South hit by worst pine beetle epidemic in memory

Posted 8:21AM on Sunday 18th August 2002 ( 22 years ago )

ALBANY - Dean Wilson has a college degree and 20 years of experience as a forest manager. But despite the years of care he has given his trees, many are turning brown and dying - victims of the worst Southern pine beetle epidemic in memory. Since the outbreak began in 2000, the beetles have destroyed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of timber in north Georgia, South Carolina, western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee and northeastern Alabama. Hardest hit are South Carolina and Georgia. The dark, cylindrical bugs, about half as long as a grain of rice, have forced landowners to dump diseased trees on an already glutted pulpwood market and their devastation hasn't been limited to remote timber tracts. Homeowners in Atlanta's northern suburbs of Marietta, Roswell and Alpheretta have had to hire crews to remove infested trees from their yards. Besides the death they bring, the beetles introduce a fungus known as blue stain that makes the tree unsuitable for lumber and less valuable. ``It's heartbreaking to have to cut down trees that I planted 20 years ago,'' said Wilson, who manages 26,000 acres of trees at Berry College, near Rome. He said the needles of infected trees can turn from green to yellow or brown within a couple of weeks. He's been forced to cut about 1,000 acres in three years. Berry College, a private liberal arts college, has a 28,000-acre campus - 26,000 in pine trees. ``It's frustrating to see the beetles get in there and get them before ... a planned harvest,'' said Wilson, who has hired three logging crews to salvage infested trees. ``In some cases, we're not able to see the wood because it's too far gone by the time we get to it. The wood yards are being more selective on how much they'll take.'' Southern pine beetle outbreaks are often linked to droughts that weaken the trees and make them more vulnerable to attacks. Georgia and much of the Southeast is in the fifth year of a drought. ``The outbreak that started in 2000 on a regional basis is probably the worst we've ever seen,'' said Wesley Nettleton, an entomologist with the USDA Forest Service in Atlanta. The outbreak peaked in eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina last year and intensified this year in South Carolina and Georgia, he said. ``Thousands of acres have been killed,'' Nettleton said. ``It's terrible. You drive up Interstate 75 north of Chattanooga and all you see is dead pine trees, killed by the Southern pine beetle.'' The beetles are known as the most destructive forest pests in the Southeast, but they flare up occasionally as far north as New Jersey and Pennsylvania, as far west as Arizona and as far south as Mexico and Honduras. There are reports of sightings this year in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. Female beetles bore through the bark and release a sex pheromone that causes other beetles to attack the tree. Females lay eggs and build a network of tunnels that block the flow of nutrients from the needles to the roots. As the larvae develop into adults, they feed on moist bark and then tunnel out to fly away and attack other trees. Their blue-stain fungus stops the flow of water in the tree. The beetles usually prefer loblolly or Southern yellow pine, but in the current outbreak they've spread to other species. ``Once the population gets to a high level, they'll kill most anything,'' said Nettleton. ``They're attacking white pine, even red spruce, which is unusual.'' Forestry officials locate infestations by flying over the forests looking for brown spots. In Georgia, some of the smaller spots contain as few as 25 trees, while some of the larger ones cover up to 60 acres with hundreds of trees. Georgia Forestry Commission officials have declared ``epidemic'' beetle levels in 44 of the state's 159 counties. ``Just about every county north of Atlanta is epidemic or heavily infested,'' said Terry Price, the commission's entomologist. ``This is the worst outbreak in that area since I've been with the commission, for 30 years. We've got some landowners who have lost most of their forest holdings.'' Price said the value of the timber lost in Georgia could easily climb to several hundred thousands of dollars this year. Georgia has launched a cost-sharing program to help landowners in hard-hit areas with reforestation and land improvements. Andy Boone, chief of forest health for the South Carolina Forestry Commission, said his state is developing a program to help landowners cut down infested trees. With 12 million acres of trees, South Carolina has lost about 13 million trees in 25 outbreak counties, Boone said. Losses are expected to reach $200 million by the end of the summer, he said. With no effective chemical controls, the only option for landowners is attempt to salvage the wood, or hire crews to cut them and let them rot in the forest. Boone said South Carolina landowners may be able to salvage only 15 to 20 percent of their infested trees because of the depressed pulp wood market. ``As much wood as we've had killed in the last couple of months, there's no way the market can handle it,'' he said. ``We could flood Georgia and surrounding states and still there would be an oversupply.'' Forestry officials expect no letup until next year. They say a week of 100-degree weather could slow the beetles down, but the heat would also add to the stress on trees. ``The outbreaks end when the natural parasites or predators kill pine beetles faster than the beetles are killing trees,'' Boone said. ``The numbers aren't great enough yet, so I anticipate the outbreak will last at least through next summer."

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