City of Ottawa is now using TreeAzin "Off Label". Injections every year. At a major risk to tree health due to injection site wounding. As well as extreme costs associated with product.
TreeAzin® Systemic Insecticide is owned by the Canadian Forest Service and was developed in collaboration with BioForest, who holds its worldwide license. TreeAzin is distributed by BioForest in Canada and by Rainbow Treecare Scientific Advancements in the U.S.
Emerald ash borer fight moves west
By David Reevely, Ottawa Citizen
OTTAWA — The way Ottawa is slowly losing the fight against emerald ash borers is a lot more visible to a lot more people now that the bugs have moved into downtown.
Ash borers were detected in this city in 2008 and they typically kill a tree in about five years, starting from the top, as their larvae chew through the wood under the bark. They were first confirmed in trees southeast of downtown and have been emanating in all directions since. Ashes are about a quarter of Ottawa’s trees, so when they go, people notice.
“Now you’re into Greenboro, downtown. It’s not as noticeable as you come west toward Woodroffe; it’s more pockets,” says David Barkley, the city government’s chief forester. “The population’s growing. That’s one of the things you can definitely notice more this year than in some others, you can see insects on the trees and on the green growth at the bottom that’s sprouting out.”
Those shoots are one of the last gasps of a tree that’s too infested to survive. Especially downtown, Barkley says, the city’s finding that the pesticide it’s injected into some ashes it considers especially important (because they’re especially large and beautiful or because a whole stand of threatened ash trees provides shade for a playground, for instance) isn’t working. Instead of injections every two years, the city’s moved back to applying the chemicals annually, because many trees it treated have died anyway. Even half a dozen ashes shading the playground of City Hall’s daycare are dead or dying, despite the telltale metal tags hammered into their trunks showing they’ve been treated.
“We don’t know if it’s condition, where the tree is growing, the population,” Barkley says.
He means the population of bugs might be greater than expected and some trees might just be weaker than his experts thought and less able to resist the ash borers even with chemical help — particularly after last year’s summer drought. Downtown especially, growing conditions can be tough for trees anyway, with their roots covered over with concrete, salt spray in the winter and extra heat reflecting off nearby buildings in the summer.
Outside downtown, though, many ash trees aren’t good candidates for the TreeAzin pesticide treatment because they aren’t big enough. People may notice more dead trees because it’s been a bad season for Dutch elm disease, too, Barkley says.
The city’s spending $1.8 million on the ash borer fight this year, on injections, cutting down infested trees and experiments with other governments. The federal government has approved the release of non-native wasps that feed on the borers in China; Barkley hopes that’ll help especially in suburban woodlots. But they’ll need a lot of ash borers to eat if they’re going to sustain themselves, meaning they’re more likely to cap the borer population at a pretty high level than to knock it down.
Barkley compares this fight to a slow-motion version of the 1998 ice storm in the damage it’s doing. The pesticides and the wasps will only ever slow the ash borers down, giving time for new trees to grow and replace them. Alta Vista Drive, which is completely lined with ash trees, has been an early target for both the ash borers and the city’s attacks, with numerous small trees planted along its boulevards next to dying ashes. It’s bad there, but not as bad as Barkley feared it would be.
“We’ve been doing a lot of planting. This year we’re looking at planting about 5,700 trees and we’ll probably remove less than half that. If we can keep this pace the next few years — we’re in the rural villages now, planting and filling in — if we can keep ahead of it, I think the residents will see that we’re not changing the look that much,” Barkley says. “We’re doing something. So when I look at some of the streets that we can do planting on, we’re mixing up the diversity so we won’t go through this again.”
