Other Important Information You Should KNow
Don’t Think HWA Is as Bad as It Sounds? Read This…
According to Avery County Cooperative Extension Agent Jerry Moody, the first time he understood the severity of the HWA pandemic in our region was when he learned that North Carolina State University shipped groupings of native hemlock seeds to other countries so if the HWA wiped out our hemlocks, the seeds could be used to repopulate the lost species. Currently, those seeds have sprouted dozens of Eastern and Carolina hemlocks overseas. With luck and good treatment, those hemlocks can stay there as a gift, rather than return as a last hope.
A Quick Test To Determine If Your HWA Have Eggs
You’ve located the white, wooly, waxy hemlock wooly adelgid on the branches of your hemlocks and you want to know if the eggs have hatched and are in what is called the crawler stage—the point at which the HWA begins feeding on the sap.
Remove a portion of the branch and hold it in your hand. Rub your thumb against the white sacs upward, applying ample pressure. If a red streak appears on your thumb, the HWA has entered the crawler stage.
While in the crawler stage, the HWA crawls out of its sac and extends a feeding tube deep into the branch. It locates a sap cell and begins to suck it out, eventually killing the tree. If your HWA are in the crawler stage, treatment needs to be applied.
How Would the Loss of Hemlocks Affect the Area’s Trout Population?
According to Bill Wilkinson, owner of Grandfather Trout Farm, hemlocks are one of the best shade-producing trees for our freshwater streams, rivers and lakes. If the hemlocks die off due to the HWA, the shade they produce will be lost. Sure, other species will take the hemlocks’ place, but not completely. Once the shade is gone, the rocks on the riverbed heat up and subsequently heat up the water. If the water temperature rises above 70 degrees, our trout populations will begin to die off. The hemlock’s demise from the HWA, combined with the fact that High Country summers are, statistically, getting warmer, means that our local trout populations are in grave danger.
What About New Sales of Hemlocks? The Nursery Outlook
With the concern about the HWA, are sales of ornamental hemlocks dropping at local nurseries?
According to Theresa Ozdemir of Grandfather Mountain Nursery Garden Center & Landscaping, sales of hemlocks haven’t changed a bit and her business continues to sell a majority of Eastern Hemlocks and Carolina Hemlocks (the hemlocks susceptible to the HWA) and a minority of Mountain Hemlocks and Japanese Hemlocks (the hemlocks not affected by HWA).
“We can’t control the hemlocks in the wild—there’s nothing we can do about it,” said Ozdemir. But she believes that saving landscape hemlocks is “very doable.”
Ozdemir cited the hemlock’s unparalleled qualities of shade and strength and said that the HWA on ornamental hemlocks can be controlled with chemical and organic treatments.
She admitted that the hemlocks she sells will be affected by the HWA, but pointed out that treatments can be done once a year for an affordable price.
“It’s like a cold; you get one every year,” she said.
Ozdemir doesn’t treat the hemlocks she sells prior to leaving her grounds. “It’s like, why take an antibiotic if you’re not sick yet?” said Ozdemir.
Grandfather Mountain Nursery Garden Center and Landscaping is located at 11466 Highway 105-South in Banner Elk. For more information, call 828-963-5025.
Looking for a Quick Fix to Smaller Hemlocks Infested with HWA?
One of the cheapest methods for ridding ornamental hemlocks of the HWA is rather unorthodox. Tim Hyatt, tree specialist at Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouse in Boone, has tried everything in his backyard. He has bought $20 bottles of Imcloripad (sold at Lowe’s), a systemic chemical treatment that takes six months to work, and he has also bought expensive soaps. While these methods are safe and fine for the environment, he’s gotten the best results from taking the bubbles from his daughter’s bath and dumping them all over his ornamental hemlocks. Hyatt said the bubbles work for him but may not be the best method for larger areas.
Is the HWA a Sign of Things To Come?
This week, the Associated Press released a notice that The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is asking visitors from some states to leave their firewood at home to prevent the spread of another insect invader.
Concerned about the emerald ash borer that was discovered in Michigan and has since spread to Ohio and Indiana, park officials at Cades Cove campground are checking ZIP codes and license plates of visitors from quarantined areas.
The park is already fighting the invasion of another nonnative species, the HWA.
Cades Cove campground sells firewood, and campers are allowed to burn dead wood they find on the ground. “Right now we hope to contain it, and we can only do that with help from the public,” said Ralph Cooley, state plant inspection health director for the Animal Plant Health Inspection Service.
Larvae of the emerald ash borer, a beetle from Asia, kills ash trees by eating the cambium between the bark and wood. The bright green beetle has killed more than 6 million ash trees in Michigan.
white and green species of ash grow in the Smokies below 5,000 feet. They grow in hardwood areas and near streams. The loss of ash trees would be a problem for the park’s ecosystem, but not as noticeable to visitors as the loss of hemlocks, said Smokies’ supervisory forester Kristine Johnson.
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