Posted on 08/28/2006 4:39:33 PM PDT by george76
Millions of mountain pine beetles are swarming the Rocky Mountains...looking for new trees to destroy.
The Colorado State Forest Service wants residents to help stop the spread of the devastating pest before the Pike and San Isabel national forests take on a brown cast like those in Summit and Grand counties.
"It's currently at an epidemic level," ...
Dead trees are a sign the forest is unhealthy; they also pose a fire risk. The U.S. Forest Service...
Trees are succumbing by the millions.
"If the beetle is successful in getting underneath the bark of the tree, mama mates and burrows up the stem of the tree, laying eggs every so often," Root said. "Those are going to hatch. Over the next winter and spring, they'll go through the life cycle and be ready to emerge as new adults next July."
As the bugs burrow in, they feed on the tree's "pipes" that feed it water and nutrients from the roots to the crown.
The bugs also carry a fungus called blue stain that clogs the tree's arteries.
"The tree will stay green until next June when it's ready to break dormancy," ...
"When it can't get water from the roots to the noodle, it's going to turn brown all of a sudden."
That's why people looking for infestations should target green trees, not brown ones.
If a tree is healthy enough, it will produce pitch, or sap, that gums up entries and pushes the beetle out.
But some aren't healthy. Signs a tree is infested include globs of tree sap that resemble popcorn, or sawdust in bark crevices and at the tree's base.
The best treatment, he said, is proper forest management, including thinning.
(Excerpt) Read more at summitdaily.com ...
* GASP! *
You mean, we're supposed to cut down trees? But cutting down trees will destroy the planet!
Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhrrrrrrrgggggghhhhh.....
It sounded like it (which is not a perjorative); I'm a sort of cross between the two.
"one would need an enormous count of these worms to do serious damage to an advanced infestation."
The point is that the beetles are propagating without nematodes while the nematodes can't propagate without beetles to eat. Mathematically that means they cannot eradicate but can only control a population.
I suppose--not know--that since the nematodes are parasitizing the grubs that their numbers will increase to match the available food source.
How effective this will be depends upon how far behind the curve one is when the nematodes are applied (breeding rate of nematodes v. beetles). It's a question of economics. I doubt that the nematodes are very good at moving large distances to find a new host without drying out or starving (which would of course, constitute nematode-cruelty; where's PETA when you need them? ;-), so, to be an effective control, one would need to cover the tree with only a few beetles in it to eat, which is an inefficient means of preventative control. If one waits until there are enough beetles to feed and propagate nematodes you are already behind the curve. IOW, it may work in your yard where you value highly each tree, but I question whether it is an economical control process on a landscape scale.
Good response, thank you. I value first-hand experience highly.
These bugs have already been south and done a lot of damage--if the trees have had plenty of water they can often survive.
I dug a couple out of my Austrian pine in my backyard, I'm in the SE Corner of WA state, close to the Idaho border... I'm going to have to get rid of the tree, it's a mess.
The Sierra Club lawyers are still filing lawsuits to prevent foresters from using science to solve these problems.
It is so bad now, that the options are very limited.
It is too bad to lose favorite trees.
To get rid of all the bugs is really tough as they are so small, they hide in branches of removed trees, and they hide in healthy looking trees.
the trees have gotten so thick and crowded that they're weak and susceptible to attack.
I did. I didn't find much that wasn't mixed in with a lot of other unrelated material.
Interesting thread re: predatory nematodes.
It boils down to money. There are millions of acres of overstocked timberlands. We scarcely have the money to treat the trees in the campgrounds. (yes, I have seen men in bunny suits spray high value campground trees with a 60' boom truck)
At some point, we will have to take responsibility for the fact that we humans have interupted the natural cycle. We cannot "wish the overcrowded trees away" nor look for a silver bullet.
The fact is that there are too many trees - too many for the land to support. If the pine beatle doesn't kill them, drought or disease will.
I say it is better to turn these trees into power or products then to let them become worm food or burn in a confligration.
I haven't had time to read this thread yet, but I agree with this last post :~)
Thanks for the pings :~)
Thank you.
.
Nah, the tree is girded and has a pipe hammered through it, for what reason, I do not know... It's ugly, I plan on planting some new trees by it and leaving it for a while.
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