southeastern Michigan. Officials
suspect it was brought to the United States aboard cargo ships using the
Great Lakes.
"As you drive the roadways in southeastern Michigan, you will see very
few live ash trees anymore," said Ken Rauscher, director of the division
of pesticide and plant pest management for the Michigan Department of
Agriculture. "Most of our ash trees are dead."
Because they tolerate road salt, ash trees are popular choices to plant
along urban and suburban streets in Western Pennsylvania. The native
white ash is common to state forests.
The hardwood makes good baseball bats, and Louisville Slugger -- the
official bat supplier of Major League Baseball -- makes 80 percent of
its 1.6 million bats each year from ash. It gets the wood from forests
along the Pennsylvania-New York border.
"We take the emerald ash borer very seriously," said Rick Redman,
spokesman for Louisville Slugger. "It's something we're watching very
closely."
Six years ago, Cranberry officials planted hundreds of ash trees near
the Cranberry Highlands Golf Course and the Cranberry Heights
development, said Walt Beighey, manager of streets and properties
maintenance for the township.
"It was a lot of money and a lot of work," Beighey said, estimating that
each tree cost a couple hundred dollars. The trees have doubled in size
and are more valuable now, he said.
The emerald ash borer has no natural predators in North America. The
creamy white larvae kill ash trees by boring into trunks and destroying
water and nutrient-conducting tissues under bark.
With isolated infestations, officials usually cut down all ash trees
within a half-mile in an effort to slow the beetle's spread.
Roughly 15 percent of trees in Pittsburgh parks are ash, said Phil
Gruszka, director of management and maintenance policies for the
Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy.
"We're going to see the loss of a significant number of trees," he said.
"The city is going to have to really begin to enact some emergency
procedures if (emerald ash borer) is found here."
Naturally the ash borer can travel about a half-mile each year, so
people moving firewood and trees aided its spread from Michigan to Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois, Maryland and now Pennsylvania, said Melissa Brewer,
spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Agriculture's Emerald Ash Borer
Program.
Last week, Ohio officials found emerald ash borers near Youngstown,
three miles from the Pennsylvania border. Brewer said the beetle is
spreading along the turnpike. Quarantines prohibiting transportation of
ash trees and firewood are in place in 29 Ohio counties, and people
caught moving ash trees or wood face a $4,000 fine.
"They're devastating," Brewer said. "It really only takes one piece of
infested firewood to kill millions of ash trees."
Destructive green beetle
The emerald ash borer is native to eastern Russia, northern China, Japan
and Korea. Identifying characteristics:
* Adult emerald ash borers are a half-inch long, with flattened backs
and purple abdominal segments beneath their wings.
* The larvae are creamy white and legless with flattened, bell-shaped
body segments.
* Infested ash trees typically die within three years, beginning with
leaf loss that progresses until the tree is bare.
* Fissures and worm trails from larvae weave across the wood grain
beneath the bark of infested trees.
Source: Emerald Ash Borer Information Network