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Now or never in fight to save local ash trees MIKE ADLER madler@insidetoronto.com Property owners in Toronto have about two weeks left to protect whichever ash trees can still be saved, say people involved in fighting the emerald ash borer beetle. A tiny invasive pest, the beetle was found near Hwy. 404 in North York in 2007. It has exploded across Toronto, slowly killing every ash tree it finds - around 860,000 in the city’s yards, parks, streets and ravines. The only proven defence is a pesticide called TreeAzin, but it must be injected between June 1 and Aug. 31, when the tree’s vascular tissues can use it to kill beetle larvae under their bark. Toronto’s infestation, much of it still hidden in seemingly healthy trees, is so advanced next summer may be too late for most ash tree owners to try the pesticide. “The time is running out,” Josef Ric, Toronto Urban Forestry’s acting supervisor of forest health care confirmed in an interview yesterday. The City of Toronto’s online resource page on the beetle (www.toronto.ca/trees/eab. htm) includes a map showing the infested areas in February 2012, but Ric said the map will be taken down because it’s obsolete; the beetle is simply everywhere, he said. “It’s very aggressive. It has surprised everybody.” City contractors injected 4,000 trees with TreeAzin last summer and are treating 9,000 more this year -
Photo/NICK PERRY
Photo/HOLLY PAGNACCO
ash along streets or in parks selected, ward by ward, for being in good condition and not showing a lot of the leaf dieback that first marks the infestation’s effects. At eye level, contractors staple small green aluminum plates on the injected trees, a sign of the city’s commitment to keep injecting them every two years until the pest is gone. The city has removed and destroyed 4,000 dead ash trees this year on municipal land, and marked 4,700 more with dots of bright orange paint, to show trees that are dying and doomed. It has also planted 15,000 replacement trees in a variety of species, said Ric, adding next summer good candi-
dates for TreeAzin may still be found, but predicted there will be far fewer. “What we’ve done so far (in selecting for injections) is almost final.” As the peak of ash mortality in the city approaches Ric guessed that will be “next year, probably, and the year after” - ash looking OK now may soon be dead or in severe decline. Businesses or homeowners with ash trees on their land are on their own as they weigh the considerable cost of injections with the cost of removing their trees. The Canadian Forest Service and other agencies are testing natural predators for the beetle, parasitic wasps, but it’s thought it will take 10 years for the ash borer popu-
Left, a white ash tree is injected with TreeAzin in an effort to thwart its premature death due to the emerald ash borer, a beetle that threatens to kill all ash trees. TreeAzin is a Neem-based pesticide that slows the beetles spread and saves the trees. It must be injected every two years until the ash borers are no longer in the area. Above, tracks made by emerald ash borer beetles can be seen in the trunk of this dying ash tree.
lation to crash along with its food supply. Michelle Bourdeau, program manager for LEAF - Local Enhancement and Appreciation of Forests - said TreeAzin, provided a tree’s infestation is not visible already, is worth a shot. “It’s likely cheaper to treat if you’ve got a large tree,” than pay to remove it, she said this week. “It’s an irreplaceable thing.” TreeAzin applicators must be licensed, and property owners should get more than one quote, said Bourdeau, adding a few interested people on a street should ask for a group discount. The non-profit group, which combined with
neighbourhood volunteers to alert 2,800 households in Scarborough’s Highland Creek Watershed to the ash borer in canvasses last month, advises people to plant trees as a response to the continuing losses to Toronto’s tree canopy, even if they had no ash trees on their land. The city will plant a tree in front of homes for free in spring or fall, and LEAF has a subsidized back yard planting program that recommends suitable species and locations, and for which homeowners pay $150-220 a tree. “It really is a communitywide issue,” said Bourdeau, whose group has also recruited “EAB ambassadors” to spread news of the
beetle and what people can do about it. One of the first who signed on last year was Holly Pagnacco in Guildwood, where 80 per cent of trees are mature white ash. Drawn to Guildwood four years ago by its urban forest, Pagnacco said she devastated to learn the five on her property are all white ash. She had them all injected, a process in which an applicator drills holes near the bottom of the trunk and attaches small pressurized TreeAzin canisters. It seems to be working: untreated trees on neighbours’ lots already look worse, and downy woodpeckers, which feed on the borer, are seen pecking at their bark, she said. As a volunteer ambassador, Pagnacco has distibuted flyers about the beetle and talked to Guildwood residents at local events. She’s met many who don’t know whether their trees are ash or not, or who have the mistaken belief injections in a neighbour’s trees mean theirs will be fine. “A staggering amount of people are saying they’re just going to wait it out,” Pagnacco said, adding she is certain the infestation in all untreated trees will be fatal. Guildwood, in a few years, is “going to look like a hurricane came through,” she predicted, sadly. “I can hear chain saws right now.”
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More on the beetle, including info on arborists, is at www. yourleaf.org
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| SCARBOROUGH MIRROR | Thursday, August 15, 2013
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