RED OAK BORER INFESTING STATE FORESTS

Evidence of the beginnings of the red oak beetle infestation that is devastating red oaks in Arkansas has been seen in many sections of the Mark Twain National Forest, say Missouri forestry officials.

No red oak borers have been reported in Cape Girardeau County, but signs of them have been seen in Bollinger, Wayne and Reynolds counties, said Joe Garvey, a forester with the Missouri Department of Conservation in Cape Girardeau. "We see a few of them every year," he said.

Southeast Missouri has a number of red oak trees, and a lot of them show different types of stresses, said Garvey. Department pathologists will be in the area next week to look at them.

Meanwhile, local department representatives are making notes of any tree stresses, including signs of the red oak borer.

Paul Schnare, owner of Sunny Hill Gardens & Florist in Cape Girardeau, said he had no reports of the borers in Cape Girardeau County.

The tree-killing borers, which feed on the inside of red oaks, are native to Missouri, said Mike Brown of the Missouri Department of Agriculture.

The beetles are usually kept in check by woodpeckers and other predators, said Brown. "But we have noticed an increase in some areas over the past couple of years."

Cause unknown

Forestry officials say they don't know the exact cause of the outbreak in Arkansas and parts of the Mark Twain Forest but speculate the factors could include three years of drought stress and a growing population of aging red oaks with weak immune systems.

A natural inhabitant of Midwest forests, borer numbers have increased recently in some areas of Arkansas from three to five per tree to 400 to 500 per tree.

Foresters in the Ava, Mo., district of the 1 million acre Mark Twain National Forest have not noticed an infestation yet, but those in districts to the east have reported the start of one, forest spokeswoman Charlotte Wiggins told the Springfield News-Leader newspaper.

"We're going to be putting out a notice of intent to try to work with about 25,000 acres in the Salem-Potosi section," she said.

About $15 million worth of red oaks in the Mark Twain National Forest could be lost this year to the borer, Wiggins said.

In Arkansas, officials have said nearly a quarter of the 1.4 million-acre Ozark National Forest is infested with the borer, threatening the livelihoods of sawmill operators.

Rob Lawrence, an insect specialist with the Missouri Division of Forestry, said he was discouraged during a recent visit to Arkansas.

"I was very concerned when we went down, and I'm still as concerned," Lawrence said. "We have a lot of forests in Missouri similar to what they have in Arkansas."

Not much can be done

Not much can be done to fight the borer, Lawrence said.

"The red oak borer is established, it's native," he said. "It's everywhere, and it's gone beyond its natural controls."

Ronnie Dollarhide, a sawmill worker in Oldfield, Mo., said some logs he has seen from Christian, Douglass and Taney counties resemble Swiss cheese.

"It ruins about half the lumber," said Dollarhide, who has been in the sawmill business for more than 30 years. "It's been running this bad the last year or two."

The holes reduce the quality of the wood, which is used in such products as flooring, cabinets, paneling and furniture.

Mark Twain National Forest spokesman Charles Gill said heavily damaged trees can be used only for firewood or wood chips.

Gill said deer and turkey that eat the acorns produced by the trees also could be affected. An infestation also could make it dangerous for hunters to enter areas where dead trees might fall.

B. Ray Owen of the Southeast Missourian contributed to this report.