Drone helps find trees infected with Emerald Ash Borer

SOUTH DAKOTA, S.D. (KELO) — Ash trees are under attack in Brookings and will eventually die. As we told you earlier this week, the Emerald Ash Borer has been discovered in a Brookings Neighborhood.

So far, the insect has also been found in Minnehaha, Lincoln, Turner, and Union counties. The South Dakota Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources has come up with a more efficient way of finding infestations with a drone.

The Emerald Ash Borer came to Michigan from Asia in 2002 and has been slowly spreading ever since. They bore holes into ash trees and eventually will kill them. Spotting the infestation early can give homeowners a better chance of saving their ash trees if they choose to treat them.
SDSU professor and Department of Ag Forest Health Specialist John Ball and Master’s Student and Horticulturist Tanner Aiken are using a drone to spot infestations in Brookings.

“I see a tree over here that looks a little suspect,” said Aiken while maneuvering his drone. “So now I’m just kind of zeroing in on this. This is a good example because this is a tree you might not be able to see from the street, so if you are a city forester or a curious arborist and you are looking to see where is EAB, in this area this tree would be one that you couldn’t readily see driving around, but we can see it plain as day with the drone here,” said Aiken.

Aiken says the view from above makes it so much easier to spot the damage.

“After a lot of work and a couple of field seasons in the city of Sioux Falls, we noticed that you can see discoloration and thinning in the canopy of ash trees generally before you can see it from the ground,” said Aiken.

Using a drone turned out to be a very effective way for them to see how far the infestation has spread, they can cover a lot of ground quickly.

The Emerald Ash Borer, or EAB, can spread about a half mile to a mile a year by itself, but the long-range spread of the pest comes from people.

“The way it’s going to move from town to town is basically on firewood,” said Professor Ball. “In fact, a piece of wood cut from a tree at this time of year from an infested tree, let’s say about the length of my arm almost the diameter, can have 12 adults come out of it. Well, with 12 adults, you are going to have some males and some females, so you are going to start a new population, so it doesn’t take much wood being moved.”

Ball says if people continue to follow the quarantines, which means no transporting of firewood out of the infected counties, we can slow the spread of the Emerald Ash Borer.

“Please, please, please follow those quarantines,” said Ball. “It’s buying time for all those other communities; it’s inevitable, but if we can put it off 20 years rather than five years, let’s do it; it saves us a lot of money.”

Treating your ash tree can run $150 to $350 every two to three years. If you don’t treat your ash tree, Professor Ball says it will die within 10 years.

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