Tag: emerald ash borer

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Ash disaster: Local ash trees face their own pandemic

The Van Yahres Tree Company treats ash trees at Monticello to guard against the invasive emerald ash borer. Credit: Van Yahres Tree Company

As if COVID-19 weren’t enough, central Virginia is fighting another plague, only this one—the emerald ash borer—threatens our trees. The beetle may look like a tiny jewel— it’s a bright metallic green, small enough to sit on a penny— but it’s been scything down local ash trees like a malevolent Paul Bunyan. 

“No ash tree is safe,” says Jake Van Yahres, co-owner of Van Yahres Tree Company, which his great-grandfather founded in 1919 during another pandemic. “If you have an ash tree and don’t get it treated, it will die.”

The emerald ash borer, native to northeastern Asia, was first detected in the U.S. in Michigan in 2002, and in Albemarle County in 2017. The beetle lays its eggs in the ash’s bark in spring; when the larvae hatch, they tunnel through the bark and feed on the layer beneath all summer, effectively cutting off the tree’s nutrients. The following spring, they emerge as adults to eat leaves, mate, and lay more eggs—killing the tree in three to five years.  

Katlin DeWitt, forest health specialist with the Virginia Department of Forestry, says ash is a popular landscaping and urban species because it is hardy, fast-growing, and shapely. “After we lost elms, people planted with ash,” she says. Just ask UVA—it has hundreds of ash trees on the Lawn, Carr’s Hill, the East Range, and along Rugby and McCormick roads. 

A tree can be protected by injecting insecticide around its base, but the treatment has to be administered by a certified arborist and repeated every two years. If started in time, treatment ($350-$600 per tree, depending on size) can be more cost-effective than removal. But if the tree is significantly damaged, removing it may be preferable; while living ash trees are strong and hardy, dead ones quickly become brittle and pose a danger if they are near a building, roadway, or public space.

Michael Ronayne, urban forester with the city, says Charlottesville is currently treating 37 trees that are particularly large or well-placed; in 2018, the city spent $8,600 on emerald ash borer protection. Ash trees make up roughly 2 percent of the forest mix in central Virginia, but their noble shape makes them common ornamental trees, and their loss will be felt by even casual observers. One of the city’s largest ash trees stands just behind the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society building downtown. “Losing that tree would change the entire block,” says Ronayne.

DeWitt recommends homeowners check their ash trees for signs of infestation: patches of light-colored inner bark exposed by woodpeckers seeking the tasty larvae; canopy die-back; sprouting from the tree’s base; and small, D-shaped holes in the bark where borers have eaten their way out. If you see these signs—or aren’t sure whether it’s an ash tree—hire an arborist to evaluate the damage and outline options.

Infected ash trees can be salvaged as firewood, which should be burned that season before ash borer pupae emerge again in the spring—but to prevent spreading the infestation, don’t sell the wood. Homeowners buying firewood should purchase wood from their immediate area, or make sure it’s labeled heat-treated.

Spending money to protect a tree may not seem to make financial sense, but it’s worth it, say many homeowners. “My parents’ house in Charlottesville has a huge ash tree, hanging over the entire house,” says Van Yahres. “It’s being treated, and it’s still up. If we had to take that tree down, it wouldn’t feel like home.”

Correction: The print version of this story reported that the city spent $86,000 on ash borer treatment; in fact, it spent $8,600.

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Magazines Unbound

Bugged: Non-native insects threaten Virginia’s ash trees and fruit harvests.

Recognizing the threat to Virginia’s wine, beer, cider, and fruit yields, the VDOF and Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services undertook an aggressive lanternfly eradication program that started in May and runs until October 31.

With its metallic-green shell and wings, the emerald ash borer looks almost like a smaller version of a brooch your great-grandmother pinned to her lapel. But it’s not a decoration—it’s a killer. The beetle lays its eggs inside ash trees, producing voracious larvae that deplete their hosts of the water and nutrients they need to survive.

Initially detected in Michigan in 2002—a suspected stowaway in wooden packing crates arriving from its native Asia—the borer showed up the following year in Fairfax County, Virginia. In the ensuing decade and a half, it has spread across the northeast, destroying tens of millions of ash trees. A major infestation this summer in Richmond and Henrico County moved the state to issue a quarantine, that is, a prohibition against moving ash firewood across county lines or bringing it in from out of state.

“By not moving the firewood, we’re actually reducing possible exposure to the insect,” says Lara Johnson, a program manager with the Virginia Department of Forestry. “If there’s a valuable ash tree in your yard, you should get it treated.”

Pesticides are available online, at garden centers, or in big-box stores. But Johnson recommends hiring arborists to do the job, because, as certified applicators, they have both the expertise and access to more concentrated treatments. She adds that introducing a systemic remedy before or very shortly after exposure is much more successful than trying to save an infested tree.

A less prevalent but potentially much more destructive non-native species, the spotted lanternfly, sparked a quarantine order this summer in Frederick County and the City of Winchester, about 100 miles north of Charlottesville. Indigenous to China, India, and Vietnam, this planthopper (it has wings as an adult but moves mostly by crawling and jumping) was first discovered in the U.S. in 2014, and now also lives in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. It eats more than 70 species, including stone-fruit trees like peaches and plums, as well as apples, grapes, and hops.

