Bark beetles

[JRoland]

So, here in Northern California, a large quantity of pines are dying. It used to be, get a call to go look at a job and there would be one or two dead pines. Maybe they dug a new septic, maybe it was a previously weakened tree, you get the idea. Now, I get calls where every pine tree in the yard is dead. I was reading in a local newspaper, 100 million pines are dead / dying in the Sierra Nevadas. My question is this: so if the conditions have been ideal for a number of years for maximum bark beetle reproduction, what will stop the beetles? From what I understand, even the approaching El Niño ( hopefully) will not do much, as it will just give some trees resources to better fight off the attacks. Will the amounts of beetles here now and the conditions being what they are, will this just continue until they run out of food and we have stands of pure incense-cedars or California black oaks? Or is there a balancing mechanism that will come into play soon? Catastrophic wildfire? We have already been having these. Just looking to kick this around a little bit with folks.

 

[Raintree]

Last year SPB just entered my area of operation, so I'm new to this show. Been finding & treating mostly Scots pines and some spruce.
Some good info here... http://www.barkbeetles.org/spb/spbbook/Chapt10.html

 

[Jed1124]

As to your question regarding what can be done to stop these pests..... In the final analysis biological controls for large scale infestations like yours are the only answere. The forest service can fog whole areas and it's only putting a bandaid on a symptom.
Like rain, I've just started dealing with spb here. Scots and spruce as well. Time will tell but we sure can't spray/inject every tree in the state. We need a good virus, bacteria, or wasp that is self sustaining to really handle invasive like eab and spb. But then that can be opening another can o worms....

 

[JRoland]

The governor of California declared a state of emergency on Friday, in response to "unprecedented" tree mortality. New estimate is 22 million dead trees at this time. Not sure where the 100 million figure came from but 22 million is the current estimate.

 

[ATH]

I assume a lot of this is related to drought?

Fire suppression and lack of logging have most likely made matters worse. I don't have first hand experience, but if my understanding is correct, these are stands that would have periodic catastrophic fires. So, you'd have a few thousand acres of young vigorous trees here, then some older stagnated trees over there, something in between there, etc... Now it is all nearly the same age. If fire (or logging) had been regenerating these stands periodically, perhaps they wouldn't all be so vulnerable at the same time???

Controlling a pest in that many trees just isn't going to happen, so you have to switch from "tree pest management" thinking to "landscape management" thinking. What made these trees vulnerable and can that be reversed? If not...perhaps it is the "new norm"?

 

[JRoland]

That's kind of what I was thinking in the first place. We are in a four year drought. The forest ecosystem as a whole is overcrowded and trees are competing for nonexistent resources. I'm thinking the population of beetles is so out of control, what is going to suppress it? I'm wondering like jed1124 says about a new species introduction or biological control but that can get out of hand as well.

 

[Jed1124]

Last year SPB just entered my area of operation, so I'm new to this show. Been finding & treating mostly Scots pines and some spruce.
Some good info here... http://www.barkbeetles.org/spb/spbbook/Chapt10.html

Interesting article. I noticed all chemical controls included nasty oganophosohate insecticided. My local ag station is recommending bifen or permethrin at high rates for trunk and foliage apps. Arbor jet has been marketing tree age for spb as well.
These monoculture plantations are part of what allows these pests to become so prolific.

 

[Raintree]

Attended a talk on SPB during our summer CTPA meeting. From what I gathered there is no effective biological control in the pipe line.
We have been treating with dinotefuran. I think the local AG station is recommending pyrethroids due to homeowner applications.

 

[Jed1124]

Lol I could have been sitting next to you at that meeting and not known it.
Are you doing bark drench or soil drench with the dino? I'd like to consider using it for next year.

 

[Raintree]

Jed, it's possible we might have been at the same table. Been a member of CTPA since 1987, also a board member of the Connecticut's Notable Trees Project.
The lady given the SPB seminar was very difficult to understand with her strong far eastern accent. I'm sure I missed some of her presentation.
I prefer the bark application over soil drench, soaking soil with concentrated insecticide leads to peoples false perception issues.

 

[Jed1124]

Jed, it's possible we might have been at the same table. Been a member of CTPA since 1987, also a board member of the Connecticut's Notable Trees Project.
The lady given the SPB seminar was very difficult to understand with her strong far eastern accent. I'm sure I missed some of her presentation.
I prefer the bark application over soil drench, soaking soil with concentrated insecticide leads to peoples false perception issues.

She was kinda cute though....

