Ashes to Ashes: State to destroy young trees in survey for ash borer

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The Illinois Department of Agriculture will sacrifice some trees this fall to save the rest from the emerald ash borer, an invasive Asian pest that has killed more than 20 million ash trees since it was first discovered in the United States five years ago. The department of agriculture is conducting a &#8220destructive bark peeling survey” throughout northeastern Illinois looking for the tiny green pest, spokesman Jeff Squibb said. The survey involves felling small young ashes on public land and systematically stripping their bark to look for signs of the bug's larvae. &#8220It's actually the larvae that causes the tree to die,” Squibb said. &#8220The adult beetle can cause damage, but the larvae tunnel under the bark and chew on the wood of the tree, creating these tunnels. Eventually, the tunnels will prevent the tree from taking moisture and nutrients from the soil up to its branches.” Mark Cinnamon, the state's emerald ash borer program manager, said the survey is being done in every county from Interstate 74 north - 34 counties in all, totaling more than 20,000 square miles. &#8220The goal of the program is to survey one tree for every four square miles,” he said. &#8220We'll be surveying approximately 5,200 trees.” To date, the slow-moving ash borer has not been found in DeKalb County, but it appeared last summer in northern Cook County and in Lily Lake in Kane County, about eight miles east of Sycamore. Those counties have been under a quarantine since last year that prevents wood from being removed from the area. Cinnamon said no new surveys will be started until after mid-September, when the insect's flight season ends. He said trees for the DeKalb County survey have already been selected in county, township and city public rights of way. Privately owned trees are not considered for the survey. &#8220(The trees) need to be very easy to access, and we prefer trees about 8 inches in diameter and breast height,” Cinnamon said. &#8220We prefer to use trees that are stressed or in poor condition.” Cinnamon said a crew comes in to remove the trees, which are tagged with coordinates from a Global Positioning System, or GPS, before being taken to a centralized survey location. Workers then strip all the bark from the tree, looking for emerald ash borer larvae, the tunnels they chew, or the distinctive D-shaped exit holes they make when they emerge from the tree as adults. If signs of an infestation are found, the GPS coordinates allow the department to pinpoint exactly where it began. Squibb said that while the department does not like to destroy the trees, it is the most accurate way to determine if the larger ash tree population is at risk. &#8220The reason the survey is being done is because the beetle is very difficult to detect,” he said. &#8220It's very small, and the trees themselves can be infested for three to five years before they start showing signs of distress. ... Just driving around looking at ash trees is not very reliable. The so-called destructive survey is a much more reliable means of determining if the tree is infested.” Dana Herra can be reached at dherra@daily-chronicle.com.