Glenwood Tree Experts

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For several years, homeowners and landscapers in Southeast Michigan were concerned about the loss of their ash trees to “ash yellows, ” thinking that the problem was due to a combination of disease, drought, pollution, acid rain, and poor soils. The trees exhibited a top-down dieback, yellowing leaves, dense sprouting from roots and trunks ( “epicormic shoots ”), and other signs of tree stress typical of ash decline or other native phloem borers such as two-lined chestnut borer. One-third to one-half of the affected ash trees ’ branches died within a year, and most of the canopy was dead within two years. The Emerald Ash Borer (EAB), Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire (Coleoptera: Buprestidae), was identified as the causative agent in ash tree mortality and decline in the Detroit metropolitan area. This beetle was unknown in North America until June 2002, when it was discovered killing ash trees in southeast Michigan and neighboring Windsor, Ontario, Canada, located across the river from Detroit, Michigan. Before the end of the month, the Michigan Department of Agriculture issued a quarantine of six southeastern counties (Livingston, Macomb, Monroe, Oakland, Washtenaw and Wayne) to prevent and control the spread of EAB. Under the quarantine, ash trees, branches, logs, and firewood could not be moved from the affected counties. The phase of decline in individual ash trees examined during survey activities suggests that EAB could have been established in Michigan and Canada almost a decade ago. APHIS worked with cooperators in the development of a cooperative strategy to contain and ultimately eradicate EAB. Control efforts consist of removing all host trees within a half mile radius of an infested tree, using sentinel detection or trap trees for survey, and conducting visual surveys to delimit the area of infestation. While the survey continued in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, indicating that their infestation was more wide spread than initially anticipated, early in 2003 EAB larvae also were detected on four residential properties in Lucas County, Ohio. Then in August, more beetles were positively identified from the city of Hicksville in Defiance County. Subsequent infestations have also been discovered in fourteen additional counties in Ohio. Neighboring Indiana discovered their first EAB infestation in April 2004 in ash trees located in a Steuben County campground, approximately 40 miles north of Fort Wayne. With continued survey in this state, the infestation has been discovered in another six counties. Both Indiana and Ohio are conducting state-wide surveys in 2006 to determine the extent of their EAB infestations. On June 9, 2006, APHIS confirmed the detection of Emerald Ash Borer in Illinois for the first time. A homeowner in a rural subdivision near Lily Lake, about 40 miles west of Chicago in central Kane County, discovered the beetle and alerted APHIS officials. APHIS and Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDOA) officials immediately began delimiting survey activities to determine the extent of the EAB infestation in Kane County.

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