Join us on June 3 - 4, 2014 at Pala Resort and Casino

For the state of Goldspotted Oak Borer:

Science   *   Policy   *   Outreach

and formation of the statewide GSOB Task Force

Since the discovery of goldspotted oak borer (GSOB; Agrilus auroguttatus) in 2008 and its connection to extreme oak tree mortality, there has been considerable research and outreach conducted on this non-native pest. GSOB conintues to be a threat to native oak species found throughout California and southern Oregon: coast live oak, California black oak and canyon live oak. Researchers and specialists on GSOB will be presenting a state of the science, policy and outreach update seminar event on June 3, 2014 followed by an organizational meeting of the Goldspotted Oak Borer Task Force on June 4, 2014.

Co-Sponsored by the Southern California Committee of the California Forest Pest Council; the Pala Band of Mission Indians - Pala Environmental Department and Pala Casino Spa Resort; the USDA Forest Service and the University of California Cooperative Extension.

 

Seminar Date/Time: Tuesday, June 3, 2014, 8:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Task Force Date/Time: Wednesday, June 4, 2014, 8:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

Location: Pala Resort and Casino

          11154 Highway 76, Pala, CA 92059

Fee:  

$45.00 per participant (no charge if attending only the Task Force meeting) 

Continuing Education Units (CEU's):
 CEU applications are in process with the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (CA DPR) and the International Society of Aboriculture (ISA).
 
Presented by:

Southern California Committee of the California Forest Pest Council; the Pala Band of Mission Indians - Pala Environmental Department and Pala Casino Spa Resort; the USDA Forest Service and the University of California Cooperative Extension.

 

Additional Information:

For additional information visit the event webpages at www.GSOB.org or contact Jan Gonzales at 858-822-7718 or jggonzales@ucanr.edu.

Oak Tree pests Free Workshop

http://www.kpbs.org/news/2013/jan/23/insect-invasions-threaten-san-diego-ecosystems/

Oak deaths top 80,000 in San Diego County

Much of this stand of coast live oak trees near Descanso is dead. Virtually all of the remaining trees are infested with the goldspotted oak borer. — University of California Riverside

Gold-spotted oak borers have killed more than 80,000 oak trees in San Diego County over the past decade -- nearly four times as many as scientists figured at the start of 2011.

Researchers at the University of California Riverside released the latest numbers Friday as they stepped up their call for residents and businesses not to move oak firewood from infested areas. They said the new estimate is based on more refined mapping techniques, not an explosion of tree mortality in the past eight months.

Still, the figures provided a sobering reminder about the bug's destructive power and the stakes for containing it. It's only been found in San Diego County so far, a hopeful sign as researchers search for control methods.

Gold-spotted oak borer — Tom Coleman, USDA

“This may be the biggest oak mortality event since the Pleistocene" 12,000 years ago, said Tom Scott, a natural resourcespecialist for the University ofCalifornia. “If we can keep firewood from moving out of the region, we may be able to stop one of the biggest invasive pests to reach California in a long time.”

Online

For more information about the gold-spotted oak borer, including biological

background, firewood controls and volunteer opportunities, go to ucanr.org/sites/gsobinfo/

Field studies in San Diego County over the past six months strongly suggest that oak-killing beetles are moving around mostly through infested firewood. Scott said the beetles don't appear to be roaming quickly on their own and that human movement of oak wood is the best explanation for oak mortality patterns in the backcountry.

The gold-spotted oak borer is native to Arizona but not California. It likely traveled across the desert to rural San Diego County in a load of infested firewood. Researchers have confirmed the presence of the beetle as early as 2000 near the towns of Descanso and Guatay, where nearly every oak tree is infested.

Most of the dead and dying trees are massive, with trunks five or and six feet in diameter, and are 150 to 250 years old. The cost of removing one infested tree next to a home or in a campground can range from $700 to $10,000.

So many oaks have died in the Burnt Rancheria campground on theCleveland National Forest – a favorite spot for campers who favored the shade of a dense canopy of coast live oaks – that the Forest Service has erected shade structures.

