Late November - Hemlock with mild Adelgid InfectionUGH. So. These Hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelg
Late November - Hemlock with mild Adelgid InfectionUGH. So. These Hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae) - the white dots - are infecting Hemlocks throughout this area. If you’ve been around long enough, you know I’m paranoid about forest fires. One, it’s because part of being on a rural property in the woods is knowing that by the time the volunteer fire department gets here, in all likelihood your home will be burned to the ground. Two, it’s because we live right near Pisgah National Forest, and it is FULL of dead Hemlocks, thanks to these #&* adelgids. Some dead trees are normal in a forest, but the losses are pretty catastrophic at this point.When we’ve talked with various experts about managing it, they recommend two options using imidacloprid (a neonic). The first option is to directly spray the trees - which only works if the trees are very small/short. The second option is to drench the soil, so that the roots of the tree will be able to soak it up and spread it throughout the tree. This is the more popular option. The problem with drenching the soil with it, is that it will kill ANY insect that is living in your soil. It’s like using a broad spectrum antibiotic, or a nuclear warhead. It gets dirty, not to mention it is expensive. So instead of treating our trees - which we view as something as an expensive, but losing proposition b/c even if we treat our trees our neighbors sure as heck aren’t - we’re assuming that we’ll lose all of them. Part of our general forest management/strategy includes this loss, and we’re considering other trees that we’ll replace them with. In the meantime, V has the equipment to take the trees down when it looks like they’ll start posing a risk (there’s a few next to the driveway that might be trouble, those in the woods can fall and not hurt anything in particular).First the Chestnuts, now the Hemlocks. These are rough, sudden changes for southern forests, on top of the amount of sheer amount of deforestation that has taken place in the eastern US. Infectious diseases are taking out our biodiversity. It is deeply troubling. -- source link
#crittercove#hemlock tree#woolly adelgid#plant pathogens#trees