06/01/07 Setting the Trap

Setting the Trap. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Special trees are being used as decoys in the Portland area this spring to help trap a wood-boring beetle that has not yet been found in Oregon. It's called the emerald ash borer, a metallic green beetle about a half inch long. It has been found in the Great Lakes region. And it's something Oregon would rather not see. JOHNSON: The emerald ash borer kills ash trees. I've been to the Detroit area and seen many substantial, large old ash trees just devastated- actually killed by this beetle. Kathleen Johnson of the Oregon Department of Agriculture's Insect Pest Prevention and Management Program says the larvae of the beetle burrow deep into the ash tree and kills it. Again, it has not been found in Oregon. Still, ODA insect trappers keep conducting visual inspections. This year, they are using a new method called a trap tree. JOHNSON: One of the nurseries here in Oregon has donated 40 ash trees that are at a susceptible stage- they are large enough to be attacked by emerald ash borer- and we've placed them at sites in the Portland metro area. These trap trees are girdled and wrapped in purple cellophane covered with a sticky substance. If there are any emerald ash borers in the area, they will be attracted to the purple and the stressed ash trees. Those trap trees will be checked throughout the summer. Hopefully, Oregon can avoid the emerald ash borer one more year. Johnson says even though the insect pest has not been found in Oregon, it would not be all that difficult for it to arrive, either through solid wood packing material from China, nursery stock from infested U.S. states, or even firewood that has been moved from those states into Oregon: JOHNSON: Actually we are quite concerned about the introduction of emerald ash borer both from its native area in Asia and also the Great Lake states. Johnson says emerald ash borer kills ash trees and is something we don't want to have in Oregon. JOHNSON: We have many ash trees both in the urban environments and also in riparian areas- the green ashes. We have an ash tree called the Oregon ash that would be very susceptible to emerald ash borer. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.