The Union-Leader has a good story today (read it here) about Manchester Water Works harvesting red pine trees in watershed land it owns because red pine scale is on the way and will probably kill the trees.
Manchester Water Works plans to remove stands of red pine trees across 400 acres over the next five years in response to what Watershed Forester John O’Neil terms the “imminent threat of severe mortality” by the invasive red pine scale insect. The bug is blamed for widespread devastation throughout New England over the last 50 years, and has recently been detected in New Hampshire.
An infestation of red pine scale in Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown in 2012 was the first case reported in the Granite State. According to Jen Weimer, forest health specialist with the state’s Division of Forests and Lands, red pine scale has spread to Allenstown, Concord, Chichester, Deerfield, Loudon, Epsom, Pembroke and Portsmouth.
One thing I like about the story: The reporter Paul Feely casually uses “feller buncher” in the lede and doesn’t feel the need to define it. Now that’s a northern New England story.
Return to the Concord Monitor
Why is it a good idea to cut down the red pines that have no trace of disease? You suggest biological and other controls for hemlock trees – shouldn’t we even try to address this? Emerald ash borers threaten ash trees while sugar maples and white pines, among others, have also been identified as threatened by insect pests and disease. Should we be “proactive” and cut all of them down, too? I hope they replant with a diversity or allow it occur naturally. Science and agriculture are aware that mono cropping like this always attracts more pests and disease. It’s interesting (scientifically) how the first appearance of this malady from CT in NH was as far north as Allenstown in Bear Brook State Park in 2012, right where a certain CT utility wants to build it’s massive northern pass towers. Is this one of their proposed “staging areas”?
Unfortunately no biological or any other control is known for this pest at present. Maybe science will provide something in the future. There are things we can do for Woolly Adelgid and Emerald Ash Borer short of cutting all the trees that are near the infestation, but not for red pine scale. Unlike these other insects which are easy to detect there is no way to monitor Red Pine Scale, and infested trees will look healthy for some time after the insect finds them. Thus they can spread to none infested areas long before the trees with them show signs of decline.
It is likely that they were found first in Bear Brook State Park because people who knew what they were looking at are stationed there, it is also likely that this pest is far more widespread than we think it is.