In a pine-scented office of the Illinois Department of Agriculture, Stan Smith is focusing his microscope on a black bug and on trying to stop the spread of a new and unpleasant yuletide tradition.
The bug he is examining is a European pine shoot beetle, a tree-boring pest about the size of a grain of rice that is threatening the health of many types of pine, including America`s favorite Christmas tree variety.
Discovered in a Christmas tree farm near Cleveland in July, the pine shoot beetle has spread to 43 counties in six Great Lakes states. In Illinois, it has been found in Kane and Will Counties. The bug last appeared in the United States in New Jersey in 1912, but failed to thrive.
The Christmas tree crop throughout the Midwest this year is plentiful, so the appearance of the beetle is not likely to have an impact on either the supply or the price. But experts are concerned that the insect could spread and have an effect on trees used for landscaping and on commercial forests.
The bugs favor Scotch pine trees, the kind many people buy for Christmas, but they also may infest spruce, larch and fir trees. Feeding on the tips of shoots and small branches, pine shoot beetles weaken trees and make them vulnerable to other diseases.
In Europe, the beetle is the second most destructive forest pest and the principal pest of pine, reducing commercial production by as much as 25 percent, said Anthony Drobnick, the U.S. Department of Agriculture`s officer in charge of plant protection and quarantine programs in Illinois.
Jonathan Uhl, the owner of Crete Cascades Christmas Tree Farm, near Crete in Will County, said he inspected his own trees after hearing about the pine shoot beetle and was devastated to learn that his trees, including many red pines, are infested. Uhl said he has been working on his farm for seven years. He hasn`t opened to customers yet, but was looking forward to his first harvest as early as next year.
”I went outside and started looking at my trees, and I found some
(beetles) and so I went out and started clipping all the branches,” Uhl said. ”I feel it`s devastating. I`ve only been growing trees for seven years, but I`ve seen enough to know what damage bugs can do.”
Although the bugs have been found in only two farms in Illinois, experts in the USDA`s Animal Plant Health Inspection Service say the presence of one bug usually means there are many.
”I think you have to assume, as the USDA does, that the whole county is affected, so if you go to Will or Kane, you should take extra precaution with the tree,” Drobnick said. ”We don`t think the beetle will last through Christmas in your house, but who knows? It might.”
The beetles probably hitched a ride to the Great Lakes in the wood used to brace cargo on ships or in package crating. Bugs may have hopped off in port, or ship wood may not have been inspected, or the bugs simply may have been overlooked, Drobnick said.
”When we look at maps of where it`s been found, it kind of looks like the Snow Belt,” said Smith, an Oak Brook-based plant and pesticide specialist supervisor with the Illinois Department of Agriculture. ”It`s still relatively new to us. We don`t know a whole lot about how it behaves in the U.S.”
The fear among plant inspectors and foresters is that the beetle will move south and infest millions of acres of commercial forests in Georgia, North and South Carolina, Arkansas, Florida and other states.
The bugs, which die in extreme cold, will spend most of the winter hibernating at the base of evergreen trunks and emerge to mate in spring.
But the USDA is moving now to stop the spread of the potentially harmful pest. The agency slapped a quarantine on beetle-infested counties in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and New York. The quarantine bans the shipment of live trees, which are usually transported with a ball of soil encased in burlap at the base, and cut logs with bark still intact.
Researchers for commercial timber companies say they`re keeping track of the pest`s movement.
”So far, it`s a Christmas tree problem, and it hasn`t affected the forest products industry or the nursery industry yet,” said John Trobaugh, research coordinator in Port Edwards, Wis., for Georgia-Pacific Corp. ”It sounds like it has some potential of becoming an issue. The USDA believes it can affect all pine species in North America.”
Shipments coming out of counties where the quarantine is in effect will be inspected and certified if the products are beetle-free, said Drobnick.
The ban doesn`t affect you-cut-it Christmas tree farms, although it would prevent buyers from taking a tree home and replanting it. A single buyer who cuts a tree and installs it at home isn`t affected, even if the tree crosses county or state lines, Smith said.
People who buy Christmas trees in Kane and Will Counties, where the beetles have burrowed into tree trunks for the winter, probably don`t have to worry about beetles crawling around in their living rooms. Tree growers say that the beetles won`t eat the furniture or the foundation, or lay eggs under the sink.
”It`s not going to eat your house; you`re not going to get sick from it,” said Joan Geiger, communications director for the National Christmas Tree Association in Milwaukee.
Even though the trees may spruce up a house, the toasty environment probably is not a good host for hibernating pine shoot beetles.
In the wild, bugs emerge in spring to mate and lay eggs in dead wood, stumps or brush piles. The urge to mate is triggered by temperatures of about 54 degrees. So the biggest problem for tree buyers could be coping with disoriented bugs.
”Being in a warm house will mess up its life cycle,” Smith said. ”If it goes outside of the house, the cold will kill it.”
”If they come into a house, they`ll probably go to a window or something, because they`ll be confused and think it`s time to mate,” Drobnick added.
He urged people who buy trees in quarantined counties to mulch or chip the trees at the end of the holidays. Dumping dead trees in brush piles could create ideal breeding grounds for traveling pine shoot beetles, which can fly up to a kilometer in search of food, Smith said.
And the quarantine isn`t expected to create a shortage of trees, Geiger said. The top-producing states in order are Oregon, Michigan, Wisconsin, California, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. And the 43 counties under the USDA quarantine grow less than 5 percent of Christmas trees sold annually, Geiger said.
But the National Christmas Tree Association`s 2,100 members are concerned that people will stop buying live trees in favor of artificial evergreens, Geiger said, if the infestation persists or becomes more widespread.
In 1991, 35.7 million live trees were sold, and 36.3 million artificial trees were in use, she said.
”It`s still too early to tell how this will affect sales,” she said.
”This weekend will be the big weekend.”
On the Friday after Thanksgiving, a stream of cars with trees strapped across their roofs filed out of the Christmas tree farm at the Marmion Military Academy near Aurora. Marmion is the only place in Kane County where inspectors found the beetles, but that didn`t deter the do-it-yourselfers.
Many said they`d heard about the beetles, but figured they aren`t too much of a problem because the self-cut outfits haven`t been closed down.
”I consider myself somewhat of an environmentalist, but it`s also Christmas,” said Kevin Murphy of Arlington Heights as he dragged a fresh-cut pine behind him. ”When I heard they had a few beetles, I was concerned, and driving out here, I was thinking about it. But I checked this one and I didn`t see any. I would not knowingly spread this thing.”
Smith said that inspectors from the Illinois Depatment of Agriculture found only one beetle at Marmion, and a ”pretty good infestation” at Crete Cascades in Will County.
But as the brigade of tree buyers armed with bow-saws descended on the Marmion farm, it was clear people weren`t thinking of pine shoot beetles roasting near the open fire or of a bug-infested Christmas.
”It`s our one day when we all come out and have a lot of fun,” said Joe Ruck, 37, whose family has cut its own tree for seven or eight years. ”We have a big breakfast, and we come out. I don`t think we`d stop unless it becomes a real problem environmentally where it`s going to hurt millions of trees. We enjoy it. And we like the way pine trees smell.”
