Why
Wooden Crates Should Be Heat Treated.
ITHACA, N.Y. -- It's not every day that plumbing-supply
warehouse employees get a chance to protect the environment. Tuesday,
June 9, 1998, was one of those days.
Thanks to the employees' keen eyes and quick thinking,
the area around Jamestown, N.Y., may have been spared an infestation
of harmful Japanese pine sawyer beetles, which can destroy pine
trees.
Employees at the Zurn Industries warehouse in
Jamestown found live beetles stowing away in large packing crates
full of freshly imported plumbing fixtures from China on June
9. Jeff Cupps, the facility manager at Zurn, remembered the Asian
long-horned beetle infestation in Brooklyn two years ago and thought
the beetles inside these crates looked similar.
Cupps called the New York State Department of
Agriculture and Markets. That department then informed the U.S.
Department of Agriculture and the Cornell University entomology
department in the New York State College of Agriculture and Life
Sciences. The state, federal and University officials all met
in Jamestown on Thursday.
But the beetles found in the crates were not the
Asian long-horned beetles, which attack hardwood trees, but the
pine sawyers.
"We all bear the brunt with these incursions,"
said E. Richard Hoebeke, an entomologist and assistant curator
of the Cornell University Insect Collection, who inspected the
Jamestown warehouse. "Pests of this type are costly to the
environment."
Dan Kepich of the U.S. Department of Agriculture
said that all the employees of Zurn were "incredibly cooperative"
in breaking down the wooden crates so that more live specimens
could be found. Kepich said that Cupps had his employees -- everyone
from forklift operators to clerks -- make finding the beetles
the priority of the day.
Commonly known as the Japanese pine sawyer, entomologists
call the beetle Monochamus alternatus, and in areas of Japan,
China, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Laos and Tibet, it has been very
destructive. For example, more than 2 million pine trees in the
Jiangsu Province of the People's Republic of China have been destroyed
as a result of an infestation since 1982.
Th beetle itself is not the problem, according
to Hoebeke. It's the pinewood nematode, a microscopic wormlike
organism, that rides inside the beetles that wreaks havoc with
the pine trees. Hoebeke explains that when these beetles come
into contact with a pine tree infested with these nematodes, the
microscopic nematodes enter the beetles through spiracles. The
spiracles are part of the beetles' breathing system.
Newly infected beetles then seek out healthy pines
upon which to feed. It is this feeding on the young branches of
healthy pines that pass along nematodes. The beetles lay eggs
and once the beetle larvae go through development and pupate,
once again the beetles become infested with the nematodes. The
cycle starts over again.
The nematodes work their way into the tree and
literally plug up the tree's vascular system, said Hoebeke. This
kills the tree.
After a thorough inspection of the Zurn warehouse
facility Thursday, the government and Cornell officials are confident
that a potential infestation has been prevented. About 140 wooden
crates were burned this morning at the Chataugua County Airport,
which is near the warehouse.
Hoebeke checked today how the Chinese handled
their infestation. They burned their trees, he found out.
By burning the crates, "I guess we did the
right thing," Hoebeke said.
