Arbor Services of Connecticut

Via the TCIA,

“Yesterday, the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) was found in two eastern New York counties that lie within 25 miles of both Massachusetts and Connecticut.

This small but destructive beetle is notorious for infesting North American ash tree species, including green, white, black, and blue ash. Once infested, the mortality rate for infested trees is 100 percent and the only certain treatment is cutting down and destroying the ash trees.

Both New York counties have already placed traps that should attract and trap adult EAB’s and are conducting a thorough survey of trees to assess the extent of beetles in both areas.

This outbreak has been linked to the introduction of firewood from an infected source, so please remember to buy firewood locally and help control the human-assisted spread of this pest.

Please watch for signs of EAB while working to prevent the spread of this non-native insect. New signs may be difficult to detect because damage may not surface for up to three years and old signs may include branch dieback in the upper crown, excessive epicormic branching on the tree trunk, vertical bark slits, and woodpecker damage. If you suspect your ash tree could be infested by EAB, please call the US Department of Agriculture at (866) 322-4512.

“Buying firewood locally” means don’t bring firewood from your area to anywhere else. Don’t Move the Firewood has lots of great information on this topic, I urge you to read up and educate yourself on this.

The TCIA has kindly provided this great Invasive Bug Identification Poster to help with identification. Print it out, put one in each fleet vehicle, in your shop, in with your camping gear, etc. Should you find one of these bugs, identify them using the poster, and email the TCIA, TreeBugs@tcia.org.

Chris Donnelly at the CTPA has kindly provided us with a PDF poster (via Katherine Dugas of the CT Agricultural Experiment Station, who is working with Rose Hiskes on the ALB outreach), identifying Asian Longhorned Beetles and their look-alikes. It is set to print on 8 1/2 x 11 paper, and is best if printed in color.

Click here for PDF download of poster.

To learn more about invasive insects & pests, visit the Connecticut Tree Protective Association’s page.

Most importantly, if you believe you’ve found a genuine Asian Longhorned Beetle, don’t kill it – go to this website and click on your state so you can report the location where you found the beetle, and possibly send it in for identification.

Our Twitter (@arborct) has several updates from the field, via Tom & Billy. Everything’s flowering and hatching far ahead of schedule! Go read up!

Despite the early-morning cold on March 27th, CTSP (Certified Treecare Safety Professional) Stephen Banffy led the Aerial Rescue Safety Demonstration with no trouble.

We had a number of curious onlookers, some friends and family of those involved, but mainly folks from Washington, Warren and Kent Fire Departments, and Washington’s EMS.

We had two photographers. Visko’s pictures can be seen here, and Jeorgia’s can be seen here.

Each of Arbor Services’ tree-crew employees went through the steps of rescuing an arborist stranded in an aerial lift, about 30 feet up in the tree.

Later each climber on the crew simulated the rescue of a “victim”, another climber presumed incapacitated.
The “victim” in the climbing exercise was played by Dan Weise from Weise Choice Tree Service.

Successfully completing an Aerial Rescue is part of staying current in the Tree Care Industry Association’s EHAP – Electrical Hazard Awareness Program. We work through the program yearly – staying current (no pun intended) in this can literally mean the difference between life and death.

We are looking forward to hosting more of these demonstrations, and would welcome your questions, and if possible, your involvement. Feel free to call or email us (use the “Contact Us” link at the top right of this page) with your questions or ideas!

We have two great pieces of news for you!

Stephen Banffy, our Safety Director, recently became a
Certified Treecare Safety Professional.
(At the time of this posting, there are only 15 other CTSPs in the state of Connecticut, so we are quite pleased to have one on our team.)

About two weeks ago, we mentioned on our Twitter page that we were looking forward to sharing our collective knowledge with emergency services, as only by collaboration and cooperation can we ensure a safe workplace for everyone.

So we’re delighted to announce that our crew, along with the fire and rescue personnel of Warren, Washington and Kent, and Daniel Weise from Weise Choice Tree Service will be conducting an Aerial Rescue demonstration on March 27th.

We’re looking forward to many more events like this, and we’ll keep you posted.

You can now follow Arbor Services on Twitter, at @arborct.

In addition, we are now on Flickr.

See you there!