Citizen science project: monitoring the Emerald Ash Borer with Clackamas Soil and Water Conservation District
Soon, our Ash trees are very likely to be gone. And possibly Olive & Fringe trees too as they are in the same family.
Today, my son and I participated in a training class at the Clackamas County Soil and Water Conservation District. In a few weeks, we’ll be placing a trap up in my wetland Oregon Ash tree, and checking for the presence of the Emerald Ash Borer (hereinafter referred to as EAB). I thought the class was super interesting, and wrote down some notes to share with you all.
In the EAB’s native range, China, there are natural predators to keep populations in check. There are no predators here.
EAB infests equally healthy and stressed trees.
Scientists believe firewood or a wood pallet is how the insect spread into our area. This is the major reason you should not be transporting firewood far away from where you intend to burn it.
Most important: with no mitigation, they expect all Ash trees in our region to die within six years. And the mitigation tactics they have at this time are only offering minimal protection.
The goal with mitigation is to delay demise as much as they can, so that they can find trees with hopefully some genetic resistance to EAB. They predict many decades from now they’ll find some trees with resistance and be able to plant again.
The Oregon Ash tree is an incredibly important riparian species. They say it is even more important than White Oaks, which support a huge amount of insect, bird, other species.
EAB are known to infect trees as little as 1” diameter.
Reed Canary grass is expected to be the dominant species after the ash trees die, which is an incredibly invasive species.
When the ash trees die, they expect our creeks will become 5-10% hotter, which will have huge implications for Steelhead, Coho, Chinook.
Other ashes are popular street trees, with a value of over $3,000 several years ago.
The only insecticide available requires annual injectable treatment, of $100-$300/dose, and requires treatment every 1-3 years.
The only area that EAB is currently known in Oregon is Forest Grove, but that is expected to change. How rapidly is anyone’s guess.
EAB does infect Olives and Fringe trees, which are in the same family. Some research was performed on Olives in Forest Grove. The olives were purposely infected with EAB to see if they would proliferate. They did. Olives will be impacted… will they completely die off the way that they expect with Ash? They don’t know.
Bio-control: some predatory wasps are being investigated, but in the past these bio-controls haven’t gone well so they are being quite conservative in releasing them.
Climate-wise, our area is expected to be more like Roseburg in the coming years. Roseburg has considerably less Ash trees than our area, and so they are likely to die off for the warming reason as well.
Signs that the tree is infected:
-Crown die off.
-Sprouting from the base.
-Woodpeckers going heavily for something in the tree. Woodpeckers are the best friend of Ash trees.
-S-Shaped galleries in the bark.
-Exit holes are small and capitol D shaped.
Other critters do infect ash, but aren’t considered problematic.
After our oral presentation, we went out into the field to practice setting up the traps. Here is a video of my son setting up a trap, and another of him practicing servicing of the trap.
Hope you found that as interesting as I do!
Yes we do. We have more than a dozen planted in our native plant acreage. We can stop by their office and inquire.
Do you know if it is possible to get a trap or if they are planning any additional classes? We live in this area.