The Oregon Department of Forestry’s booth at the Oregon State Fair featured an aggressive education campaign to raise awareness about emerald ash borer.

More than 2,000 stickers, temporary tattoos and pamphlets with the image of the invasive beetle were handed out to fairgoers. Mounted examples of the insect also were on display.

More invasive species coverage

Emerald ash borer discovered in three more Oregon counties

Feds finalize plan to kill barred owls; animal-welfare groups say they’ll sue

Activity increases at Idaho watercraft inspection stations

Weed battle continues in SE Oregon, SW Idaho

Invasive beetle discovered in Oregon oaks

Spread of emerald ash borer jeopardizes Oregon trees

Other items warned about moving firewood, which can help spread the pest.

“Unfortunately, there will be a lot of dead and dying ash trees in the years to come. What we can do is inform people where it is, try to slow the spread, and give communities time to prepare,” said Wyatt Williams, ODF invasive species specialist.

Ash isn’t a timber species, but it grows along every river and stream in the Willamette Valley.

Breeding genetic resistance

ODF and the U.S. Forest Service have saved more than a million seeds from ash tree populations across Oregon.

Some of those have gone into long-term storage, while others are being actively grown to look for and breed genetic resistance into native ash species.

“Perhaps in 30-40 years, we will have ash that can be replanted in the affected areas. Ash grows all over the Willamette Valley and people will miss it when it’s gone,” Williams said.

Oregon actually published its emerald ash borer plan in 2018, four years before it was discovered in the state.

When ODF researched the plan, experts from other regions of the U.S. urged the agency to start collecting seeds immediately because of the beetle’s devastating impacts.

Insect, quarantine details

Emerald ash borer, which is a metallic green insect, attacks ash, white fringe trees and olive trees.

The pest was first discovered in Oregon in Washington County in 2022. It was confirmed this summer in three additional Oregon counties — Yamhill, Marion and Clackamas.

Quarantines now cover those four counties and restrict ash, white fringe and olive material from being transported outside those areas.

“Emerald ash borer on its own does not spread very far. We’re talking a mile or so,” Williams said. But the insect has been shown to disperse widely through the transport of infected firewood.

Emerald ash borer was first found in the U.S. in Michigan in 2002. Since then, it’s killed millions of ash trees across the eastern U.S., with death rates up to 99%.

The beetle’s larvae burrow into the bark of ash trees, causing canopy dieback and ultimately tree death.

Signs of infestation include thinning and yellowing leaves, bark splitting, D-shaped holes in the tree bark and basal shoots.