Homeowners Guide to EAB Insecticide Selection, Use and Environmental Impact

Good morning –

The Minnesota Nursery and Landscape Association is disseminating a GREAT publication from the MN Dept of Ag about Emerald Ash Borer treatments and their environmental impacts.

It explains when treatments should be done and which are more likely to affect groundwater and aquatic life. Be sure to read this before you do any EAB treatments.

Click on the photo to the right or the link below to download.

Homeowners Guide to EAB Insecticide Selection, Use and Environmental Impact

Have a great day!

Brad

Beware the Emerald Ash Borer Sales Pitch

Good morning!

The past few weeks I’ve had a few property managers and friends ask me about Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) treatments. Tree companies and landscape vendors are are coming to them and saying “You need to get it or their trees will die!” They are 100% accurate, but that isn’t the whole story.

Treatments have proven to be extremely effective in preventing trees from EAB infestations. It is generally a chemical injected into the tree’s vascular system and kills insects that try to make a home inside it. These treatments are expensive and must be done every year!

UPDATE 4/13/2010: I have been informed there is a new product on the market that can be effectively applied every two years. However, this does not change our philosophy on the long-term costs associated with treated ash trees for EAB.

Only treat trees that you REALLY want to keep: old ash at main entrances or trees that may have historical value (like at the state fairgrounds). In my opinion, there aren’t too many ash trees that are worthy of yearly treatments. Ash are not high-value trees or long-lived so you are generally better off using the money you would put into treatments and diversifying with other tree species and waiting for the existing trees to succumb to EAB which probably will not be for many years.

Here is our previous post about EAB that explains a little more in depth Quercus’ approach to EAB.

Emerald Ash Borer

Have a wonderful day!

Brad

Uninformed Emerald Ash Borer Article in TC Daily Planet

A friend from Chicago (chicagotreemd) tweeted earlier today about an article in the Twin Cities Daily Planet, Ash trees will go in St. Paul, Minneapolis from November 24 by Sheila Regan.

This melodramatic article has some good general information about Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) but seems written by someone who has no idea what they are talking about. Trees are not destined to death because of EAB. Left untreated, they will eventually die. However, there are preventative treatments that will keep EAB from “infecting” (EAB is an insect that kills the tree, not a disease that infects as it is referred to in the article) your trees that have proven successful in areas infested with EAB.

Here is our previous post about how Quercus, Inc. is handling EAB. Basically, if you have trees that you want to keep, you can save them by treating the tree each year. It is expensive, but it works.

You can find solid information about Emerald Ash Borer with these links:

Minnesota Nursery and Landscape Association

U of M

emeraldashborer.info

Sorry for the rant, but misinformation is troubling when we are dealing with such a big issue where information is the most important tool for battling this insect.

Have a great day!

Brad