Eab

[Sugar Bear]

So here in Southern CT and NY the EAB has made fine progress ( as far as it is concerned ) with killing every Ash tree in the region and so last night I had a night mare and woke up in the middle of the night from it.

Does anybody know or have a hunch what trees the EAB might pick on after all the Ash trees have fallen to the ground and rotted away?

I.E. who is next and is building a wall the only resolution?

[Mead Maple]

Sugar Bear,
EAB just made it's way into VT and it is confirmed in my town as well. I work for our local road department and have been taking classes on cutting, diagnosing, treatment etc. UVM says that VT forests are made up of roughly less than 15% ash in total. Hard to believe that given what I see in my area, but of course that's an average of the whole state. Some areas could be more sparse while some may be more dense.
Regardless, we're concerned about trees in the Town ROW. Which seems to be around 2,500 trees. Our approach will be proactive but based on the impact EAB is making, we won't be able to be proactive enough before it turns into a reactive approach.

In regards to what's next? Sounds like the EAB population will fluctuate as food availability does. The species will probably always exist given the way mother nature heals itself. God willing, ash will be the only target.

[DrTimPerkins]

The EAB populations will crash once the ash trees are gone. They have no other hosts, except perhaps the white fringetree. EAB is very specific to members of the ash family.

Although it is tempting and a natural reaction to want to cut all the ash trees before EAB gets bad, the side effect of this activity is that it doesn't allow for identification of individual trees that might have some natural level of resistance from which reestablishment of ash populations might occur.