MENUAs flowers bloom and green leaves break forth, green bugs will eat their way out of the trunks of ash trees. They are the adult emerald ash borers who will fly around until they mate. The females will then excavate holes in the bark of ash trees, lay their eggs, and another generation of the voracious pest will go about the task of devastating these beautiful trees.The emerald ash borer may be unstoppable in its march across the country, but its destruction of individual trees can be stopped. Prevention is the best cure for this pest, and prevention is much less expensive than treatment after the EAB has struck.So, this is the time to make arrangements for systemic applications of preventivematerial. Systemic means that nothing is sprayed into the air. The material is injectedeither into the soil at the base of the tree or directly into the tree trunk. After all, the emerald ash borer spends all of the destructive portion of its life inside the trunk of the tree.The product I use is called Treeage, and it is only sold to state licensed applicators who have been trained by the manufacturer in the use of its product and application equipment. As a preventive, Treeage needs to be reapplied only every two years. As a treatment, it has to be applied every year.There are several other products labeled for prevention and treatment of emerald ash borer. I have tried all of them, and Treeage is the only one that I found to be effective. One product is labeled for consumer use, but the consumer strength is not enough to be effective against this resilient bug.Remember that all preventives and treatments for emerald ash borer have to be applied systemically, either as a soil drench or trunk injection. So, if someone offers to spray your trees for emerald ash borer, don’t. You will be wasting your money.
