Published: June 07, 2009 12:21 am      

Tiny bug is huge threat to the versatile ash tree

Anyone who has ever hit a ball with a wooden bat, dug a hole in the ground or enjoyed shade from the fine-leafed foliage of an ash tree should be alarmed by a green metallic beetle that could ruin the species.

“It’s not a matter of if, but when” the emerald ash borer will hit the area and devastate these stately native American trees, said Michael Barton, an Ebensburg-based forester.

“It’s a beautiful tree, very pretty in the fall,” Barton said. “The wood is similar to oak but with a straighter grain. It’s very sturdy.”

Ash trees produce hardwoods adaptable for many uses, including baseball bats, hockey sticks, canoe paddles, and shovel and ax handles.

The emerald ash borer, a beetle native to China and eastern Asia, likely arrived in North America a decade ago hidden in wood packaging materials.

First detected in 2002 in Michigan and Ontario, Canada, it has killed or impacted more than 40 million trees in the north central and eastern United States.

By 2007, it had spread to Butler and Allegheny counties. Last year it turned up in Mercer County and in February, it was detected to the east in Lewistown, Mifflin County.

The insect is now doing its damage in 11 states, reaching as far west as Wisconsin and Minnesota.

“It also been found in West Virginia, south of Fulton County, so Cambria County, you’re basically surrounded,” said Sven-Erik Spichiger of the state Department of Agriculture.

The beetle bores through the ash bark and feeds below the surface, preventing even healthy trees from drawing up nutrients, said Greg Hoover, an entomologist from Penn State. The impact can be visible soon after the beetles move in, and a tree can be dead within three years.

“It’s a significant loss,” Spichiger said of ash trees that already have been killed.

“What we’re looking at is a wholesale loss in many places.”

One way the beetle may be traveling is in firewood transported by campers and hunters from one area to another.

The state has launched a billboard and radio campaign urging people not to move firewood and has imposed a quarantine restricting movement of ash in the infected counties.

The agriculture department is one of a number of entities working to slow the spread of the beetle. Eradication does not appear an option.

The insect’s impact is so devastating that experts, including Hoover, compare it to the blight that wiped out the American chestnut a century ago.

“It’s not looking good. Louisville Sluggers are very concerned,” Hoover said of the Kentucky company that has been turning out ash bats since 1884.

“Eradication, maybe not. But we’re looking to slow the spread and save as many trees as possible.”

Hoover is a Pennsylvania representative on the EAB Task Force, a multistate group hoping to develop beetle-resistant ash species and integrated pest management to help control the insect.

Meanwhile, monitoring continues. Cambria and Somerset counties are two of 15 statewide where purple beetle traps have been installed.

“It is not a box kite trapped in a tree, so leave it alone,” said Penn State’s Chuck Gill.