Bug Experts Aid Local Forests

DAYTON - Trees in this part of the state are a precious commodity, so when they start looking sick and dying, property owners want answers.

If they're smart, they start asking questions, and if they're lucky, they get the Forest Tour.

U.S. Forest Service entomologist Lia Spiegel and pathologist Craig Schmitt, both from La Grande, joined forest insect specialist Mike Johnson with the Eastern Washington Department of Natural Resources earlier this month in Columbia County at the request of local conservation groups.

All afternoon, the specialists visited privately held forest lands to diagnose insect and disease problems.

The overall diagnosis? Many of the pines and firs in the county look good, the experts say. But in locations where fires burned large portions of forest land in the county in 2006 and 2008, landowners should beware of beetles.

And remember when planting, that native species from the same elevation will grow hardiest at that elevation.

More than a dozen people turned out for this year's forest tour. Some were local or visiting landowners hoping to get answers that might solve some of their own problems. Some were local and visiting forestry and conservation specialists wanting to see the experts at work.

"How landowners get their properties on the tour is they call me and say, 'I have a problem,'" said Debbie Fortner, a soil conservationist with the Natural Resource Conservation Service in Dayton and co-organizer of the forest tour, which has become an annual event.

Andy Lambert was one owner with a problem.

"Andy was like the catalyst this year," Fortner said. "He had a problem I couldn't solve, so I said, 'Let's get to­gether a group of experts who maybe can.'" Lambert, who lives in the Tri-Cities, purchased several acres on South Touchet Road about two years ago. He be­gan construction of a home on the site in June, but he's worried about several of the pines on his land. A number of the trees were planted years ago and some are now turning brown and dying. Enter the experts. Spiegel and Schmitt went right to work inspecting the living tree bark and remov­ing

pieces of bark on nearby stacks of firewood looking for beetle activity. Johnson began asking questions.

How long has the fire­wood been stacked against this group of pines? What color was the sap oozing from the tree? Lambert in­dicated he's removed some beetles from holes in one tree, and Johnson asked him about the beetles. Meanwhile, Spiegel and Schmitt discovered beetle galleries, lines on the wood under the bark showing egg "tunnels."

Different beetles will have different galleries, Schmitt explained. The experts agreed these galleries indi­cated

turpentine beetles, not usually a tree killer.

"They were probably at­tracted to the live trees by the presence of the dead wood (firewood) stacked around them," Johnson said. He sug­gested stacking dead wood well away from live trees and maybe even covering it. Beetles can "smell" dead wood for miles, he said.

It was Schmitt who sug­gested the disturbance of a nearby road may be all that's causing problems with many of Lambert's trees, particu­larly near the house site.

In the planted forest, Spie­gel and Schmitt again went to work, this time looking at the base of dead trees and dig­ging

into the soil around their roots. The diagnosis here? Probably just planting errors, Schmitt said. The trees were planted too deep. That spells good and bad news for Lambert. Not dis­covering disease or tree-killing beetles is a relief, but there's little to nothing he can do about trees that are now dying from errors made at the planting stage. Johnson sug­gested thinning the trees at some point to help those that remain grow stronger. Pre-commercial thinning is important because trees need enough sunlight and airflow to develop big leaves, or needles, which in turn give the trees more sugar (food), which then helps them grow stronger, meaning they're better able to draw up mois­ture from the ground. A tree that's properly hydrated can use its sap to squirt out pesky beetles that try to burrow in, Johnson explained. "If you see sap coming out that's pinkish and gritty, that means the beetle's winning," he said. "If the sap is clear and shiny, that means the tree's winning."

The other stop on this year's forest tour was nearby, on the stream known as Wolf Fork. Brent Tuckfield and Peg Cahill, also nonresidential landowners from Snohom­ish, have land here with many mature Douglas fir, pines and non-native ornamental trees in residence.

The insect and pathology experts were called upon to diagnose the cause of death for a stack of Douglas fir already cut and piled near the driveway. The three went to work, lifting sections of bark and conferring.

Douglas fir beetles, for sure, they determined. The galleries don't lie.

"Beetles are very effec­tive at killing trees," Johnson said. "And Doug fir beetles are killers."

Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to tell whether you have a beetle problem until the trees begin to die, Johnson said. And by then, the beetles have moved on, possibly to more trees on your property. Douglas fir beetles like to come into fire-injured trees, which surround Tuckfield and Cahill's property, and build up their populations. Once the populations reach critical mass, they move into the green trees looking for food.

And trees killed by beetles can in turn become fuel for future forest fires.

To learn more about Co­lumbia County's forest tours, contact Debbie Fortner at 509-382-4773, extension 3, or Lisa Naylor a coordinator with Dayton's branch of Re­source Conservation and De­velopment at 509-382-8968. For more forest health articles, discussions and facts than you could ever want, visit the U.S. Forest Service website at http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/nr/fid/. This site gives photos, descriptions and advice on most local beetles as well as diseases, invasive species and forest manage­ment practices.