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This crawler is native to parts of Asia.
Highly destructive emerald ash borer discovered in St. Paul — 900 million trees in Minnesota alone are at risk thanks to the marvel called globalization. This is extremely serious. This beetle apparently got here via an infested shipping container.
For the first time, the emerald ash borer, a highly destructive tree pest, has been found in Minnesota.
The state Department of Agriculture announced today that a tree care company discovered the infestation in St. Paul on Wednesday.
An unknown number of infected trees are located in St. Paul just northeast of the intersection of Interstate 94 and Highway 280.
After receiving the tree company’s report and conducting an initial inspection, state agriculture officials submitted larvae from the infested trees to their federal counterparts. The U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed the infestation this morning.
The tiny metallic-green beetle could devastate millions of ash trees in adjoining areas of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa.
Minnesota has about 900 million ash trees,
related links:
History of the pest which first appeared in 2002
Another weird beetle devastating Colorado
The ash isn’t that important locally but we do have them and these things could terminate them.
Bleep!!! ?8^(
The good news is, China is thriving with these pests. I’m more worried about infestations of Republicans. These pests are very persuasive and actually think they are good economists.
Why do we have to keep saying, “used to be?”
Used to be – when I worked in traffic management back in the day – the USDA sampled and checked on shipping containers and wooden crates for exactly this kind of danger. And followed up.
I recall having to burn – and prove we burned – wooden crates used to ship products imported from Asia that were suspected of harboring such insect larva. The USDA did a 100% search and destroy – to protect American agriculture.
You mean, “used to be” like when we had consumer protection laws, and our government watchdog agencies had more than just fancy titles and a college degree, and understood their “job capacity” and did the job?
Yeah, this stuff gets old.
But, then again, how could we ever hire enough people to inspect all the crap coming over to fill the Walmart’s, Targets, and every other nook and cranny on every shop shelf?
MOSS,
I remember when ships were SET for 1 month and spayed..NOTHING MOVED off that ship, until everything was DEAD..
Better let the lumber industry chop them all down BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!
This isn’t the first time something like this happened.
“Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…” Do you all realize that none of us – and I mean NONE of us – have ever eaten an American Chestnut, which was a staple of the American diet before 1905?
“The discovery of the Chestnut blight fungus on some Asian Chestnut trees planted on Long Island, New York was made public in 1904. Within 40 years the near-4 billion-strong American Chestnut population in Northern America was devastated”.
Whenever we eat Chestnuts, it is the Chinese variety. The traditional American Chestnut is nearly extinct.
solution: tree spikes
The only way to end the threat is to throw your TV and monitor at them.
You see disaster, I see opportunity. Let’s cut down all the ash trees and make them into golf tees. With no ash trees left, there will be no ash beetles. It’s a win-win.
Here in Michigan we’ve been dealing with these for several years now. The Ash tree poplulation is pretty much wiped out here. Been great for the tree service guys but us homeowners are getting hit with huge bills for removing dead or dying trees that pose a threat to the house.
Form a line and take a number, we have the bloody Cane Toads(ugly bloody things) that are killing our native wildlife, fooken rabbits and those mungrel rabbits.
Then there is the supposed Fire Ant, European Wasp, Asian Minor Bird, Bituo bush, water weeds by the score plus a whole lots of different pests.
This in the form of globlisation…thank you…
[violation of posting guidelines — off topic rant]
Old news. The damn things have already wiped out the Ash in Michigan, Ohio and heading south. The only good part of this is the ignorant superstitious yokels in the Carolinas who kept the republicans in power as they enriched shipping owners by eliminated fumigation of ship holds to save a few bucks, will now loose all that lumber they use to make their furniture. Join the auto workers in the unemployment lines dumb shits, drive there in your imported cars.
#7
Not so. I have an American Chestnut in my yard. The Pacific Northwest is home to some small groves of American Chestnut, and in Oregon is one of the oldest living American Chestnut trees.
American Chestnut Foundation
http://www.acf.org/
#15, you are one of the lucky few.
