Michigan agricultural officials have spotted another infestation of a small bug that can affect the growth of hemlock trees and potentially kill them within 10 years. The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said Washtenaw County has become the seventh county in the state with confirmed infestation of hemlock woolly adelgids. Hemlock woolly adelgids are small insects with long, siphoning mouths that they use to extract sap from hemlock trees, weakening needles, shoots, and branches over time and slowing tree growth, according to the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. The bugs were spotted earlier this month in the Nichols Arboretum in Ann Arbor…
Microbial stress can be a boon for young trees. Saplings grown in soil microbes that have experienced drought, cold or heat are more likely to survive when faced with those same conditions, researchers report in the May 26 Science. And follow-up tests suggest that the microbes’ protective relationship with trees may linger beyond initial planting. The team’s findings could aid massive tree planting efforts by giving new saplings the best chance of survival over the long run, says Ian Sanders, a plant and fungal ecologist at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. “If you can control which microbes are put onto tree saplings in a nursery, you can probably help to determine whether they’re going to survive or not when they’re transplanted to the field.” As climate change pushes global temperatures ever higher, many species must either adapt to new conditions or follow their ideal climate to new places (SN: 1/25/23). While forests’ ranges have changed as Earth’s climate has warmed and cooled over hundreds of millions of years, the pace of current climate change is too fast for trees to keep up (SN: 4/1/20)…
Torrential rains in Sierra Leone’s capital felled the centuries-old Cotton Tree, a national treasure whose loss has left “a gap” in people’s hearts, the country’s President Julius Maada Bio said Thursday. “There is no stronger symbol of our national story than the Cotton Tree, a physical embodiment of where we come from as a country,” Bio told the Associated Press. “Nothing in nature lasts forever, so our challenge is to rekindle, nurture, and develop that powerful African spirit for so long represented,.’ Standing 70 meters tall and 15 meters wide, the roughly 400 year-old tree has been Sierra Leone’s national symbol for decades. It has appeared on bank notes, woven into lullabies and visited by royalty, such as Queen Elizabeth the II, to mark the country’s independence in 1961, according to a statement by Zebek International, a press agency working with Sierra Leone’s government. While the tree had withstood damage throughout the years, including a lightning strike that has left it partially scorched, Wednesday’s storm left nothing of the tree but a stump…
State officials did not address a complaint a resident had filed against a developer in Huron Township who was cutting down trees in a wetland area. People who live in the New Boston area have said the construction project is destroying the reason they purchased their homes in the first place — the trees. The developer said it has been clear for years about its plans to build 43 more homes there and they said they had all the permits to do so. When Local 4 checked with the state last week to confirm that Infinity Homes had all the permits, the state revealed they did not have a final issued permit to chop down the trees. Infinity Homes has acknowledged the violation notice and stopped working. According to state officials, residents got a restraining order from a judge to stop the work. Last week, the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) issued a notice finding Infinity Homes in violation of Michigan wetland law — citing unauthorized activity including tree clearing and soil disturbance. EGLE said part of the area where Infinity Homes cut down trees and moved dirt around is a designated wetland. EGLE told Local 4 that residents should have filed a complaint, then the state could have acted. Local 4 Investigators have learned that a resident had filed a complaint and the state did not address it…
Seattle City Council passed a sweeping tree ordinance Tuesday that will regulate and protect tens of thousands more trees and create new requirements for replacing those that are cut down. After more than an hour of public comment with arborists, residents and builders testifying for and against the bill, Seattle council members passed the ordinance 6-1. Councilmember Alex Pedersen voted against it. Several council members said while the ordinance is not perfect, the bill is better than the current code and that they intend to keep working to improve the law before it is implemented in 60 days. “This is a very hard vote for me,” said Councilmember Tammy Morales, saying many of her constituents feel they did not get a sufficient chance to weigh in. Though council members disagree on whether the tree ordinance sufficiently protects trees versus regulating them, the new ordinance will affect between 88,100 and 175,000 trees, far more than the 17,700 protected under the current code…
Mac Logan is getting tired of seeing mature trees being intentionally poisoned in Kelowna, B.C., and is now asking for witnesses to come forward after a third such incident in the city in 12 months. Logan, infrastructure manager for the City of Kelowna, says an RCMP investigation has been opened after a mature cottonwood in a small city park was deliberately vandalized. The 18-metre-tall tree, located at 1055 Sunset Dr., had more than two dozen drill holes in it that Logan said were filled with herbicide. “We don’t believe it’s going to survive,” said Logan of the tree. City arborists expect the tree, which is the largest in the park and provides ample shade in summer months, will be completely dead within weeks. It’s not the first time of late that Logan and his colleagues have seen a tree poisoned this way. Last August, a large elm located at 900 Manhattan Dr., along with several aspens in the Kuipers Peak neighbourhood, were killed using the same technique…
Tree and Neighbor Law For Homeowners and Professionals 