Emerald Ash Borer Update from OSU Conference

I just came back from Ohio State's Short Coarse at the CENTS show where I attended at lecture regarding the Emerald Ash Borer situation. The lecture was conducted by an Ohio State professor and extension agent who is serving on Ohio's and the federal EAB task forces.

The situation is VERY bleak.

If you remember from my post last year at this time, the plan to contain the outbreak rested on containing the borers in the lower peninsula of Michigan. This would require a "firebreak" across northern Ohio and Indiana, a similar firebreak across Ontario from Lake Erie and Lake Sinclair, and then some type of containment to keep the borers from crossing into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The hope was that if the pest were contained in the lower peninsula of Michigan, it would destroy all ash trees there and "burn itself out."

I suppose this strategy was always considered a long-shot, but was nevertheless the best hope we had. Don't rest your hopes on it any longer.

Indiana and Canada, both, have stopped eradication efforts on the insect's front lines, meaning there is no effort to stop or delay the EAB's progression. Ohio has suspended theirs program pending further funding.

Federal money has been reduced from 50 million dollars in 2003 to $10 million in 2006. Political opposition from western states is partly to blame, despite this amount of funding being a pittance compared to Mediterranean Fruit Fly eradication expenditures.

Worse, political opposition from residents in Ohio, Indiana, and Ontario has also surfaced. One city council member of Toledo ran on a campaign of opposing the Ohio Dept. of Agriculture cutting firebreaks through private property along the leading edge of the EAB outbreak! This type of opposition was apparently huge in Ontario, as well.

Cutting a firebreak ahead of the outbreak along obvious barriers such as The Ohio Turnpike would require acts of eminent domain, which apparently would not hold up in court.

Outlier outbreaks continue to be discovered in isolated parts of Ohio and Indiana. These are largely thought to be the result of the movement of firewood and other ash products from before the imposition of quarantine laws restricting such movement.

What about a magic bullet? Don't bet on it. Research spending has amounted to probably less than $10 million dollars. Chemical treatments to live trees are expensive, would need annual reapplications, and are not likely to do much beyond prolonging the inevitable for a few years.

Tree death is now rampant throughout southern and central Michigan and dead tree removal has become a mammoth expense, safety issue, and headache. Ann Arbor tried to pass a tax levy to pay for the removal of dead trees from public property. The levy failed, and now funds are being taken from other programs from within the city budget.

Photos of a public park in Livonia, Michigan showed dozens of large ash trees that have fallen. Smaller trees beneath them of course were shattered and crushed, and the undergrowth choked by the fallen wood.

Tree service companies have been overwhelmed by the amount of work, and the danger of falling ash trees in Michigan will be a fact of life for years to come.

A new industry built around the use of ash lumber and byproducts has emerged. These mills and yards must be located behind the "front lines," obviously, because of the quarantine.

I wish I had better news, but this is the information I received.

Scott

Bummer, Scott can you give links in DG as to what to expect as to collateral damage: other species after ash runs out? Anything we can do that are in the obvious path? Oddly enough 50% of my understory is ash saplings, not a preferred browse. Ken

Here are some links:

http://ashalert.osu.edu
www.ohioagriculture.gov/eab/
www.dnr.ohio.gov/forestry/eab/default.htm
http://emeralashborer.info

There are some resistant ashes from Asia. I personally know virtually nothing about any of them, nor have I seen any for sale. Perhaps Guy and now Resin (hurray, and welcome!) can fill us in on them a bit. Another lecture at the show was titled "Trees to Use Instead of Ash." This, I'm sure, was geared towards designers and urban foresters, but I did not attend this class.

The message from the conference was quite clear for those managing large woodlots and public properties--start budgeting now for ash disposal. The advance of EAB is about 1/2 mile per year, for calculation purposes.

The question was asked if ash could be reintroduced behind the lines of EAB advance. Good question. The general consensus of the experts is there will probably be enough of a low level of EAB presence left behind to prevent reintroduction from being successful.

How American forests will adapt to yet another dominant species disappearing, I don't know. It will. Probably more maples and exotics, but who knows? Frankly, I don't think most people want to think about that much.

