Pests and disease

Volunteer program combats hemlock wooly adelgid

smccreary — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:20:02 -0500

Volunteers have proven to be a powerful tool in the battle against the hemlock wooly adelgid in the forest at Cumberland Falls State Resort Park. A new campaign to continue treatments to the trees asks for citizens to adopt a tree and chemically treat it.

Invasive plants could increase with climate change

smccreary — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 15:24:06 -0500

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst say climate change will boost U.S. demand for imported drought- and heat-tolerant plants, at the risk of raising imports of more invasive species.

USDA Forest Service unveils invasive species plan

smccreary — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 15:30:50 -0500

The U.S. Forest Service announced this week the publication of its first ever national-level direction on the management of invasive species across the National Forest System. This policy adds new requirements for agency-wide integration of invasive species prevention, early detection and rapid response, control, restoration, and collaborative activities across NFS lands.

Despite beetles, optimism about Black Hills forests

smccreary — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:41:19 -0500

An editorial about forests in South Dakota's Black Hills says that despite the mountain pine beetle epidemic, there are several reasons to be optimistic about the ponderosa pine forests, including the benefits of thinning to promote forest health and resistance.

Task force will study dying forests in Eastern Washington

smccreary — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 10:49:23 -0500

Washington State is convening a committee of foresters, scientists and other experts in an effort to contain a pending forest health epidemic east of the Cascades. Over the next 15 years, state projections indicate that elevated tree mortality could occur across 2.8 million acres of Eastern Washington, or roughly one-third of the landscape.

Asian bug with a taste for kudzu -- and soybeans

smccreary — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 16:21:23 -0400

Could Megacopta cribraria -- the kudzu bug -- be the perfect predator for the South's invasive kudzu vine? The bug, which has spread from North Carolina to Alabama, is an invasive species also, unfortunately. Though it has the potential to consume up to a third of the eight million acres of the kudzu that blankets the South over the next decade, the bug is also chewing up soybean stalks.

One million acres of southern forests protected from pine beetle

smccreary — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 11:56:47 -0400

The U.S. Forest Service has protected one million acres of forest through its Southern Pine Beetle Prevention Program. The milestone was reached this fall, on private land in New Kent County, VA. The program spans 13 states and crosses boundaries from privately owned land to state and national forests, aiming to prevent future outbreaks and losses.

Seiridium, fungal killer of cypresses originated in California

smccreary — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 12:07:21 -0400

For the last five years, scientists have been on the trail of a fungus, Seiridium, that has caused a deadly epidemic in the world’s forests. Cypress canker disease has felled up to 95 percent of the cypress trees — a family that includes junipers — growing in some timber plantations and forests across the globe.

Southern pine beetle endangers NJ Pine Barrens

smccreary — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 12:19:48 -0400

Southern pine beetles march farther north each year leaving trails of dead pine trees in their wake, and moving deeper into the pitch pine forests of the Jersey Pine Barrens. The invasion could result in considerable damage, changing the ecology of the Pine Barrens.State Forester Lynn Flemming said the beetles destroyed 14,000 acres of pine forest in the state last year.

South Dakota warning against 'miracle cures' for pine beetle

smccreary — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 13:48:37 -0400

The South Dakota Department of Agriculture is warning Black Hills residents about so-called "miracle cures" that promise to save a tree after it has become infested with mountain pine beetles. State Forester Ray Sowers says an increasing number of methods are being offered, but only effective way to protect a pine tree from the beetles is to spray the trunk of a tree before the tree has been infested.