Emerald Ash Borer Pesticides: Treatment Worse Than Disease? by Jean-Marie Kauth

"…The emerald ash borer (EAB) is a half-inch, bright green insect that is preying on ash trees (genus Fraxinus) in the Midwest United States.  Emerald ash borers are an invasive species that first came from eastern Russia, northern China, Korea, and Japan in 2002, probably in wood shipping pallets.  Once in a tree, they bore their way through the fleshy layer of living tissue, phloem, just under the outer surface of the bark.  Gradually, they eat away so much of the vascular tissue that the tree’s circulatory system shuts down.  Death follows swiftly, sometimes beginning with just a portion of the tree and eventually manifested in the rest.  Once 50% of the canopy is lost, there is no saving the tree.  Healthy trees can be treated with either injections or soil drenches of a variety of pesticides, though the efficacy of these treatments is notoriously inconsistent…

"The main problem with treating trees in this way is that use of the pesticides is dangerous, both to human health and to the surrounding ecology…"

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