Iowa State protecting the Ash Trees’ Legacy

My sister pointed me to this article tonight as we are winding down after a wonderful day producing my newest niece. Kadence Marie was born today to my little sister and her husband. Needless to say, we had a great day meeting a baby with a great future ahead of her.

The ash tree – however – looks to not have a great future. Scientists at Iowa State are trying to preserve seed stock to repopulate if the tree is completely wiped out by emerald ash borer. This is a very interesting article on great work being done at ISU.

http://www.news.iastate.edu/news/2009/sep/EAB

Have a great day!

Brad

Possible Emerald Ash Borer – Negative

Good afternoon –

Had a bit of a scare yesterday when we found some classic D-shaped exit holes in an ash

The bottom hole is the suspected exit hole. Top is probable from a bird going after the boring larvae.

tree on one of our sites in St. Paul near the first detected EAB infestation. It was a tree that was in pretty serious decline in a tough situation – a parking lot island – over the last couple of years. It has general dieback at the tips, is suckering and saw the exit holes.

Vineland Tree Care (our great arborist partners) met me on site today – in between their work out at Hazeltine. One way to concretely identify EAB is to cut ‘windows’ in the bark under the tree to see the gallery. The only problem is it kills the tree. We went ahead and cut the windows and found some evidence of boring insects but none that appeared to be the dreaded Emerald Ash Borer.

Nevertheless I decided to call the MN Dept of Agriculture. I called the ‘Arrest the Pest’ hotline and that referred me to the website. The message said ‘Google EAB Minnesota’ then follow the directions, which I thought was odd. I googled, followed and then called a new number and was asked to call a

We cut a window to look a the tunnels. It was not EAB.

different number and talked to a very nice gentleman who asked if I had pictures. I emailed them and am now awaiting the decree of ‘Not EAB.’ So we can pull down the tree and get something new in there.

If you suspect EAB go here and follow the directions. I’ll let you know what treeinfo@umn.edu has to say.

Have a wonderful afternoon!

Brad