Detection and Management

Detection

To understand the scale of your current or future EAB infestation, including the diversity and health of your urban forest, conduct a tree inventory. Tree inventories could be conducted quickly only for ash trees or more holistically for all trees that your community manages. See the below guides on how to identify EAB and how to conduct a tree inventory.

• EAB Detection Field Guide [PDF]
  The guide provides information on identifying ash trees, various forms of EAB damage and other pests that may look like EAB, but are not. Typically, EAB signs and symptoms do not appear until several years after the infestation. TAKE ACTION NOW.
• How to Conduct a Tree Inventory
  An outline of the process of inventorying and cataloging community trees.
• Distinguishing Ash from Other Trees [PDF exit DNR]
  Helping residents and inexperienced workers determine how to identify ash trees is a logical first step in determining a proper course of action. This resource is from Michigan State University.
• Assessing Your Ash Tree for Emerald Ash Borer [exit DNR]
  A video from Colorado State University’s Plant Diagnostic Clinic.

Management

Be sure you make the right ash management choices for your community. We strongly encourage you to consider the benefits of retaining your tree canopy (aesthetics, storm water runoff, increased tourism, increased property value, energy savings, decreased stress, etc.), as well as the financial expense of maintaining the treatments.

• Managing Urban Ash Guidelines [PDF]
  You should read this document first. It will provide Wisconsin communities and professionals that serve them with guidance and recommendations on how to manage their urban forests in the face of emerald ash borer (EAB).
• Tools for Staging and Managing Emerald Ash Borer in the Urban Forest
  Developed in 2017. Arboriculture and Urban Forestry journal article highlighting a Fort Wayne, Indiana case study that touches on the value of tree treatments.

Insecticide treatment information

• Insecticide Options for Protecting Ash Trees from Emerald Ash Borer [PDF exit DNR]
• Professional Guide to EAB Insecticide Treatments [PDF exit DNR]
• Homeowner Guide to EAB Insecticide Treatments [PDF exit DNR]
• Costs and Benefits of EAB Insecticide Treatment [PDF]
• Pesticide Regulations for Municipalities [PDF exit DNR]

Hazard tree alert

Be aware that infested and dead ash trees are much more dangerous and unpredictable to work with than a healthy, green tree.

• Safely Working With EAB-Infested Trees [PDF exit DNR]
  Produced by National Grid, a utility company in the northeast U.S. This addresses some of the hazards of trees with many pictures.
• Emerald Ash Borer - The Dangers and Costs of Infested Trees [PDF]
  This document talks about how EAB affects trees and causes them to die and why they become concerns.
• Effects of Emerald Ash Borer Infestation on the Structure and Material Properties of Ash Trees [exit DNR]
  2013 Arboriculture and Urban Forestry journal article. A study was initiated to resolve the effects of EAB on the material properties of ash branches and stems.