REYNOLDSBURG, Ohio — The Ohio Department of Agriculture expanded the state’s emerald ash borer quarantine area Aug. 22 to include Wayne County.
The state’s quarantine prohibits the movement of ash trees, parts of an ash tree, and all hardwood firewood from infested areas.
State officials discovered emerald ash borer on a residential property in Wayne Township near the intersection of Smithville-Western and Hoffman roads, just outside the Wooster city limits.
Three EAB specimens were collected from a purple-trapping device placed by ODA as part of its efforts to detect the insect in nonquarantined Ohio counties. To date, this is Wayne County’s first known infestation.
About the quarantine
It is illegal to take ash trees, parts of ash trees, and all hardwood firewood from any quarantined county into a nonquarantined county without a compliance agreement from the department of agriculture.
Firewood dealers, businesses or woodlot owners interested in marketing and transporting ash trees or firewood from quarantined areas can do so only with a department-approved compliance agreement.
Death sentence
Ash trees infested with emerald ash borer typically die within five years.
The pest belongs to a group of metallic wood-boring beetles. Adults are dark green, one-half inch in length and one-eighth inch wide, and fly only from early May until September. Larvae spend the rest of the year beneath the bark of ash trees, and when they emerge as adults, leave D-shaped holes in the bark about one-eighth inch wide.
