Maine forestland owners are better positioned to cope with the next spruce budworm outbreak but will have to adapt their harvesting and marketing practices to deal with a pest that has already defoliated 15 million acres in Canada.
Those are some of the conclusions of a 77-page report released Wednesday on how the state is preparing for the next cyclical infestation of a pest that could cause severe economic damage to the state’s forest products industry.
Described as the most damaging forest insect in North America, the spruce budworm is not yet killing trees in Maine. However, the number of adult moths showing up in detection traps is rising. Meanwhile, the line of “severe defoliation” caused by the insects is just 50 miles from the Maine border and creeping closer.
“We don’t know exactly where, and we don’t know exactly how bad it is going to be,” Maine state entomologist Dave Struble said of the impending budworm outbreak. “But it would be naive to assume that we are not going to be looking at it, I would say, in the next couple of years.”
During Maine’s last outbreak in the 1970s and 1980s, the budworm decimated the equivalent of 20 million to 25 million cords of wood, or 21 percent of the state’s spruce and fir. The extensive defoliation prompted landowners and the state to clear-cut large areas or apply huge amounts of insecticides, which in turn led to public outcry and major changes to Maine’s forest practices laws.
From the Portland Press Herald: https://www.pressherald.com/2016/03/16/maine-gears-up-for-next-spruce-budworm-outbreak/?utm_source=WIT031816&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=WeekInTrees