Akron wants stimulus money to cut down endangered ash trees
By Katie Byard
Beacon Journal staff writer
POSTED: 06:20 p.m. EDT, May 10, 2009
Akron hopes to land federal stimulus money to cut down more than 1,000 healthy ash trees — the species targeted by a tree-killing beetle.
The move is pre-emptive; the emerald ash borer beetle eventually will make its way to Summit County, said city arborist Bill Hahn.
”It’s not a question of if; it’s when,” Hahn said.
Officials are seeking about $762,000 to take down and replace all ash trees — an estimated 1,075 trees — in city rights-of-way.
Once infested by the pest — first found in this country in 2002 — trees die within a few years.
They then become a menace, Hahn said.
”They become dangerous — very brittle and they fall apart very quickly — when they die,” Hahn said.
”Gravity takes its toll” and branches fall, he said.
The dark green beetle was first spotted in the United States in Michigan. It is believed to have arrived in this country stowed away in cargo from Asia.
The pest has spread to many Ohio counties, including Medina, Portage, Wayne and Cuyahoga, as well as parts of Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia and Ontario. It has killed millions of trees.
Hahn said city officials don’t want to see a repeat of what happened in the 1960s, when Dutch elm disease claimed many elms.
”They were dead and falling down all over town and they were huge,” he said.
The city has been removing the trees under a five-year program that began last year. General funds covered the bill to cut down and replace 150 to 200 ash trees last year and the first part of this year.
The federal money would allow Akron to accelerate its removal program. The city would hire contractors to do the work.
The city notifies residents with trees that will be removed from the front of their homes.
While 1,000-plus trees sound like a lot, they represent less than 1 percent of the trees in city rights-of-way, Hahn said.
Akron is replacing the ash trees with a variety of species, including American yellowwood, elm, linden and crab apple, the fruiting and nonfruiting varieties.
The federal money would flow through the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which is seeking $9 million to divvy up to communities, said Drew Todd, state urban-forestry coordinator.
Treating the trees to stave off the Asian beetle would be too expensive, foresters say.
”Once you start the treatments, you basically have to keep it going. You can’t just treat it one year and then stop,” said Pat Neville, forester for Shaker Heights, which also is seeking federal funds to speed up its removal program.
Neville said the borer hasn’t been detected in that city.
Strongsville, in western Cuyahoga County, also wants to take a pre-emptive strike.
Strongsville tried a volunteer program, in which homeowners would sign up to have trees removed from tree lawns. Few residents took advantage of it.
”Most people want to wait and see and hope for the best,” said Jennifer Milbrandt, Strongsville’s coordinator of natural resources. ”We try to explain it’s just a matter of time” before ash borers arrive.
Akron also is applying for nearly $700,000 in federal stimulus money for a tree survey that would identify damaged trees, as well as spots for additional trees. This money also would pay for replacement trees.
The program would involve workers from Davey Resource Group — part of the Davey Tree Expert Co. of Kent — fanning into neighborhoods with portable computers.
Katie Byard can be reached at 330-996-3781 or kbyard@thebeaconjournal.com.
Sorry to read about the ash. Welcome to our nightmare. Not just Colorado but BC is also in the thick of a pine beetle epidemic which is now crossing the Rockies and moving into Alberta. Lost track of how many million hectares of dead Lodgepole pine. Next to go, the Ponderosa pine where we live in arid grassland country. At least there’s a fair bit of Douglas Fir around here but they’re getting hit by tussock moth and the Spruce have their own beetle killing ’em. It’s going to look like Big Sur–minus the ocean–around here in a decade or so. Overmature, decadent forests and climate change, the one-two knock-out punch. At least our wine industry is thriving with the milder winters.
I’ve spent almost 20 years in forestry (eco classification, logging layout) fighting–or at least trying to keep up with–pine beetle. I’m hoping I’ll make it to the end of my fieldwork days before we run out trees. On the bright side, replanting our own acre now with larch, fir, and pine so that when we lose our big Ponderosas we’ll at least have a jump start on a new stand of trees.