By TIM THORNBERRY
Kentucky Correspondent KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Forestry officials in Kentucky have had their hands full monitoring the spread of the emerald ash borer (EAB), but their counterparts in Tennessee have had a double shot of bad news in the last month.
Not only did officials recently discover EAB for the first time, the Tennessee Department of Agriculture (TDA) announced earlier this month the discovery of Thousand Cankers Disease (TCD), a fungus transmitted by a small twig beetle. Both were found in Knox County.
TCD is detrimental to walnut trees – in particular, black walnut trees, according to TDA Forester Tim Phelps – and can kill one within three years after the initial infection. TDA information notes that branches and trunk tissue are killed by repeated infections as the beetles carry the fungus into new bark.
Phelps added while one of the problems wasn’t unexpected, the other came as quite a surprise. “With EAB, it is one of those things we were hopeful we wouldn’t see, it certainly wasn’t unexpected, seeing how it is rapidly progressing southward from its initial detection in southeast Michigan over the past eight years,” he said.
“Watching it spread in all directions from there, we considered it would just be a matter of time. TCD, however was completely out of the blue.”
The TCD discovery marks the first detection of the disease within the native range of the black walnut, which covers most of the East and into the Great Plains area. The disease is hard to detect until it has done enough damage to kill the tree.
Phelps said until now, the problem had been restricted to only states in the West, where the black walnut is not a native species. With the discovery in Tennessee, it is apparent it is in at least one state where the tree is native.
“The trees that were discovered to be infected are pretty far gone, and that’s an indication that this disease has been present in that location for as many as two or three years,” Phelps said.
As far as the EAB is concerned, he said it was TDA’s hope the insect would be slowed or diverted from Tennessee by the efforts of other states, but measures were well under way to detect it, starting with traps in Tennessee border counties. Ironically, the pest hasn’t shown up in any of those traps. The discovery was made accidentally, by a natural recourse professional from Ohio trained in spotting the insect who had stopped in the area at a truck stop.
In the case of the EAB infection, trees can be saved through insecticidal injection. This may be a good solution in urban areas where people may want to save yard trees, but because of the extensive cost of such a procedure, Phelps said it is not an operational solution to treat whole forests.
State officials are trying to get the public involved, to understand just how serious the situation could be. The TDA plans to issue a quarantine in Knox County prohibiting the movement of firewood and black walnut nursery stock and limiting the movement of black walnut timberland and other material that can spread TCD, according to information from the agency.
The same is true for ash nursery stock, ash timber and other material that can spread EAB. That quarantine will affect Knox and Loudon counties.
While the damage to these trees is a definite loss to the environment, the economic ramifications are staggering, as well. Phelps noted there are approximately 260 million ash trees in Tennessee on public and private land, with a value of $9 billion, along with an estimated 26 million black walnut trees potentially valued as high as $1.47 billion.
EAB in Kentucky
It has been more than a year since the EAB was discovered in Kentucky, and officials have been diligent in their efforts to get a handle on it. Currently 21 counties are under quarantine, restricting the movement of “regulated articles” outside that quarantined area without a certificate or limited permit except under certain conditions, according to the Kentucky Office of the State Entomologist.
Regulated articles are defined as the EAB, hardwood firewood, ash nursery stock, green ash lumber, other ash material and any other materials that present a threat of artificial spread of the EAB, notes the agency.
Those quarantined counties include Boone, Bourbon, Campbell, Carroll, Fayette, Franklin, Gallatin, Grant, Greenup, Harrison, Henry, Jefferson, Jessamine, Kenton, Oldham, Owen, Pendleton, Scott, Shelby, Trimble and Woodford. Purple EAB traps have been placed across the state in an effort to detect any movement of the insect.
As in Tennessee, the economic impact of this infestation could be far-reaching. Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer said, “Kentucky is the nation’s third-largest producer of hardwood lumber. This industry is responsible for thousands of jobs and generates millions of dollars of economic activity in Kentucky. I will do whatever I can within the law to safeguard Kentucky’s wood industry.”
In Kentucky, anyone seeing or suspecting EAB infestation should call 866-322-4512 or the state entomologist at 859-257-5838.
Those in Tennessee wanting more information on the EAB or TCD should go to http://tn.gov/agriculture/regulatory/ tcd.html or to http://tn.gov/agriculture/ regulatory/eab.html |