Recognizing the threat to Virginia’s wine, beer, cider, and fruit yields, the VDOF and Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services undertook an aggressive eradication program that started in May and runs until October 31. Elaine Lidholm of the VDACS says crews hit the lanternfly’s favorite roost, the tree of heaven, with a chemical herbicide and insecticide, and followed up with bioinsecticide applications. “Treatments will likely be repeated,” she says.

Lidholm advises that anyone who finds one (or more) of the critters outside of Winchester or Frederick County should capture a specimen and send an email to spottedlanternfly@vdacs.virginia.gov. The sample needs to be submitted for identification and verification,” Lidholm says.

If that sounds like a hassle, just imagine your life without Virginia-made beer, wine, cider, and peaches. See? We knew you’d understand—and help out if you can.

Recognizing the threat to Virginia’s wine, beer, cider, and fruit yields, the VDOF and Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services undertook an aggressive lanternfly eradication program that started in May and runs until October 31.

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In brief: Summer shootings, buggy menace and more

One of UVA's many ash trees gets innoculated against the emerald ash borer. Dan Addison

Beetles on the brain

As the invasive emerald ash tree borer creeps its way into Central Virginia, UVA groundskeepers are suiting up for battle—kind of.

First discovered in the U.S. in 2002, this beetle has been detected in most of the eastern half of the country. After it lays its eggs inside ash trees, its larvae feed on the insides of the tree and disrupt its ability to transport water and nutrients, which kills the tree.

Hundreds of ash trees make up about 70 percent of the foliage on the Lawn on UVA Grounds. To prepare for an almost certain attack, the university’s trees are inoculated every two years, and just last month, Sten Cempe and a team from Big O Tree and Lawn Service were on site to inject beetle-killing emamectin benzoate into the bases of them. The inoculations are a temporary fix, but should work until a natural predator can be found to kill the borers, according to Cempe.

You oughta know

Emerald ash borers:

  • are native to Asia
  • have no natural predators in the U.S.
  • have killed hundreds of millions of ash trees in North America
  • have caused the USDA to enforce quarantines to prevent more infected ash trees
  • could contribute to the ash tree becoming endangered like the American chestnut, American elm and hemlock

*Information from UVA Today and the Emerald Ash Borer Information Network

 

Several shootings

Charlottesville police are investigating four incidents of shots fired around Friendship Court and the 700 block of Sixth Street SE between July 2 and 10. A juvenile was wounded July 8. Arrested were Chaz Dylan Newville early July 10 and a juvenile for a shooting that same night, and Zayquan Thomas is still wanted.

Plus column

Virginia tallies a $132 million surplus at the end of the 2017 fiscal year.

Naming rights

Congressman Tom Garrett proposes renaming two 5th District post offices for fallen servicemen: the Palmyra PO for Navy Gunner’s Mate Dakota Rigsby, who died on the USS Fitzgerald collision June 17, and the UVA PO for Army Captain Humayun Khan, who was killed in Iraq in 2004. Garrett’s first bill was to name the U.S. District Court in Charlottesville for the late SCOTUS Justice Antonin Scalia.

“It’s shaping up to be the East Coast Berkeley.”

—Jason Kessler on his August 12 Unite the Right rally in a Salting the Earth podcast

No new leads

July 14 marked the five-year anniversary of the Pherbia “Faye” Tinsley murder in which the 51-year-old left her Barracks Road home early in the morning and was found shot to death in her car on Prospect Avenue. City police are still investigating this case.

Huffstetler’s war chest

Roger Dean Huffstetler and wife Emily. Publicity photo

Democratic candidate for Virginia’s 5th Congressional District and Marine veteran Roger Dean Huffstetler raised more than $336,000 in the last financial quarter, surpassing all other non-incumbent 5th District candidates in recent history. Democrats Ben Cullop, of Albemarle County, and Leslie Cockburn, of Rappahannock County, have also joined Huffstetler, Adam Slate and Andrew Sneathern in the race.

 

 

 

 

Deadly highways

Interstate 64 and the U.S. 29/250 Bypass saw three fatalities in fewer than 24 hours, as well as a stabbing earlier in the week. A woman’s body was found in the southbound lane of U.S. 29 near the Old Ivy Road bridge around 9:30am July 15, closing the road until 1pm.  Police are seeking information, and at press time, had not released the victim’s name.

Around 6am July 16, Winston J. Smith II, 32, who worked at NBC29 and was an actor in local theater, most recently Live Arts’ production of Death of a Salesman, headed the wrong way on eastbound I-64 and crashed head-on into Troutville resident Bethany M. Franklin, 30, a Moneta firefighter. Both died at the scene at the Ivy exit at mile marker 114, and the driver of a third vehicle—a Ford F-150—was taken to UVA Medical Center with minor injuries. Smith’s green Isuzu pickup was reported earlier driving recklessly on westbound I-64, and then in an emergency crossover, according to Virginia State Police.

And on July 11, a 46-year-old Fishersville woman was found critically wounded from stab wounds to her neck and abdomen on I-64 near mile marker 101 on Afton Mountain. Her ex-boyfriend, Rodney D. Burnett, 46, of Indiana, was arrested in her car and charged with malicious wounding.