Scott

Scott, it's already allegedly been documented as having made its appearance south of Chicago along with Kudzu last summer. I know you feel bad but there was nothing, and I do mean nothing, that could be done. I strongly suspicion it was firewood that campers were tossing on the backs of their trailors to bring with them to camp sites from their home states that aided the spread. The reverse would also be true which is left over firewood being tossed on trailers to be brought home from a camping trip. How do you tell campers to NOT cross state lines firewood? My own husband brought firewood from home to avoid having to pay high prices to buy it on location and he also used to bring left over firewood home from camping trips until I nipped that in the bud. He feels camp grounds should be passing out flyers as vehicles enter camp grounds. We all suspected it would come to this. I hate to be so blunt but... the camping circuit for my husband and our boys (they go camping once a month) for just this calendar year includes Arizona, Minnesota, 5 trips to different locations within Wisconsin, Southern Illinois, Canada, and I believe they are trying to work in a camping trip to Kentucky to visit and tour the Caves. Think about all the campers out there carting firewood to and fro. Now, how many Moms put their foot down and said, "buy your wood on site once you get to the campground and do NOT bring leftovers back home"? Mind boggling.

You might want to read this thread-
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/546097/

I had a sinking feeling we were going to lose this EAB battle. I've been frantically "companion" planting replacement native species within a few feet of the bases of Ash trees here on my property. I've lost quite a few new plantings to floods and droughts and deer browse but some are taking. It had been my hope that the new trees would begin to establish by the time my area got hit but it looks as if the sand in the hour glass is bottoming out. Shame, I had hoped to have 5 more years and it doesn't appear that will happen for me.

Very depressing. I believe the devastating toll on the environment that EAB will take will make DED and Chestnut Blight look like child's play. Just my humble opinion.

Lauren

Oops, I was typing when you were typing. Scott, I have a question for you. It takes a hundred years to create an inch of soil. Would there be anything so wrong with merely forgoing the expense of removal and disposal with leaving them lay where they drop? The trees will provide much needed biomass for the soil?

I can understand incurring the expense of removal and disposal in a park or garden but in natural areas where most of these trees are growing? I plan on leaving mine where they die. Scags have a place in a landscape too and when the roots are toast and the tree comes down, I had planned on leaving it where it fell. Please correct me if my reasoning is not sound. We've only got about 100 here so we could always use them for firewood.

Part of the push for efficient clean-up has been a component of the erradication process and has been a part of the frontline action. If the frontline is not going to be contested, if we are giving up, then I'm sure most clean-up will be forsaken. It is at the very least expensive.

However, dead ash trees tend to fall down whole, so even in relatively wild places where human density is high the liability issue will probably ensure that on a lot of public and private land that many dead ashes will at least be cut down.

Scott

I understand now. Thank you.

We not only have ashes to worry about. I've reading up on sudden oak death, and if that fungus ever got out of control it would be devastating.

Did anyone see the movie "High Anxiety"?

Some sort of a bell goes off and Nurse Diesel announces it is "Medication Time" for all the psych ward patients.

The liability issue raised by Scott previously is striking a chord. The Oaks... I've started moving some around to get roots as far apart as is possible. I'm sure I'll lose a few of the saplings by having to move them but I believe it is prudent to spread them out a little bit from each other with the little I have read about a few of the pathogens attacking Oaks these days. I'm thinking that I don't want to think about this anymore and that it's time for the bell to sound and that I'd like a nice tranquilizer. If anything happened to my Oaks I would be beside myself.

Very depressing.

Sorry, I don't know of any info on Asian ashes. I'd be surprised if much research has even been done in Asia at all. Obviously the Asian ashes don't get affected so badly in Asia (or they'd be extinct!), but whether that is because they have natural resistance, or because the borer carries a high disease / parasite / predator load in Asia, I don't know. Likely a combination of all.

I hope the EU is banning all ash products into Europe, too.

Resin

I'm no authority on EAB, but offfer a few thoughts:

1. In retrospect, a little money could have been spent efficiently on providing free firewood at campsites, with the additional provision that anyone caught hauling firewood to or from the campsites would be fined, say, $1000 per offense. Then use the fine money to help with the program. Trap trees also could have been left in areas along the advancing front, treated with systemic insecticide, to lure and destroy borers. This might have encouraged the borers to stop there rather than fly on for miles to the next ash tree. But decisions are made by politicians.

2. All American ash species apparently are vulnerable. But worse, the borer has been found to survive on other genera (Pterocarya is the one that pops into my memory at the moment, but there are others), thus creating a potential reservoir for reinfection of new ash plantings once all the existing ash trees are gone from an area.

3. News last week was that an entrenched advance population already has been discovered near Indianapolis, 100 miles ahead of the main front.

Guy S.

Agreed to one extent or another-

I must admit, I planted two white ash trees this season and my reason for doing so is to diversify my woodland area because it is dominated by oaks. The two little lonely ash seedlings are the only ones I have and if someday the EAB makes it this far south and finds them then mother nature will have to takes her course. They are in an area to where if they die it would be no big deal. I too have been thinning out my oaks to try to get some breathing room between them. I guess only time will tell.