Sightings: by Tom Butzler

Twelve down and fifty-five more to go. The emerald ash borer (EAB), which has killed over 40 million ash trees, has been recently found in Breezewood, Bedford County. This has raised Pennsylvania's number of infected counties to twelve. So far, the beetles have been discovered in the following counties: Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Bedford, Butler, Indiana, Juniata, Lawrence, Mercer, Mifflin, Washington and Westmoreland.

There were a couple of interesting aspects of this latest finding. This infestation was discovered only after Department of Conservation and Natural Resources staff noticed extensive tree damage due to woodpecker activity. Such damage often indicates that trees may be infected as the birds injure the trees while trying to eat the beetle larvae. My take on the finding is that this beetle was well established in that setting before people started noticing all the bird damage. It just didn’t happen yesterday. So that begs the question, how far has that hot spot spread?

Bedford County is not contiguous with any of the other infested areas. So how did it move? The rapid spread of EAB throughout the Midwest into the east has been attributed to the movement of firewood. During the summer months, campers travel all over the fifty states. Often they transport fire wood in order to have fuel for their campfires. A dead ash tree looks like ideal fuel when preparing for the camping trip.

Breezewood is a hub of activity for summer vacationers on the move. The Bedford County Visitors Bureau talks about the town in these terms “Some call it The Travelers Oasis, some call it The Gateway to the South or even, The Town of Motels ... there are many names to define Breezewood, PA. All of them center around one thing. Breezewood is a town that is built to serve the traveler.”

I have fond childhood memories of stopping in Breezewood to get gas as we took the family camper from Pittsburgh to Assateague Island. Because of the link between campers and firewood, there is a quarantine of moving wood out of emerald ash borer infested areas with the idea of slowing down the infestation.

With this rate of movement, it will not take long for the other 55 counties to have populations of the emerald ash borer.

Moving from insect sightings to disease sightings; there have been reports of late blight on tomato in Pennsylvania. Late blight was detected on locally grown greenhouse tomato transplants in northwestern Pennsylvania. Since then, the affected plants have been destroyed and the grower has adopted a fungicide spray program to manage the disease. I encourage gardeners and growers to remain vigilant, especially in light of the cool, wet weather we have had in the past several days. This disease organism thrives in this type of environment.