An Emerald Ash Borer trap hanging in the tree near my house.
The Minnesota Department of Agriculture was out in my neighborhood yesterday. They put the Emerald Ash Borer “trap” (in the photo at left) in the tree on the boulevard that’s practically right outside my back door. Later in the day I saw another trap hanging from an ash tree along one of our parkways, this one next to the Mississippi River.
The Emerald Ash Borer arrived from Asia as long as a decade ago. It is thought to have been in the wood of a packing crate on board a ship or an airplane.
There are no natural predators of this pest in North America. Since it was first discovered in Michigan in 2002, some thirty million ash trees have succumbed to the disease.
These pests are now known to infect trees from Pennsylvania south to northern Virginia and west to Missouri then north to Minnesota. None have been found in Iowa, but Iowa is surrounded on three sides by infected areas, so it’s just a matter of time. The infestation is into Canada, affecting the provinces of Ontario and Quebec.
Trees infected with this beetle were found in St. Paul earlier this spring and reported by the Minneapolis StarTribune.
Just over a month later, the “traps” are appearing in my neighborhood and all over the metropolitan area. Minnesota has over 900 million ash trees and they make up a third of all trees in our metro area.
The good news is that proactive steps are being taken to hopefully prevent another huge loss of our urban forest, like Dutch Elm Disease did to our trees in the 1970’s.
The US government has established a five year plan to test and develop a possible biological control for this pest. Three insects that are natural enemies of the Emerald Ash Borer have been identified in China. They are stingless wasps that seek out and kill the EAB’s eggs and larvae.
The State of Michigan has approved the release of these natural enemies. A laboratory has been set up in Michigan in which to grow these insects to further study their effectiveness in saving ash trees and how they interact with native organisms. They will also study the effect on non-targeted species (i.e., other trees, insects, etc.).
At the end of the five year study scientists will evaluate which natural enemies are most suitable to mass-produce and release in the wide-ranging areas where the Emerald Ash Borer is known to exist.
Let’s hope it works.
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