A confirmed outbreak of the emerald ash borer beetle in a half-dozen trees in the Brandywine region of southern Prince George’s County has prompted a quarantine of several types of wood products, according to a spokeswoman for the Maryland Department of Agriculture.
“It’s a federal law that we quarantine the entire county,” said Kate Wagner. “There’s no end date on this, so it’s really until we feel that we’ve eradicated the whole pest. It could last a while.”
The quarantine effectively splits the county between land south of Maryland 4 and everything north of that road.
In the southern portion, Wagner said, residents cannot plant ash trees or transport hardwood firewood out of that region.
Wagner said residents elsewhere in Prince George’s are asked to find alternatives to planting ash trees and cannot take out of the county firewood that’s been cut or stored in Prince George’s. Wagner said Thursday that the department will post a list of the county’s firewood dealers on its Web site in the coming days.
“We really want to urge Prince George’s County residents to support those local firewood dealers,” Wagner said.
The borer is a small, green sparkly beetle with a flat back and a round stomach. According to the department, the emerald ash borer first arrived in the county in 2003 aboard an illegal shipment of infested trees from Michigan.
The top third of trees infested with the beetle will thin out and die back, with a number of branches and shoots growing just beneath the dead portion of the tree. Other signs to look for are D-shaped exit holes made by adult beetles and snaking tunnels in the bark made by larvae. These tunnels allow larvae to stop the movement of food and water within the tree.
Wagner said the department destroyed all of the ash trees within a half-mile radius of the initial 2003 infestation. Department protocol mandates that area be watched for three years after the initial incident.
“We knew this was possible,” Wagner said, “and we’re happy that the surveillance worked.”
