I am the first to admit, I am a tree junkie. I often drive home and look around my neighborhood, and spot areas that need a tree. Often I wonder if I am crazy, especially when I am looking up at the sky most of the time, and to the passersby, this looks a little odd.
So today I looked around just to see how many ash trees we have on campus, it is after all one of my favorite trees. We have just over one hundred ash trees on campus (Fraxinus species) and these particular trees make up nearly 33% of our large trees on campus.
This was brought on when someone recently showed me a photo of some forests in Michigan, where the ash trees have been devastated by yet another invasive pest, recently discovered in our state. Is it just a matter of time before we see the emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis) here in the St. Louis area?
Adult Agrilus planipennis
The emerald ash borer was discovered in the United States in the early nineties, and has since devastated over 50 million ash trees to date, and they continue to spread. There has been some studies showing control measures to be effective but none have proven to be economical, but my hopes are that science will prevail and we can fix this issue we started.
It pains me to say this, but this is a beautiful insect. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the damage they can cause is anything but beautiful. The easiest way to identify this insect, besides its distinctive physical features, is the distinctive exit hole it leaves when exiting the tree.
Emerald Ash Borer Larval Exit Hole. Note D-shape
Firewood and ash products tend to be the method of transportation for this pest, so if you do any traveling careful not to help this insect move into our area, and be sure to leave anything containing ash wood where it originated from. If you would like to learn more about this devastating pest, and keep tabs on new developments for control measures click here.So get outside and enjoy our beautiful ash trees on campus and lets hope we can keep them around!
Hi Dan, I saw your post on twitter. Check out what Arborjet tree injection can do to help protect the beautiful canopy at St. Charles. It's more cost effective than removal, and you get the benefit of the large trees on campus. Visit our website, call, or read some of out blog posts on Emerald Ash Borer. Keep in touch. http://www.arborjet.com/blog/category/emerald-ash-borer/
ReplyDeleteDan,
ReplyDeleteThanks for this post. Yes, I agree emerald ash bore are beautiful on the outside but when you showed us the hole it's obvious these are "bad guys."
Thank you for taking such good care of the campus and for your passion and active participation in the life of the school.
Thank also for such an interesting read and great images.