What you should know about your ash trees
As you may have already heard from many sources Emerald Ash Borer, commonly known as EAB, has been detected in St. Paul on May 14th. This coming just one month after it was detected one mile from the Minnesota boarder in Victory, Wisconsin. Emerald Ash Borer is a major threat to our over 900 million ash trees in Minnesota. Many of these 900 million trees can be found in the yards of homeowners as they were planted in place of American elm trees in the 70’s and being planted right up to this year.
It was thought that the ash tree was safe from disease but now we are faced with a different reality. Emerald Ash Borer was brought over on shipping crates from Asia and arrived in Michigan. Since its arrival this pest has laid claim to millions of ash trees and has spread like wildfire. Last years estimation by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture was that EAB would not be in Minnesota for 5-10 years at the current rate of infestation. This was completely disproved when the discovery made and the damage found suggests that EAB has been in Minnesota for four years already.
So now that you know it is here you should know two things. First, you must be able to properly identify that you indeed have an ash tree. The leaves are very distinct. They are the shape of a football and are around 3” in length. The bark is linear moving in a vertical pattern and the lines stick out about ½”. The information given varies based on age of tree obviously. The best way to identify your tree is to search online. A website that does a good job to help you identify any tree in Minnesota is www.arbordoctor.net.
The second thing that you should do once you have identified that you have an ash tree is find out if treatment is a good option for you. If you consider your tree to be of value to you and you would like to keep it then treatment will be a great option. There are several different options when it comes to treatment. Base soak, root injections, spraying, and trunk injections are common method of treatment. The recommended method is trunk injection for the following reason. The chemical that kills off the EAB is directly given to the tree. The method is very similar to getting a shot at the doctor’s office.
When to treat for this disease is also important information to know. Anytime from now until the fall are all great times to treat your tree. Most treatments are not that effective if the tree has already been infested so pre-treatment will be important in saving any valuable ash trees. Look for professional companies with pesticide applicators licenses to give you advice on what to do with your ash trees and any other trees that may be harmed by disease.
