Helping Prevent Invasive Pests

Helping Prevent Invasive Pests. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

If you are like my wife and I, we love to find new plants on our travels around the U.S. Will it grow and thrive in the northwest climate? It is an exciting mystery but also one that is a bit foolhardy since we have no way of knowing whether or not the plant is free of invasive pests or disease. That is why the Oregon Department of Agriculture is urging people to buy local with something as innocuous as firewood.

HILBURN:  Firewood is becoming more and more a pathway for moving invasive species. That is not a good thing. So the take home message is, buy your firewood locally and burn it locally.

Areas outside of Oregon that have had invasive species problems often have dead or dying trees just ripe for firewood. The problem is those trees have died because of such exotic pests as sudden oak death, emerald ash borer, or Asian longhorned beetle. These are invasive species Oregon doesn't want established.

HILBURN:  If you do buy firewood from a little further away and you burn it right away, that's much better than storing it. The problem comes when people bring in firewood from a distance and then they store it and don't burn it all right away. Then whatever beetles are in there can bore out, or whatever diseases, they can sporulate and the spores can fly off in the wind.

Some invasive species have been transported hundreds of miles back east through the movement of firewood, which is now considered a major pathway for moving unwanted bugs and diseases. Hilburn says there is plenty of local firewood for sale for safe burning this fall and winter. Just verify that it originated in Oregon. Hilburn says looks can be deceiving when it comes to the dangers associated with non-Oregon firewood.

HILBURN: Firewood looks like its dead. But the bugs that are in it or the diseases go right on living. They are adapted to dead and dying trees, that's what they do for a living. Just because you cut it and split it into small pieces doesn't mean that they die.

Hilburn has basic advice for Oregonians who purchase and use firewood this fall and winter:

HILBURN: We'd like for everybody to just become aware that firewood is a pathway for moving invasives, and it's easy to fix that pathway. Just buy local. There's plenty of it around. Just buy the stuff that is produced locally and burn it right here.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.