EAB and MCN in the News

Bug bores way into county By KEVIN P. CRAVER
Northwest Herald, July 20, 2007

McHenry County now is one of 18 that are quarantined to prevent the spread of the tree-killing emerald ash borer. The Illinois Department of Agriculture drastically expanded the quarantine on Thursday, after the recent discovery of infestations in LaSalle and DuPage counties, far outside the previous zone of Kane and northern Cook counties...

...Local tree experts said the problems the borer presented were twofold. Like many imported pests, it has no natural predators, said Brenda Dahlfors, master gardener coordinator for the McHenry County University of Illinois Extension office.

Furthermore, the borer has plenty to eat, said Joe Beeson, co-owner of Beeson’s McHenry County Nursery in Harvard. Not only is the ash tree a native plant in McHenry County, but also its appearance, fast growth and resistance to drought made it popular with developers and landscapers.

“This potentially could be very serious,” Dahlfors said. “It attacks healthy trees. That’s not true of many of the native [ash borers]. Native borers attack stressed, dead or dying trees.”

Illinois has an estimated 130 million ash trees, Squibb said. Ironically, he said, ash trees became a favorite to replace the Chicago-area elm population devastated in the 1950s and 1960s by Dutch elm disease.

Beeson, whose 400-acre nursery grows wholesale trees and plantings for builders and landscapers, stopped growing ash trees about three years ago, predicting that the borer would drop demand. The village of Cary last year banned planting new ash trees on public property as a result of the borer.

“The handwriting was pretty much on the wall that as long as they didn’t have a remedy or cure, that ash trees would be taken off the planting list,” Beeson said. “We were never a big grower of ash in the first place. There are a lot of trees we think are better anyway.” MORE

EAB Quarantine Map 7.19.pdf
EAB quarantine amendment.pdf