Unipest officials are talking about the recent increase in polyphagus bark beetles destroying trees in the Santa Clarita Valley, and offering solutions to help protect trees from their deadly fungus.
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“There’s this type of bark beetle that carries a fungus that is just a death sentence for a lot of these trees,” said Cardon Ellis of the Santa Clarita pest control company Unipest. “They’re especially worried about the California Sycamore.”
The polyphagus bark beetles, in conjunction with the golden spotted oak borer, have hit Southern California by storm recently, even killing almost half of the natural woodland trees in San Diego County, according to Ellis.
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“The drought that we had a couple years ago weakened (the trees),” he said. “Then there’s this new invasive type of bark beetle that our ecosystem has never really dealt with before just wiping out tons of trees, so we’ve been having to do tree injections all over town.”
While the injections aren’t guaranteed to save an infested a tree, Ellis noted that they will “drastically improve” the chances the tree will survive.
Trees that may be infested with polyphagus bark beetles have a specialized pattern of holes the size of the tip of a ball-point pen, according to Ellis.
“It kind of looks like somebody hit the tree with a shotgun,” he said. “And you start getting what’s called dieback, where this tree starts dying from the top down.”
If a homeowner notices these symptoms in their tree, they usually have a matter of days or weeks to enlist the help of a professional company like Unipest to treat it before the polyphagus bark beetles will introduce too much fungus for the tree to survive.
In addition, polyphagus bark beetles will typically move on to a nearby tree and continue to reproduce until a number of trees in a particular area are destroyed, according to Ellis.
“It’s a serious condition that a tree can develop, and then you’ll get multiple trees affected at once,” he said. “It’s definitely something we’re all kind of freaking out about because it’s never happened before in California history.”
Ed. Note: This article is a KHTS Community Spotlight based on a recent radio interview with Unipest.The Santa Clarita pest and termite control company Unipest is the premiere residential and commercial pest control company for Los Angeles County. If you’re looking for pest or termite control in Santa Clarita or surrounding areas, Unipest prides itself on being your one-stop solution, and offer orange oil treatments, bee hive removal, fumigation, escrow inspections, removal of bed bugs, organic pest control and more. Residents and business owners are encouraged to call Unipest for immediate assistance!
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