bores in flowering cherry

Grey · Sat Apr 08, 2006 7:20 pm

Today I was at the garden center to pick up my plantly weekly paycheck (today I got 2 native orange azaleas and 2 white quince - I love my job

) and there were 2 Kwanzaan Cherry that had bores in them. They said I could have one for free, it might live 2 years or 5 (no, they were not going to sell them). The other was already in bad shape so it was on its way to Stonehenge, where they chuck the bad stuff.

Is there really no cure?

They had such lovely shape otherwise.

Brad · Mon Apr 10, 2006 10:27 am

Was it a true boring beetle, or ambrosia beetle? I have seen ambrosia beetle here in NC this year pretty frequently. That is a nasty little bug. I know that they bore into the trunk, make galleries, lay eggs, then produce a fungus that the larva feed off of. This fungus is what kills the tree by blocking the vascular tissue of the tree. I keeps water from making its way from root to leaf, and sugars from leaf to root. In the past, I have saved trees that have a light infestation by treating the trees with a systemic insecticide and fungicide. If there is a large infestation, it may not be worth the trouble. Just my $.02

Grey · Mon Apr 10, 2006 1:06 pm

Yep - it's the ambrosia beetle. I did some research on them and couldn't find any natural defense for it, there's some pesticides that have had limited success, but the best thing to do to prevent further infestation in other trees is to burn the infected plant.

Oh well, I guess you can't save them all.

Brad · Mon Apr 10, 2006 1:44 pm

Sorry to hear that. We've had our battles with that one. The only spray that I know of to help deter them is a mixture of Astro, Dursban, and a spreader-sticker. I'm not that big a fan of spraying and it sounds like you don't want to mess with it either. Sounds like burning the infected plants may be the best bet.