Treating Ash Trees

[Beast12]

I am just wondering what everyone's opinion is about injecting ash trees for the emerald ash borer. There has been an out of town company running around our city quoting about $400 per tree to inject them. They drill holes about 3 inches apart about 1 foot up the trunk all the way around and then inject them. After they are done they fill the holes (with what appears to be) silicone. They give no guarantee to the customer.

Another local company has started doing it as well (not sure the procedure used) and are charging around $150 per tree. Is this something to get into? We are not a company that is looking to make a quick buck unless it is something that is HONESTLY helpful to the tree.

Any comments appreciated.

-Matt

 

[JeffL]

First of all, what are they injecting the trees with?

If its anything like the Mauget products, its not 3" spacing, its DBH of the tree divided by 2 to determine the number of capsules to use.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

3 inches is pretty close and may do a bit of damage. Anyone want the TryPhys-101 lecture?

The MedCap treatment is 6 inches apart and spiraling around the trunk, with a 3/8th inch bit. Too much for me! I did my Mom's birch when I was just starting out as a spray tech and you can still see the wounds 15 years latter. Hate it.

IMO any treatment not at the basal flair is bad, any trunk injection should be a last resort. Unless you are in a containment zone, I think soil injections should be done. Maybe trunk sprays with the Bark Oil...

 

[Ed Roland]

"Safari Insecticide from Valent Professional Products has been granted a special local needs (SLN) label to control emerald ash borer (EAB) in Michigan"...

Link to the rest of the article in Lawn & Landscape

Couple of notes I caught in the article:
*It doesn't sound like we will be able to use it yet outside of MI or OH. Check your own State regulations. (Please let us know what you find) Here is a list of Safari Labels from Valent
*It must be applied in the spring, as where Merit would be applied in the early summer. If infestation is knocking on the door, and I get a call requesting treatment in mid June, I think I will still want Merit 75 in my tool box...
*I am guessing it will stain the bark (nothing the article said, just that penetrating oil tends to do so). But stains are better than death.

In general: Having been involved in EAB pesticide trials since we first became aware of this pest, my strong sense is that there is no treatment that will reliably save most trees in most situations. In some trials in some years, certain techniques will kill up to 80 or 90% of larvae. But we have scant data on what this means in terms of long-term survival of treated trees. We really wish we'd had few year's lead time to get the research done and the techniques perfected!

David Cappaert
[email protected]

Taken from New Emerald Ash Borer Treatment Arborist Site 11-06

and finally...

"There has been much confusion surrounding the question of whether insecticides are an effective option for EAB. The answer is: “It depends on the objective.” When the objective is to protect trees from being killed, insecticides have been effective. However, when the objective is to eradicate an EAB infestation to keep it from spreading, insecticides are not effective, which is why they have not been used as an eradication tool by the Cooperative EAB Program"

Ohio State University Extension Fact Sheet

 

[Ed Roland]

BTRL is performing trials on SAFARI as we speak. Maybe some of that data will trickle down.

 

[ATH]

To the specific situaion at hand:
Sounds to me like they don't know what they are doing and they are over-charging to do it. EVERY injection product I have seen says inject at root flare. Of course it is easier to drill holes standing instead of on your hands and knees so who cares if it does't work as well.

More generally:
I have been telling people they need to put the "numbers in the equation" and make their own decision. The parts that need to be considered include:
*Is the tree healthy or is it a tree that is in bad shape even without EAB?
*Is EAB already in the tree and if so, how bad? Some companies have been advertising that their product can kill EAB in a tree that has been half killed. OK...so there is no more EAB in the tree - should we really expect that tree to be unaffected by the fact that it lost half of its canopy in the last year?
*Cost of removal and replacement.
*How badly will the tree be missed in the landscape? A beautiful tree that sits alone in a front yard is more significant than one modest ash tree among many other healthy non-ash trees.
*Realize the cost of treatment is going to be incurred every year (at least for now). Tre-age is saying it will last 2 years, but I am not so sure of that...need more research to convince me - and if it does I am a little concerned about how much chemical is coming off in the leaves and what happens to it in the fall.
*Cannot promise long-term success because we have only known the bug has existed for 6 years so it is impossible to say the treatments will still be working in 20-30+ years. We have a pretty good idea, but nothing has been proven.
*What else am I missing?

If somebody still wants treatment after all of that, I am recommending soil drench with imadacloprid (Quai-Pro 2F is what I am using right now). It costs me about $0.90 per inch of dbh at the maximum labeled rate. My next choice would be Safari. This is not my prefered choice for 2 reasons: timing (covered in the quote above); and because it won't penetrate the thicker bark of larger trees as well. It is more water soluable than imadacloprid though... I have ruled out injections for now. I'l echo John Paul Sanborn's concerns about wounding the tree every year to treat it. Imadacloprid is really delivered just as well through soil drench as injection in most situations. I guess if I wanted to knock them out today, I'd consider a one time treatment with bidrin then follow-up with annual imadacloprid treatments. Tree-age is not in my tool box. Besides the general concern about injections: *Last I checked my cost for the chemical is $4.50 per inch---ouch! *As I understand, the research for this was done on golf courses...anybody wanna guess what that golf course was probably using to control their grubs? *I am still unclear what treatment schedule is needed. As I said above, if it lasts 2 years, how much am I getting in the leaves? If it lasts one year that is really expensive.

Bottom line is: treatment is an option, but be informed. Folks will make a lot of money off of it in the short term. In my opinion, the ones still making money in this industry in the long-run will be the ones who are educated and honest with their clients - not the ones injecting 3' high and filling the holes with silicone. What is more important: quick buck or long-term trust?

 

[mckeetree]

Bottom line is this icon is way over used. I think people that use it probably look like that if you put them on the spot.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Cannot promise long-term success because we have only known the bug has existed for 6 years so it is impossible to say the treatments will still be working in 20-30+ years. We have a pretty good idea, but nothing has been proven.

I think we can promise long term control, because there will be other products coming out later.... and there is always MetaSytox to fall back on.

I think it has been well shown that eradication is a pipe dream. Containment on very isolated outbreaks. So far they have not announced a source for the MKE Metro area pocket.

As stated above, treatment should be reserved for very healthy specimen quality trees. Though we have areas here where green and white ash make up over 90% of the canopy.

In 10 years this will be like DED, we will see it move here and there, threes that showed no sign for years will suddenly collapse.

Ash seeds are so fertile, that there will always be wild populations to breed more of the bugs. Since 1 inch saplings can host the larvae, it may be something like chestnut, turned into a scrub tree or bush.