Earth and Space News: Tree Injection Methods: Treatment Option in Integrated Pest Management

Summary: Shawn Bernick and E. Thomas Smiley of Bartlett Tree Research Laboratories indicate when Integrated Pest Management needs to include tree injection methods.

Imidacloprid insecticide injections with original Mauget capsules; tree injection method for treating Asian long-horned beetle (Anoplophora glabripennis) infestation, Ravenswood neighborhood, northern Chicago, southeastern Illinois, May 2002: Dennis Haugen/USDA Forest Service, CC BY 3.0, via Forestry Images

Integrated Pest Management accepts tree injection methods when soil treatments or sprays are ineffective or pest damages major, according to Tree Injection (Part 1) for the April 2016 issue of Arborist News.

Shawn Bernick and E. Thomas Smiley of Bartlett Tree Research Laboratories also broach cost-ineffective and jurisdiction-restricted spraying, tree sizes near water bodies and vascular wilt diseases. Sap flow carries the two low- or no-pressure tree injection methods of dry pill, powder or tablet implants dissolved from drilled holes and of infusion injections. Macroinjection types of pressurized tree injection methods deliver, and sometimes distribute unevenly to the crown's detriment, diluted, high-volume, low-concentrate solutions from common reservoirs to multiple ports. Microinjectors with handheld guns, with macroinjection-like compressed-gas canisters, with macroinjection-styled pumps, with pre-measured capsules or with self-pressurizing capsules eject low-phytotoxic, low-volume, non-diluted solutions through injection ports.

All four tree injection methods favor shallow, small-diameter holes that fill in naturally, not with caulk or dowel backfill, and furnish lowest likelihoods of introducing decay.

Genetics and health give higher species-specific tolerances of drill and injection wounds whose external closure gets to be the "only observable indication" of internal xylem damage. Circles around, fluxes oozing from and "lines of dead bark above and possibly below" injection sites respectively hint at phytotoxic damage to cambium, wood and phloem. Defoliation, interveinal necrosis and marginal leaf scorch within seven days of treatments indicate phytotoxicity whose damage is minor if absent from foliage's "next flush of growth."

Manufacturers judge Integrated Pest Management products non-phytotoxic according to tests and to treatments per label instructions since active ingredients juggle application-specific drench, injection and spray formulations.

Applicators know that "relatively rapid" treatments and uptakes for "evenly distributed" solutions to "target tissues" keep tree injection methods "effective and affordable" Integrated Pest Management options.

Such factors as environmental conditions, injection device, product viscosity, required dosage, tree health and tree species lengthen or shorten the "time required to perform" injection treatments. Injection site numbers, placements and treatment times must manage an even product distribution even though solutions typically move upward and water moves along species-specific, variable pathways. The "relatively large vessels" in such ring-porous hardwood trees as ash and oak necessitate far faster uptakes than such diffuse-porous hardwoods as maple and pear need.

Uptake rates operate more slowly in conifers because of resin flows and because of small-diameter tracheids and in deciduous trees "after the onset of fall coloration."

The timing of environmental factors, pest activity, residual activity, seasonal growth and treatment schedules push all four tree injection methods toward treatment failure or treatment success.

Morning applications when humidity is low and when concentrations are high, pests susceptible, skies clear, soils moist, temperatures moderate, trees leafed-out and winds light quicken uptakes. Injections of trees in decline or with "compromised vascular systems," drought or heat stress or "serious dieback" and iron injections other than in autumn remain ineffective. The timing optimally shows extended intervals between treatment dates by scheduling products with longer anticipated times, called residual activity, for solutions to stay active inside trees.

Pests take many forms that Integrated Pest Management tackles through tree injection methods by timing treatments to best site, tree and weather configurations and worst outbreaks.

Postdoctoral scientist Francisco Posada injects spore suspension into stem of coffee seedling; the fungal injection attacks a wide range of pests, including the coffee berry borer (Hypothenemus hampei): Peggy Greg/USDA Forest Service, CC BY 3.0, via Forestry Images

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to:
talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet;
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for superior on-campus and on-line resources.

Image credits:

Bernick, Shawn; and Smiley, E. Thomas. April 2016. "Tree Injection (Part 1)." Arborist News 25(2): 12-17.

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Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2011/02/tree-load-can-turn-tree-health-into.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 11 December 2010. “Tree Electrical Safety Knowledge, Precautions, Risks and Standards.” Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2010/12/tree-electrical-safety-knowledge.html

Earth and Space News

Saturday, April 16, 2016

Tree Injection Methods: Treatment Option in Integrated Pest Management

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