May 2022
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Ash trees in danger By Ron Reid Six years ago, I penned a column about Emerald Ash Borer, a malignant tree disease that was working its destructive path across southern Ontario, and headed in our direction. Sadly, it has arrived in Washago. As you drive along Highway 11 south of the canal, you can see dozens of ash trees with light-coloured trunks, which means they have hosted the borer. Most of those trees are already dead; a few may put out a few leaves this spring, but their fate is sealed. The culprit is a beetle with emerald green scales on its back, which lays its eggs under the bark of ash trees. When the larvae hatch, they feed by creating a network of little tunnels in the cambium layer just under the bark. The cambian performs a vital function for the tree, bringing water and nutrients from its roots and carrying down sugars to store underground. Those tunnels block the natural tubes in the cambian, and within a year or two choke the tree to its demise. As you might already suspect, Emerald Ash Borer is not a native species in North America. It arrived here in about 2002, likely carried within wooden crates or pallets in shipping materials from east Asia. Even among the evil catalogue of invasive species, this little beetle ranks among the worst. In only 20 years, it has swept across northeast USA and southern Ontario, leaving millions of dead tree skeletons to mark its path.
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Emerald Ash Borer Beetle
© Can Stock Photo / yod67
Fortunately, this pest feeds only on ash trees; but among the five species of ash that grow in Ontario, none are immune. One of those, the Black Ash that grows only in wetlands, has already been designated Endangered because of the borer. If you have an ash tree on your property, the first signs of infection might be the die-back of upper branches, or pencilsized, D-shaped holes in its bark where adult beetles have emerged. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but by this time the infected tree is already doomed. Brace yourself to call the experts for removal before it falls on your house. A much happier alternative, if you act in time, is to have your valued ash trees “inoculated” with a pressurized injection of a natural pesticide called Neem Oil. This is not a do-it-yourself operation, but there are local tree experts who can do the job for a fee. The bad news is that this treatment has to be repeated annually until the wave of borers has gone through our area; the
good news is that it can save those graceful ash trees providing summer shade for your house. What else can you do? Thinking in the longer term, make sure you plant a diversity of tree species around your yard. Ash trees are only the latest species to die out; we have already lost most of the native elms, chestnuts and butternut, all to accidentally introduced diseases. Those are unlikely to be the last victims, so make sure your shade trees are a mix of species to hedge your bets. Good luck with your ash trees. Chances are that the borers will miss a few, so if you are a lucky soul, maybe one of those will be yours. A regular contributor to The Villager, Ron Reid is a natural heritage consultant and the co-founder and former executive director of The Couchiching Conservancy. He has written more than 30 magazine articles and co-authored three books. He lives in Washago with his wife, Janet Grand.
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