The half-inch-long beetle attacks mature coast live oaks, California black oaks and canyon live oaks -- some of the most important trees used by wildlife for food and cover in California forests and rangelands. The trees seem to have no natural resistance to the gold-spotted oak borer, and no natural enemies of the beetle have been found in the state.

Female borers lay eggs in crevices of oak bark, and the larvae burrow into the cambium layer to feed, irreparably damaging the water- and food-conducting tissues and ultimately killing the tree. Adults then bore out through the bark, leaving a D-shaped hole when they exit.

Unusually high levels of oak mortality were first detected in San Diego's backcountry eight or nine years ago but it took until 2008 to link the problem to the gold-spotted oak borer. The bug was so rare that it didn’t have an accepted common name at the time.

While the borer has been seen in the La Jolla area, the fact that it hasn't spread into other counties is helping to buy time for state and federal scientists looking at pesticides, parasites and other control measures.

"We may still be able to beat thing thing if it's confined to its current location," said Kevin Turner, gold-spotted oak borer program coordinator for the University of California's Agricultural and Natural Resources division.

A network of local, state and federal agencies is working with woodcutters, arborists and consumers to discourage the sale and transportation of infested wood. Wood that is bark-free or that has dried and cured for at least one year is generally safe to transport, Scott said.

Said Turner: “That's biggest tool in our toolbox right now. ... If we can stop the movement of wood, we have good chance in the meantime to come up with other things that will help us gain control."

Mike Lee: mike.lee@uniontrib.com; (619)293-2034; Follow on Twitter @sdutlee

New GSOB newsletter, good news.

The first Goldpotted Oak Borer newsletter. Newsletters are published quarterly and are distributed electronically to email list subscribers. View a PDF file of the newsletter below. This is good news of more concern, organization and group involvement. Also on www.GSOB.org are brochures on firewood in Spanish, a new webfilm presentation and a community preparedness manual. Plus they are on facebook. I feel the rally.

http://ucanr.org/sites/gsobinfo/files/113692.pdf

Special oak planting this Saturday at Cottonwood Creek in Encinitas.

Cottonwood Creek Friends and Supporters- 

We will be having a special work party this Saturday, June 25, from 10 AM to around noon. 
 Torrey Neel, founder of the wonderful store EnvironGentle on Coast Highway 101 between D 
and E streets in downtown Encinitas (www.EnvironGentle.com & www.SaveOuroaks.org) has donated to us eight scrub 
oaks she started from acorns.  Two have been planted and we will do the other six on Sat. 
 It's important to get them in the ground soon, as it is late in the planting season.

These trees are the namesake of our city: Encinitas is Spanish for "little oaks"  
and they will be replacements for ones that did not survive from our 2005 Slope 
Re-vegetation Project.  If we have extra time and energy we may do some additional 
weeding.  Our next regularly scheduled work party will be Sat., July 16.

Cottonwood Creek Conservancy is looking for a volunteer coordinator to help maintain and 
send emails and contact lists and facilitate volunteer communications.  If you know of 
someone interested in this unpaid position, please have them contact me at this email 
address.  

-Brad Roth, Project Manager 
 Cottonwood Creek Conservancy 
 (760) 436-2632 

Invasive Beetle Killing Coast Live Oaks. Oak Borer Could Wipe Out Trees From San Diego To Oregon

Invasive Beetle Killing Coast Live Oaks

Oak Borer Could Wipe Out Trees From San Diego To Oregon

BY ED JOYCE

April 1, 2011

Hundreds of Coast Live Oaks have already been decimated in Cuyamaca Rancho State Park in San Diego County.

Enlarge this image

Photo by Ed Joyce

Above: Picnic area in Cuyamaca Rancho State Park where the Gold Spotted Oak Borer has killed dozens of trees.

The trees have been killed by the Gold Spotted Oak Borer.

We walked through a section of the Park with UC Riverside Natural Resources Specialist Tom Scott and U.S. Forest Service Entomologist Tom Coleman.

