Tag Archives: emerald ash borer
Emerald ash borer in Denton
When Denton urban forester Haywood Morgan moved to Texas from Milwaukee, Wisconsin six years ago he thought he was leaving the devastating emerald ash borer behind. Instead the ash borer found him again. Morgan became reacquainted with EAB this month during a trip to look at some sick ash trees along a Denton, Texas street. After inspecting ash borer-like damage on the 11 year old ash, his experienced eye caught a glimpse of shiny green. A quick grab and he had it–what appears to be the first… Read More →
Good Sams discover exotic borer in Tarrant County
Last summer Texas Parks and Wildlife biologist, Sam Kieschnick, was going through pictures on iNaturalist and saw a picture of an insect taken by someone he knew. It was a shot of a shiny green beetle that 10-year-old nature enthusiast, Sam Hunt, had snapped in his own driveway near Eagle Mountain Lake in west Tarrant County. Something about the picture bothered biologist Sam, so he forwarded it to colleagues who were experts in a group of insects called buprestid beetles. The expert consensus seemed to be that 10-year-old… Read More →
Girding our loins for emerald ash borer
The emerald ash borer (EAB) that has devastated ash trees throughout the Ohio River valley and Great Lakes region has finally made its way to the Lone Star State. So far the beetle has been found in only one location in Harrison County, next to Caddo Lake; but over the next few years it will continue to spread. As it does, it will slowly change the face of our native forests as well as our urban tree landscape. To prepare for the inevitable changes, Holly Jarvis with Texas A&M… Read More →
Emerald ash borer enters Texas
If you’re a Texan and haven’t heard about an insect called the emerald ash borer, that’s about to change. The emerald ash borer (EAB) is an invasive beetle that feeds almost exclusively on ash (Fraxinus spp.) and has been slowly spreading through the eastern and midwest states from Michigan where it was first discovered in 2002. On May 23 the Texas Forest Service, along with the U.S. Forest Service, announced that four EAB beetles had been discovered on a trap in Harrison County, TX along the Louisiana border. Although… Read More →
Recognizing emerald ash borer damage
This summer my assistant spent the better part of her summer hanging and checking over 100 purple sticky traps to determine whether Texas has been invaded yet by the dreaded emerald ash borer (EAB), Agrilus planipennis. The beetle has already been detected in neighboring states of Arkansas and Louisiana; but much to our relief, after thousands of miles of winding county roads and many hundreds of traps, neither she nor our colleagues in the Texas Forest Service or Sam Houston State University found a single EAB. However, this beetle is elusive. And… Read More →
Webinar on emerald ash borer available
If you live anywhere in east Texas and have an ash tree you love, you may want to check out this new webinar on emerald ash borer. The webinar reviews some history and background on the new invasive pest that is likely to enter Texas very soon. I was invited to present on this topic by Dr. Mengmeng Gu as part of her Spring Quick-Bite webinar series this week. So fair warning that you will be listening to me for 43 minutes. The webinar goes over some basic biology and how… Read More →
Borer gets a little closer
What’s shiny and Godzilla green, easily fits on a penny, and has resulted in the death of tens of millions of trees over the past dozen years? If you’ve been paying attention to this blog, you might guess the emerald ash borer (EAB). Over the past few years my colleagues and I have been involved with a monitoring project designed to detect the first EAB entering north Texas. During this time I’ve watched the beetles inch closer to Texas–moving from its initial point of invasion in Michigan throughout the Ohio River valley and… Read More →
Possible impact of Emerald Ash Borer in Texas
Last summer the Arkansas Agriculture Department and USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced that emerald ash borer (EAB) had been discovered in five counties in southwest Arkansas, bringing this pest only one county away from Texas. Despite the fact that it feeds only on ash (trees in the genus Fraxinus), the EAB is considered to be the most destructive forest pest ever seen in north America. Because it is getting so close to Texas, I thought I would speculate a little about what impact EAB might… Read More →
Emerald ash borer discovered in Kansas
As I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts, Texas has been conducting a survey for the past several years to look for the first signs of the highly destructive emerald ash borer. Although we have beetle samples from this summer currently being evaluated by USDA/APHIS, we have so far seen no sign of the beetle in Texas. The folks in Kansas, however, have not been so fortunate. The Kansas Department of Agriculture, working with the USDA, has just reported the first known case of EAB in the Kansas City,… Read More →
Putting out the Unwelcome Mat for borers
Since early spring Dr. Charlie Helpert has tirelessly driven the country roads of north Texas, and knocking on doors in the area, in a effort to make Texas trees safer from insect attack. The enemy is the emerald ash borer, and the weapon is an early detection network of traps and volunteers trained to spot this foreign invader that threatens ash trees throughout the eastern U.S. I wrote about this project last year and so far the news has been good. No ash borer yet in Texas. But… Read More →