Emerald ash borer found in Dallas’ Great Trinity Forest – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

The invasive emerald ash borer beetle has been confirmed in Dallas city limits, city officials say, including the Great Trinity Forest.

The non-native little green beetle is devastating to ash tree populations, boring its way into the bark of the tree where it lays eggs. The beetle larvae eventually feed on the water-conducting tissue of the tree, slowly killing the tree.

City officials confirmed that the presence of the invasive beetle was verified by city staff and the Texas A&M Forest Service at two locations within the city limits, including one near the intersection of Texas Loop 12 and Interstate 30 and another on the south side in the Great Trinity Forest.

The Texas A&M Forest Service estimates that ash trees make up about 5% of urban forests in Dallas/Fort Worth and about 1% of existing inventory forests in East Texas. The beetle has the potential to cause significant damage to Dallas’ Great Trinity Forest, where about 40% of the trees are ash trees.

Last summer, the beetle was found near Dowdy Ferry Road and Interstate 20.

The city’s Environment and Sustainability Committee began studying ways to slow the beetle’s progress in 2021 and began preventive treatment of ash species in the fall of 2022, treating more than 200 trees. This fiscal year, the city installed 15 traps to catch the beetle and identify potential areas of infection.

The Dallas City Forestry Task Force works with the Texas A&M Forest Service and the Texas Department of Agriculture to monitor EAB populations, treat important trees, and remove infected trees if they pose a public safety concern.

The city said Dallas County is currently under a state-mandated quarantine that prohibits the movement of ash wood, wood waste and hardwood fuelwood products from within the county to non-quarantined counties. Denton, Parker and Tarrant counties, all areas where the beetle has also been confirmed, are under the same quarantine.

Dallas said city staff will continue to monitor and monitor the beetle and continue to tag and treat significant ash trees, defined as trees 15 inches in diameter or larger, in good condition, or large forests of ash species. Infected ash trees that pose safety problems are removed.

The beetle may have been first discovered in North Texas in 2018 by a 10-year-old Tarrant County boy who took a photo of the insect because he thought it looked “really weird.” The boy uploaded the photo to an online database for naturalists, where scientists in other states and countries eventually discovered it and identified it as a possible emerald ash borer. Experts from the Texas A&M Forest Service were notified and investigated the boy’s findings. EAB was first detected in Texas in 2016 in Harrison County (between Longview, TX and Shreveport, LA)

WHAT IS AN EMERALD ASHBORN?

The emerald ash borer is a small beetle, green in color and smaller than a penny.

The beetle bores its way into the bark of the tree and lays eggs. Larvae feed on water-conducting tissue and eventually kill the tree.

Officials said the insect has been confirmed in more than half of the United States and has killed millions of ash trees.

“Both healthy and unhealthy ash trees are susceptible to EAB attack and can die within two or three years of infection,” said Allen Smith, regional forest health coordinator for Texas A&M Forest Service, during an interview with NBC 5 in May 2022. “Ash trees have no natural resistance to the exotic insect. Without the right proactive measures, mortality in heavily infested areas could reach 100%, so early detection could increase our chances of controlling the pest.”

Ash trees with low numbers of EAB often have few or no external pest symptoms. However, residents can look for signs of EAB among their ash trees, including dead branches at the top of the tree, leafy shoots sprouting from the trunk, bark splits exposing s-shaped larval galleries, extensive woodpecker activity and D-shaped exit holes.

The beetle was first discovered in North America in Michigan in 2002 and has since spread to more than 25 states, killing millions of ash trees.