This invasive pest is destroying trees in SC. Here’s what to know
Yet another invasive species is creeping through South Carolina, this one attacking ash trees.
The emerald ash borer has decimated ash trees across the eastern U.S., including the Upstate of South Carolina. Clemson Home and Garden says ash trees have typically been planted as ornamental and street trees but are also used for baseball bats and are considered a windbreak tree.
The ash tree population in South Carolina is valued at around $2 million dollars, Clemson said.
The beetle, native to China, was first detected officially near Detroit in 2002 and was observed in South Carolina in 2017. Tens of millions of trees have died.
The ash borer can fly several miles at a time, and one way they have spread is through firewood. There is a quarantine in place between March and October to prevent the spread by moving firewood and other ash wood products from county to county.
They lay their eggs in the bark and then larvae chew their way into a tree, grow and the adults chew their way out in the spring.
How to know if a tree is infested
They leave D-shaped holes when they leave the tree
Vertical cracks in the bark
Thinning foliage
Woodpeckers are seen increasingly. They feed on larvae and strip off the outer bark
Sprouts grow at the bottom of the tree, a sign the tree is in its last days
Insecticides can be used yearly and indefinitely before the tree is infested.
“Heavily infested trees likely cannot be saved and will need to be removed by a licensed professional,” Clemson said on its website.
Other invasive species
Among the other invasive species damaging South Carolina’s native plants and animals are:
Kudzu choking trees and other greenery growing a foot a day you can actually see it growing
Bradford Pear/Callery Pear, so noxious the state offers free trees if you cut them down
Feral hogs that damage agricultural lands, forests, and natural areas
Argentine Black and White Tegus, reptiles that eat anything
Asian Longhorned Beetle, which bores into trees
Hydrilla, choking waterways and spreading by getting tangled in boat motors