By PAUL HETZLER

June is National Forest Pest Awareness Month. I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer a Blissful Ignorance Month when it comes to creepy insect pests. But since I can only keep my head in the sand so long before my ears get itchy, what the heck—bring on this “awareness” stuff.

For many of us in the North Country, the term forest pest conjures up visions of tent caterpillars, but these days we have some new pests on the block. Three primary threats to our forests are the Asian longhorn beetle (ALB), sirex wood wasp (SWW), and emerald ash borer (EAB), otherwise known as The Unthinkable, The Possible, and The Inevitable.

If there’s any good news, it’s that The Unthinkable is the farthest away. Good thing, too, because the Asian longhorn beetle has the potential to wipe out most hardwood species, starting with their favorite, sugar maple. The closest infestations of ALB are in Toronto and New York City, but because this is an insect we can’t afford to have in our forests, it’s one we can’t afford to ignore. Learn to recognize ALB, and report potential sightings. And of course, don’t move firewood far.

The Possible, sirex wood wasp, hasn’t gotten a lot of press, but it’s as close as Oswego County. The SWW is adept at killing pine trees, especially in stressed and overcrowded stands. The best protection against SWW is to manage timber to avoid overcrowding, and to watch for sudden or unexplained pine mortality.

Then there’s The Inevitable, the little green gem that’s on our doorstep across the river in southern Ontario. For such a destructive pest, the EAB is beautiful. It’s a small (3/8” to 1/2”) bullet-shaped beetle that would be easy to overlook if not for its bright, metallic, emerald-green color with copper highlights. The beetles do little harm, but their immature stage (larvae) feed on cambium tissue of ash trees, girdling and thus killing them. Aside from the relatively few ash that will be protected with insecticides (at considerable expense) through the estimated 15-year duration of EAB infestation, all 900 million ash trees in New York will die.

To prepare for the arrival of EAB, communities need to identify how many ash trees they have. This way they can calculate removal costs and plan accordingly, and locate ash trees of good health and form that they may want to preserve. While some towns and villages have tree inventories, most do not, and some of those may welcome volunteer help to survey ash trees.

Learning the signs of EAB infestation is also important. When adults first emerge from an infested tree they make a D-shaped exit hole, with the straight part of the D on the bottom. While it has a distinctive shape, this hole is tiny, just 1/8” across. A more conspicuous sign is epicormic sprouting, when branches sprout directly out of the trunk, which is a response to severe stress. Bark splitting, and heavy woodpecker feeding in late winter are other indicators. Report all suspected cases of EAB infestation to the NYSDEC or your Cooperative Extension office.

Enough awareness for a while; I’m off to get some sand in my ears.

Paul Hetzler is a forester and a horticulture and natural resources educator for Cornell Cooperative Extension of St. Lawrence County.