Groups Aim to Slow Beetle Spread in Ohio
By JOHN SEEWER, Associated Press Writer
TOLEDO, Ohio - Pest experts and tree researchers have developed a plan to fight off a tree-killing beetle marching into Ohio and toward the rest of the Midwest.
Whether it works will depend on how early they can detect the pest's whereabouts and how much money they can get from the federal government.
"There are people who are highly skeptical," said Dan Herms, an entomologist with the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center. "But the cost of doing nothing would be in the billions of dollars."
The emerald ash borer already has killed 10 million to 15 million trees in the Detroit area and the rest of Michigan. It's also been found in Ohio and Indiana.
Researchers are worried that the beetle no larger than a paperclip could spread into other states and destroy billions of ash trees that line city streets or are harvested to make cabinets and baseball bats.
To slow down and eventually stop its expansion, the battle against the ash borer this year will be centered in Toledo and its suburbs, where new infestations have been discovered in recent months.
Crews will set hundreds of "trap trees" in the area to find the leading edge of the infestation and then cut down ash trees in the immediate area so that the ash borer can't spread any farther.
"With this intensive monitoring these cuts can be made quickly enough that it will stop infestations," Herms said. "The emphasis is to take the battle to the insect."
Trap trees, created by peeling back the bark on ash trees and then coating them with a sticky substance that catches insects, already have been effective in determining the beetle's movement in Michigan.
But the trap trees aren't able to detect a small population of beetles, said Therese Poland, a researcher with the U.S. Forest Service.
"It's the best tool we have right now, but it's still only picking up beetles where there's a large population," she said.
Still, the trap trees are more effective than randomly looking at healthy trees.
The latest approach on trying to stop the beetle came from recommendations made by a national panel of scientists that advises government agencies.
Initially, some had talked about cutting down ash trees in a 6-mile wide path stretching from western Lake Erie through northwest Ohio to the Michigan border.
But the amount of time and money it would have taken to create the firewall would have been too much, Herms said. Plus, they found few landowners willing to voluntarily cut down their ash trees.
It will be crucial to make sure the beetle does not move into the expansive wildlife refuges near Toledo and along Lake Erie's western shore. The worry is that it would spread rapidly down the shore and toward Cleveland.
"If it breaks out into northwest Ohio, it's going to be very difficult to stop," Herms said.
In addition to closely monitoring the beetle's spread, crews are cutting down thousands of trees in a park and state forest near Toledo as a preventive measure to slow the insect.
And in Bowling Green, city workers are cutting down ash trees and replacing them with other species.
Scientists suspect the insect arrived in Michigan in cargo ships from Asia, possibly as early as the 1980s.
Ohio has asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture (news - web sites) for $11.6 million for this year's efforts. About two-thirds would be spent on cutting and removing trees, said Melissa Brewer, a spokeswoman for Ohio's agriculture department.
There won't be enough money, though, for all.
Because the focus will be on stopping the beetle in Ohio, some efforts in Michigan will fall to a low priority, said Deb McCullough, a professor in the department of entomology and department of forestry at Michigan State University.
"It's real frustrating. It's just that the federal budget has a lot of problems," she said. "If we had the money, I'm pretty sure we could get a hold of this thing and contain it in a few years."
She said several test sites have shown that the ash borer moves about a half-mile each year, which means there is still time to corral it.
"It doesn't mean we've written it off," she said. "It just means we can't do it as aggressively as we'd like to."
By JOHN SEEWER, Associated Press Writer
TOLEDO, Ohio - Pest experts and tree researchers have developed a plan to fight off a tree-killing beetle marching into Ohio and toward the rest of the Midwest.
Whether it works will depend on how early they can detect the pest's whereabouts and how much money they can get from the federal government.
"There are people who are highly skeptical," said Dan Herms, an entomologist with the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center. "But the cost of doing nothing would be in the billions of dollars."
The emerald ash borer already has killed 10 million to 15 million trees in the Detroit area and the rest of Michigan. It's also been found in Ohio and Indiana.
Researchers are worried that the beetle no larger than a paperclip could spread into other states and destroy billions of ash trees that line city streets or are harvested to make cabinets and baseball bats.
To slow down and eventually stop its expansion, the battle against the ash borer this year will be centered in Toledo and its suburbs, where new infestations have been discovered in recent months.
Crews will set hundreds of "trap trees" in the area to find the leading edge of the infestation and then cut down ash trees in the immediate area so that the ash borer can't spread any farther.
"With this intensive monitoring these cuts can be made quickly enough that it will stop infestations," Herms said. "The emphasis is to take the battle to the insect."
Trap trees, created by peeling back the bark on ash trees and then coating them with a sticky substance that catches insects, already have been effective in determining the beetle's movement in Michigan.
But the trap trees aren't able to detect a small population of beetles, said Therese Poland, a researcher with the U.S. Forest Service.
"It's the best tool we have right now, but it's still only picking up beetles where there's a large population," she said.
Still, the trap trees are more effective than randomly looking at healthy trees.
The latest approach on trying to stop the beetle came from recommendations made by a national panel of scientists that advises government agencies.
Initially, some had talked about cutting down ash trees in a 6-mile wide path stretching from western Lake Erie through northwest Ohio to the Michigan border.
But the amount of time and money it would have taken to create the firewall would have been too much, Herms said. Plus, they found few landowners willing to voluntarily cut down their ash trees.
It will be crucial to make sure the beetle does not move into the expansive wildlife refuges near Toledo and along Lake Erie's western shore. The worry is that it would spread rapidly down the shore and toward Cleveland.
"If it breaks out into northwest Ohio, it's going to be very difficult to stop," Herms said.
In addition to closely monitoring the beetle's spread, crews are cutting down thousands of trees in a park and state forest near Toledo as a preventive measure to slow the insect.
And in Bowling Green, city workers are cutting down ash trees and replacing them with other species.
Scientists suspect the insect arrived in Michigan in cargo ships from Asia, possibly as early as the 1980s.
Ohio has asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture (news - web sites) for $11.6 million for this year's efforts. About two-thirds would be spent on cutting and removing trees, said Melissa Brewer, a spokeswoman for Ohio's agriculture department.
There won't be enough money, though, for all.
Because the focus will be on stopping the beetle in Ohio, some efforts in Michigan will fall to a low priority, said Deb McCullough, a professor in the department of entomology and department of forestry at Michigan State University.
"It's real frustrating. It's just that the federal budget has a lot of problems," she said. "If we had the money, I'm pretty sure we could get a hold of this thing and contain it in a few years."
She said several test sites have shown that the ash borer moves about a half-mile each year, which means there is still time to corral it.
"It doesn't mean we've written it off," she said. "It just means we can't do it as aggressively as we'd like to."
