Emerald ash-borers, highly destructive insects that feed on and destroy ash trees, originated from China in the 1990s. Since then they have cut a path of destruction throughout North America destroying 25 million trees. Experts at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle have decided to look to Asia for a possible solution to the ash-borer plague and are hoping the land of their origin will crack the problem.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports Kris Bachtell, the arboretum's director of collections and facilities, recently returned from China's Shaanxi Province with ash, linden and maple tree seeds.
Arboretum officials think Chinese ash trees have evolved borer resistance over thousands of years. Shaanxi's climate resembles Chicago's. They have germinated the seeds and hope to mate them with North American ash species to create a beetle-resistant hybrid.
Emerald ash borers have destroyed 25 million North American ash trees and don't appear to be letting up. Their larvae feed on the inner bark, causing the trees to starve and eventually die.
The green half-inch beetles were found in Chicago two years ago. The city is home to more than 600,000 ash trees.
Naperville City Desk wishes to remind everyone not to transport firewood of any kind in order to slow the spread of the insect.
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