 

[Jed1124]

I thought she was Spanish lol

 

[JRoland]

Last year SPB just entered my area of operation, so I'm new to this show. Been finding & treating mostly Scots pines and some spruce.
Some good info here... http://www.barkbeetles.org/spb/spbbook/Chapt10.html

Interesting reading. Here we are dealing with mountain pine beetle and western pine beetle. I did pick up a fairly informative brochure at my local forest service office, shared with a couple clients and it helped me explain to them what was happening to their trees. I'll try to figure out if there's a link to it online and post that. In the meantime, enjoying the learning/ discussion.

 

[JRoland]

www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5384837.pdf

 

[beastmaster]

In our local mountains we started having problems with bàrk Beatles in the late 70's. Programmes were implicated to stop or slow down the damage being done to our forest. Pines with active bàrk beetle infestations were cut down and sprayed with lindain. In National Forest areas cut and scatter was used, keeping all slash below 2 ft. high ( bàrk beetles are poor flyers).
The effects of this war to curb the beetle has had one effect. If you drive through crestline or lake arrowhead the pines are mostly gone. Cedars have full run and grow like weeds and you hardly ever see any squirrels any more..

 

[JRoland]

A yard I'm working in now has been reduced to only incense-cedar trees. I have a feeling it's going to be more of a shift towards that pretty soon. Dead trees all over the neighborhood where we are working....

 

[DHeywood]

Hi all,
Just resurrecting this topic, since the Pine Beetle epidemic is just such a threat to us all. It's a continent-wide infestation. I'd like to see if we can really work on a solution. I realize that this is not an easy task, and there have been very few treatments that work. But, I am hopeful nonetheless.
Communities in Nevada County, Northern California (where I live) are now experiencing the death of large stands of pine. Without cooperation, the infestation will spread. I'm posting here in hopes of finding more solutions. Even wild ideas. Sometimes that's what needs to be done. Thanks for any and all input.

 

[JRoland]

This is what almost every job I've gone to look at lately is like.
Not sure how bad it is right now in Nevada Co. But here in Calaveras county it's pretty bad. I think it's heading north too. Mariposa and Tuolumne counties aren't doing well at all. As far as solutions- I'm curious too before we have only forests of incense cedar, or have to drive up to the high country to see a pine tree(just got back from a class up,on 80 at Kingvale and we drove home around Lake Tahoe and over highway 88- green trees still in those spots).

 

[DHeywood]

Yes, Nevada County has patches, and they are showing up in town now too. There are three new patches that I can see from my front porch this year. Its not terrible yet, but it will be if nothing is done. Give it 5 more years and it'll be a serious visible blight.

I did some investigation last week.. calls to the Forest Service, local Pest Control, etc.. No one has definitive solutions. There are management ideas though, for instance:
Firstly, clear out all water-competing plants and undergrowth, to lessen stress on trees. They will then have more energy to fight the beetles. Water the trees if possible (obviously not possible in wildlands)
Second: Remove dead and infested trees and also the living trees surrounding those, at least one or two levels deep. They are probably infected but not showing signs just yet.
Third: Find someone to remove the trees for you in exchange for the logs, which they can turn into lumber (even though it's blue tinged), furniture, or sell the logs to China, as many local logging companies are doing.
Fourth: If the trees cannot be removed, then buck them up into 4' lengths, short enough for the sap to dry quickly and trap the insects inside. If they are left in too large chunks, they will dry slowly and the beetles will exit once they have matured, and the infestation will continue.

There may be reimbursements available from the Gov for this work, but then again, there may not. I'm not sure at all, I haven't investigated this fully yet. But likely , there is no money available from the government. I will check though.

It would seem that there must be a way to 'make lemonade' from all these lemons. It's good wood, structurally. Perhaps someone(s) can think of small local industry with portable mills, like this guy in Murphys: http://goldcountry.craigslist.org/mat/5672882810.html

The treatment called "Tree-Age" works well for 2 years and then must be done again. It costs $250 minimum each tree, and can take several hours for the 'medicine' to be uptaken into the tree. Useful for homeowners with prized ornamental trees, but not for forests.

I'll call some folks in Boulder CO and see if they have found solutions. They've been fighting this for decades.

 

[TBS]

In Mariposa, Madera, and Fresno counties we are at 80-90% mortality. We have 300 pines that have died on our property in meadow lakes. One observation of mine is that trees with good spacing and minimal surrounding vegetation have done fairly well on our property and the surrounding ones, those in surrounded by brush and tall grass die even with good space. The time it takes for a pine to die from infestation is only days, watched a group of 70 trees go from green to browned dead in under a week in july. Ultimately we need to reintroduce more fire to our forests to thin the vegetation, we can either do it on our terms or nature will do it on her terms. More than anything we need more water, without that any other effort to slow the bark beetle will be negated.