IF TREEAZIN IS THE ONLY OPTION, IT WOULD BE BETTER TO DO NOTHING RATHER THAN USE TREEAZIN ― MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES SHOULD SIMPLY BE EQUIPPED WITH CHAIN SAWS
Get used to the sound of chain saws ! City of Ottawa will spend EXORBITANT AMOUNTS OF MONEY because the Province of Ontario ARBITRARILY IMPOSED PROHIBITION against pest control products that could have been used in the early stages of the EMERALD ASH BORER INVASION. Can MUNICIPALITIES like Ottawa afford the HARDSHIP AND COST of this #@!!% PROHIBITION NONSENSE ?!?! When it comes to Anti-Pesticide PROHIBITION, Municipal Officials can learn a lot from the experience of those jurisdictions that have SUFFERED THE HARDSHIP AND COST AN FAILURE OF THIS #@!!% NONSENSE ! http://wp.me/P1jq40-445 http://wp.me/P1jq40-3yl And there is little debate about the fact that ARBITRARY PROHIBITIONS convert communities into SHABBIER AND DANGEROUS PEST-INFESTED GARBAGE DUMPS. http://wp.me/P1jq40-44g http://wp.me/P1jq40-4z3 PESTICIDE-FREE means DEAD TREES and WEED-INFESTED PLAYING SURFACES. EMERALD ASH BORER, a wood-boring insect that is HIGHLY DESTRUCTIVE to Ash Trees, is an example where Anti-Pesticide PROHIBITION led to municipalities being forced to spend STUNNINGLY EXORBITANT AMOUNTS OF MONEY AND RESOURCES. For several years, TreeAzin was the ONLY COMMERCIAL TREATMENT available in jurisdictions where Anti-Pesticide PROHIBITION has been ARBITRARILY IMPOSED. TreeAzin is a so-called Green Alternative Pesticide that supposedly replaces conventional pest control products. Other municipalities, like Ottawa, have admitted that TREEAZIN IS A DISMAL FAILURE, and are bringing in Confidor, at one time a PROHIBITED PRODUCT. If TreeAzin is THE ONLY OPTION, it would be better to DO NOTHING rather than use TreeAzin. TreeAzin ( aka Neem Oil ) DOES NOT WORK ! http://wp.me/P1jq40-2G4 It is IMPOSSIBLE TO CONTROL EMERALD ASH BORER without conventional pest control products. TreeAzin provides MARGINAL CONTROL AT BEST. In jurisdictions where Anti-Pesticide PROHIBITION has been IMPOSED, Municipal Employees should simply be equipped with CHAIN SAWS. If municipalities truly want to save their Urban Forests, then they should have their LOCAL PROHIBITION RESCINDED. http://wp.me/p1jq40-5NR Across North America, Municipal Officials are THINKING TWICE ABOUT PROHIBITION by looking at the experience of those jurisdictions that have suffered the HARDSHIP AND STUNNINGLY EXORBITANT COSTS OF THIS #@!!% NONSENSE ! http://wp.me/p1jq40-5×1 http://wp.me/P1jq40-43V In fact, THERE ARE REAL TRENDS AGAINST PROHIBITION. The following jurisdictions STOPPED or RESCINDED or LIMITED or OPPOSED Anti-Pesticide PROHIBITION, or granted professional lawn care businesses with an EXCEPTION STATUS … Alberta ( Province ), Altona ( Manitoba ), Ashland ( Oregon ), Beaumont ( Alberta ), British Columbia ( Province ), Calgary ( Alberta ), Campbell River ( British Columbia ), Chicago ( Illinois ), Durango ( Colorado ), Edmonton ( Alberta ), Everett ( Washington ), Guelph ( Ontario ), Guelph-Eramosa ( Ontario ), Kamloops ( British Columbia ), Kelowna ( British Columbia ), Merritt ( British Columbia ), New Brunswick ( Province ), Newfoundland & Labrador ( Province ), Ogunquit ( Maine ), Port Alberni ( British Columbia ), Portage La Prairie ( Manitoba ), Quebec ( Prohibition Invalidated When Lawsuit Defeated Ban ), Regina ( Saskatchewan ), Rossland ( British Columbia ), Salmon Arm ( British Columbia ), Scarborough ( Maine ), Saint John’s ( Newfoundland & Labrador ), Steinbach ( Manitoba ), Stuartburn ( Manitoba), Vernon ( British Columbia ), Winkler ( Manitoba ). http://wp.me/P1jq40-1JO THE TRENDS AGAINST PROHIBITION CONTINUE. NO ONE CAN AFFORD THIS #@!!% NONSENSE OF ALLOWING HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF TREES TO DIE ! WILLIAM H. GATHERCOLE AND NORAH G https://pesticidetruths.com/ http://wp.me/P1jq40-2rr