In just one section of the park, the picnic area of the Green Valley Falls Campground, the pernicious beetle has killed dozens of trees, including a 200-year-old oak tree.

"If you lived in San Diego, if you grew up here, this is the kind of place you'd come in the summer where you'd have a closed canopy forest that you could sit under with the the dappled light from the oak trees," said Scott. "And if you look at this now, what you have is an area that's basically exposed."

These trees will not be the only or last trees to fall victim to the Gold Spotted Oak Borer.

At risk are hundreds of thousands of iconic Coast Live Oak trees from San Diego County to Oregon.

Scott said the beetle was already killing trees before it was even noticed.

"All the large trees in this picnic area have died, most of them in the last five years," said Scott. "Most of them before we even knew there was a problem. These trees already had the beetle and had begun their progression toward death."

Enlarge this image

Credit: U.S. Forest Service

Above: Gold Spotted Oak Borer

Scott said the Gold Spotted Oak Borer is not native to San Diego County.

He said the pest likely arrived here between 1996 and 2000.

How the invasive species got to the county is not clear.

Scott said the best guess is the beetle hitched a ride in a load of firewood brought here from Arizona.

Scott and others are now warning people in San Diego and other nearby counties about the potential dangers lurking in firewood.

"If you buy firewood that's green or you transport firewood that's green to the area where you live and you have oak trees, chances are in a year or two you're going to start to see your oak trees thin," Scott explained. "And then you're going to start to see the kind of decline that we have in the scene behind me right now."

U.S. Forest Service Entomologist Tom Coleman has been tracking the beetles path of devastation.

He said the pests choke the tree, keeping nutrients from getting to its roots.

"What really killed this tree, it's the larval feeding, and you can see this on the wood surface here," said Coleman, pointing out the pattern on a dead oak stump. "All this kind of scribbly lines, this meandering feeding pattern. What the beetle does is almost girdle the tree and you would get the same effect if you were to come up to the tree with an ax or a hatchet and just take all the bark off."

Enlarge this image

Photo by Ed Joyce

Above: Larval pattern of death: Coast Live Oak killed by Gold Spotted Oak Borer in Cuyamaca Rancho State Park.

Coleman said the beetles have a voracious appetite for the oldest and tallest oaks.

"The beetle prefers these really large diameter trees," said Coleman. "When the beetle initially will move into some of these stands, this is what it attacks first. And it'll slowly move from this larger size class to the smaller size class."

He said the mature Gold Spotted Oak Borer beetles lie dormant in the winter waiting for warm weather. In spring, the adults feed on the trees and lay their eggs.

Coleman said it is these tiny offspring which cause the big problems.

"The larvae are really the damaging agent that are killing the trees, it's not the adults, it's the damage from the larval feeding that girdle the tree and cause the mortality," said Coleman.

Damage to the base or main stem of the coast live oaks is what tipped Coleman and others off to the beetle's presence.

Coleman said another sign is sparse or bare tree tops. It takes several years for the trees to die once the larvae start to feed.

Enlarge this image

Photo by Ed Joyce

Above: This crown or top of this Coast Live Oak is a sign the Gold Spotted Oak Borer is killing the tree.

The Coast Live Oak is a hearty tree.

But Tom Scott with UC Riverside said it doesn't have a natural defense for the Gold Spotted Oak Borer.

"And it's a striking thing to see a tree that can go through catastrophic fires, droughts and have survived for 200 years in this unpredictable climate to be waylaid by a beetle that's less than a centimeter long," said Scott.

Scott and Coleman said researchers are studyingways to control the beetle. But for now, there's no way to eradicate the pest.

"Seventeen percent of the trees are dying every year," Scott said. "Do the math, you don't have to go many years until you've got every tree in decline or dead."

Meantime, the oaks face the potential for widespread devastation.

"The line in the sand right now is urban Los Angeles. If we don't stop this beetle and it makes that jump across Los Angeles, it won't stop until it gets to Oregon," said Scott.

• ED JOYCE, Reporter
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Watch the video here Oak segment starts @ 19:00
http://video.kpbs.org/video/1866043747#