A tiny insect from Asia has the potential to cause big problems for landowners and homeowners in Louisiana.

The emerald ash borer was discovered recently in Webster Parish near Shongaloo, according to Wood Johnson, an entomologist with the U.S. Forest Service. It’s probably already in other Northern Louisiana parishes, as it continues its slow spread across the country.

A quarantine is likely to be imposed soon to ban the movement of wood from ash trees out of Webster Parish, Johnson reported March 17 at the Central Louisiana Forestry Forum organized by the LSU AgCenter.

Veronica Mosgrove, press secretary for the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry, said the LDAF is in the initial stages of providing the USDA with a quarantine for review. That quarantine will encompass Webster Parish only and should be in place in early to mid-April. After the quarantine is officially declared, the quarantine could become larger if EAB is found in other parts of the state. Statewide visual and trap surveys will be conducted beginning in April.

First identified in 2002 near Detroit, the wood-boring beetle is believed to have caught a ride to the United States in the mid-1990s on wooden pallets or crates. Now confirmed in at least 25 states, the insect primarily attacks and kills North American ash trees, but has recently been found infesting white fringe trees, commonly called grancy graybeards. Near its epicenter, the infestation has wiped out about 99 percent of ash trees.

“It’s a devastating pest,” Johnson said. “The numbers are in the hundreds of millions of trees. Ash isn’t like pine or oak, but it’s out there. When you tally it up over 25 U.S. states, it comes out to a lot of trees.”

Johnson said ash trees account for only about 4 percent of Louisiana’s hardwood species, but the financial impact of infestation could swell much higher than the estimated $547 million loss their demise would bring. That’s because timber companies may be unwilling to harvest tracts in quarantined areas that include ash trees because it would be too time intensive to work around them, said LSU AgCenter area forester Ricky L. Kilpatrick.

While the emerald ash borer is estimated to spread anywhere from a half-mile to 10-15 miles per year unaided, with human help it can move much farther, so moving firewood, nursery stock and waste products would also be prohibited by quarantine. The firewood ban would encompass all hardwoods since it’s difficult to identify tree species once cut.

Forestry consultant Tim Holland, who manages timberlands primarily for small landowners, first heard of the pest last fall. His clients, who generally have pine stands, have not started calling him about it.

“Most landowners are not going to know about it yet,” he said. “We’re just kind of in a holding pattern to see what action we need to take and go from there. It’s got the potential to be pretty big.”

Homeowners could be affected too, Kilpatrick said, because ashes are popular shade trees. Green and white ash trees are often recommended to homeowners because they are adaptable enough to grow in a variety of soils.

“It’s going to have a big urban impact in Shreveport-Bossier down the road,” he said.

Although chemical treatment of ashes in timber tracts wouldn’t be cost-effective, Johnson said, there are products available that can protect yard trees, such as Bayer Advanced Tree and Shrub, Safari and Transect. Chemical injections are also available, but must be applied by a licensed applicator. More information on chemical options can be found at http://www.emeraldashborer.info.

Johnson recommended waiting to treat yard trees until the pest has been confirmed within 10 miles. Once traps go up this spring, a better estimate of where it has spread will be available.

About the emerald ash borer

•Native to Asia.

•Adults are dark metallic green, 1/2 inch-long and 1/8 inch wide.

•Spends 99 percent of its lifecycle under the bark of trees.

•Larvae feed on the phloem and sapwood of North American ash and fringe trees, leaving S-shape grooves under the bark and disrupting the flow of carbohydrates and water through the tree, which results in canopy dieback and finally tree death.

•Signs of infestation include significant limb breakage and dieback in the crown, woodpecker activity that results in “blonding” of an area where the bark has been pecked away, D-shaped holes made when the adults emerge in the late spring/early summer and suspicious death of ash trees. Scrape the bark away to check for tunnels.

Report infested trees

The Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry has a hotline to report suspected emerald ash borers at 855-452-5323.