Today’s forest health outreach update covers the following topics:
*Forestry Tip of the Day: Watch Out for Ips Bark Beetles
*Announcement: Allenspark Community Forestry Sort Yard Reopens on Friday – May 24
*Event Announcement: Town of Nederland Annual “Firewise” Spring Cleanup Event – June 1

*Forestry Tip of the Day: Watch Out for Ips Bark Beetles they are Flying
Forestry Tip of the Day: The spring/early summer is a good time of year to survey all your pine trees for new beetle infestation. Both ips bark beetles and mountain pine beetles continue to be the main species of bark beetle causing tree mortality in our area. As a reminder use our Bark Beetle Field Guide to help with identification these beetles: www.bouldercounty.org/find/library/environment/barkbeetlefieldguide.pdf

Ips Beetle Management Tip: In the spring of each year we typically observe the most damaging ips beetle flight. Over the past couple of days, we have seen signs of new ips infestation in freshly cut firewood piles, freshly cut pine slash and in weakened stressed pine trees. We recommend that everyone does a quick survey of their land to see if there are new ips infestations. Don’t forget that Ips beetles only infest pine trees.

Ips Beetle ID Tips: When surveying for ips infestation look for small accumulations of frass at the base of living pine trees, caught in the bark of trees or little piles of saw dust looking material accumulating on the top side of fresh firewood piles or fresh slash piles. This frass is actually beetle poop and is one of the main visual signs of ips beetle infestation. Another sign of possible ips infestation is the very rapid die off of seemly healthy trees. Trees infested with ips bark beetles turn from green to a bright red/yellow in as little as 4-6 weeks.

Ips Beetle Green Chaining:  While ips beetles are flying we can use their beetle biology to our advantage. In the next section we explain a management technique known as “green chaining”. We apologize for the long forestry tip of the day today, this technique is a bit complicated, but if done correctly can be highly effective.

Ips beetles are highly attracted to freshly cut “green/wet” pine slash and logs. We can use this knowledge to our advantage by intentionally cutting this time of year and stacking green pine slash and/or pine logs in an area away from high value trees and in a location that is easy to access for disposal. These piles of green branches and logs will attract ips beetles to them and in essence bait the Ips into these piles. After Ips infest that material we know that it takes them 4-6 weeks to complete their life cycle, from eggs to flying adults.

Once ips complete their life cycle they fly out of the infested slash pile and if that same pile still remains green/wet and attractive the beetles will generally turn around and re-infest that same material again and begin building their populations within the green pile. We can continue to use ips biology to our advantage by continuing to cut and make sure that we add freshly cut pine slash to these infested piles at intervals of at least every 3-4 weeks. This will ensure that our slash pile always has freshly cut material available that is both attracting new ips beetles to the pile and also helping keep the existing ips populations in the slash pile. The key to green chaining is creating a continuous supply of freshly cut slash during their flight period.

A very important step when green chaining is that you MUST destroy the pile of slash, and therefore the breeding beetles in the slash before the pile dries out to the point that it can no longer support new ips beetle reproduction. We recommend that you haul that pile of infested slash to either theAllenspark or the Nederland community forestry sort yard site.  You can also chip these piles.

Why is this important?  To conclude, you basically use freshly cut green pine slash or logs as “bait” for the beetles.  You “trap” them in the material and then haul that infested material to one of our community forestry sort yard sites before the beetles finish their life cycle. We should caution that this technique is not a guarantee and there is a chance that ips will infest living trees near your slash and log piles. This is why we recommend stacking the material away from large prized pine trees that you don’t want infested.

*Announcement: Allenspark Community Forestry Sort Yard Reopens on Friday – May 24
We are excited to announce the 2013 reopening of the north county Allenspark area sort yard site. The site reopens for free of charge log and slash disposal on Friday, May 24. This spring the north county site will be open on Fridays and Saturdays only, for a limited 8 day operation. Open on May 24, 25, 31 and June 1, 7, 8, 14, 15. The site will reopen again later in the summer for its main 5 day per week operation on July 30. Please help spread the word in your community about this limited reopening. The spring is a great time to be out on your land creating a healthier forest ecosystem that is better adapted to future wildfires. Get those saws out!

Don’t forget the south county Nederland area sort yard site is currently open Tuesday – Saturday, 9 am to 5 p.m. through July 6. This site has already seen significant use this spring.  For more information on sort yards including locations, hours, schedule of operation and materials accepted please visit: http://www.bouldercounty.org/property/forest/pages/fhsortyards.aspx

*Event Announcement: Town of Nederland Annual “Firewise” Spring Cleanup Event – June 1

The Town of Nederland will host its annual “Firewise” Spring Cleanup event on Saturday, June 1st at the Teen Center. For complete details see the event flier here: http://nederlandco.org/download/Town_of_Nederland_Spring_Clean_Up_Flier.pdf

New this year the Town is rebranding their spring cleanup event as a “Firewise Cleanup Event” in order to encourage folks to implement effective wildire mitigation on their land. To help you determine the most important actions to take on your land the Town developed a very helpful “Firewise Cleanup Homeowners Tip Sheet” that can be view online here: http://nederlandco.org/download/2013CleanupTipSheet.pdf  Use this tip sheet to learn more about the types of material you should focus on removing from around your home in order to make it more “Firewise”.

Also, new this year they will now accept pine needles and cut wildland grass at the event. In order to participate in this new service you must package pine needles in 30 gallon compostable bags pre-purchased from Nederland Town Hall. There is a limit of 5 bags per Boulder County Resident. To purchase pine needle composting bags stop in at Town Hall in downtown Nederland.

Cheers,
Ryan

Ryan Ludlow | Forestry Education & Outreach Coordinator
Boulder County | Land Use Department
O: 720.564.2641 | F: 303.441.4856
rludlow@nullbouldercounty.org | www.bouldercounty.org/ForestHealth
*Please visit our website to sign-up to receive emails about forestry workshops, community meetings, bark beetle management tips and more!