Collected oak (bicolor) little black beetles are attacking and drilling into it, help!

Waltron

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I collected this guy a couple weeks ago, had to saw the tap root, but its living! leaves do appear to be growing and branches lengthening. now ive seen these little holes in these trees in the wild and in the acrorns, I cant find much on them anywhere, They are tehse teeny tiny little black beetles, all the boreres I can find are much bigger than these, but they are drilling into the wood, and so far doesn't seem to be effecting the health of the tree but definetly will down the road, and the appearance. I've given granual insecticide to the soil, and ive been spraying every day with a different kind.. it seems to slow them down but does not seem to be killing them.. bad attack. anyone know what they are, or any better ideas on how to rid them? do you think they will attack my other trees?

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Waltron

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i can take better photos if you think it will help. ive been knifing these fuckers whenever I can but they crawl back in those holes.. ive been sprawing the trunk with pesticide in the hot sun seems to have stopped new ones from coming, but thats just a guess... they leave like a sappy area near their holes and literally saw dust comes out of their holes. what can I do??

I've read that some boreres need a special chemical only liscensed to professionals.. and woodpeckers.. i was thinking about gassing the tree somehow or maybe just filling all these holes with something.. I like this tree.
 

justBonsai

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I've read of people "fumigating" their trees. Soak cotton balls with the poison/insecticide of your choice and place them over all the hole. Seram wrap all the infestation points with the cotton and leave your tree in the sun during a warm or preferably hot day. The heat should force the vapor if the insecticide into the holes and hopefully kill the infestation.
 

Waltron

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I've read of people "fumigating" their trees. Soak cotton balls with the poison/insecticide of your choice and place them over all the hole. Seram wrap all the infestation points with the cotton and leave your tree in the sun during a warm or preferably hot day. The heat should force the vapor if the insecticide into the holes and hopefully kill the infestation.

awesome, thanks for chiming in, i had that plan, but without the cotten balls, so that is what I will do, im not sure these are powderpost beetles but the description is spot on besides the size, these things are very small. I will do the seran wrap thing, and its hot as hell here right now,, and the next 10 days.
 

justBonsai

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awesome, thanks for chiming in, i had that plan, but without the cotten balls, so that is what I will do, im not sure these are powderpost beetles but the description is spot on besides the size, these things are very small. I will do the seran wrap thing, and its hot as hell here right now,, and the next 10 days.
I had what seemed to be a minor borer infestation on my oak tree. During repotting I removed dead rotted tap roots--of which had some kind of bug inside. I followed up with a imidacloprid systemic (the stuff bayer is based off of) in 3 successive, spaced applications over 3-4 months. As an extra precaution I took a syringe and injected undiluted malathion into the holes. The holes were in deadwood though as I'm not sure if injecting malathion into live tissue is advisable. So far the tree is very healthy with no signs of active borers.

Imidacloprid based insecticides should work for your infestation. Some attribute imidacloprid to bee colony collapse though and it isn't the most environmentally friendly chemical. So when applying it be careful where the run off flows to and don't let any flowering plants soak it up.
 

coh

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Look up "shot hole borer" or "ambrosia beetle", one of those is most likely what you have. Unfortunately they are very difficult to treat. According to what I've read, systemics like imidacloprid don't work well. I've started having this problem the past couple of years in my growing bed. Trees that are weak or stressed (such as by trunk chopping) seem particularly attractive to these beasts. I've been using a piece of wire to stab them when they're in the holes, and also spraying the trunks with pyrethrins which some websites have suggested. I've lost several years of trunk development on some trees due to these beetles.

Ambrosia beetles are particularly nasty as they infect the tree with a fungus which is what the larva eat (and which is why the systemics don't work, the young aren't actually eating the tree). The fungus can kill the tree even if the tunneling doesn't.

Good luck.
 

CWTurner

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damn powder post beetles.. I guess im doing what I can.. if anyone has any experience with these beetles please chime in.
When my parents purchased a home when I was 22 or so, they found an infestation of powder post beetles. We had to move out (along with our food) for 2-3 days and they covered the entire home in a tent and pumped in some gas. A guard was posted 24 hours a day.
You could probably do it without the guard.
CW
 

rockm

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I've read of people "fumigating" their trees. Soak cotton balls with the poison/insecticide of your choice and place them over all the hole. Seram wrap all the infestation points with the cotton and leave your tree in the sun during a warm or preferably hot day. The heat should force the vapor if the insecticide into the holes and hopefully kill the infestation.
I used this technique to get rid of termites in a very old collected boxwood trunk year ago. I used termite poison soaked cotton squished into holes and crevices in the wood. Wrapped in plastic wrap and set in the sun. It drove the termites out in about half an hour, killed many. I was careful not to get the stuff in the soil. The heat from the sun kind of supercharges the poison driving it into the interior galleries of the bugs.

Don't know if this will work with borers however. They're tough little bastards. Once they're in a tree, they are very hard to get rid of. They were probably present when you collected this tree from the look of the holes and their number. Borers can "smell" exposed wood on trees. It attracts them. I'd keep this tree away from your others, as they can spread to other recently collected trees or weaker established trees.
 

Waltron

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http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com...ole-borer-beetle-infestation/2/?#article-copy

yea im pretty sure this is what it is.. and shit.. these things are an abomination. I love the wire poking idea, cotton ball/seran wrap idea. and the ID. exactly what I came here for, thanks guys, now im thinking I need fungicide and pesticide in these holes. and yea this tree was infected when i got it, did not realize how bad it was.. these things bore right into the acorns, always wondered why the acorns looked so odd on these trees.

when i spray the tree trunk it does seem to kill the beetles that are exposed, but i need to get the larva and eggs in them damn holes.
 

coh

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It will be tough to get at the larva. The adults tunnel into the tree, then create sub-tunnels off the main entrance. So you can only use the wire trick when the adults are first burrowing in. Once they have young in the side tunnels, they're almost untouchable.

Let us know if you find a method that works. I've been spraying my infected trees every few days with a pyrethrin (not sure which one, I'll have to look it up) because it supposedly has a residual action that will kill new beetles that try to chew through the trunk. But it doesn't seem to be working very well.
 

rockm

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http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com...ole-borer-beetle-infestation/2/?#article-copy

yea im pretty sure this is what it is.. and shit.. these things are an abomination. I love the wire poking idea, cotton ball/seran wrap idea. and the ID. exactly what I came here for, thanks guys, now im thinking I need fungicide and pesticide in these holes. and yea this tree was infected when i got it, did not realize how bad it was.. these things bore right into the acorns, always wondered why the acorns looked so odd on these trees.

when i spray the tree trunk it does seem to kill the beetles that are exposed, but i need to get the larva and eggs in them damn holes.
I don't think this is specifically what you have. It's more likely something that's native and local. There are dozens of beetles whose larva bore into tree trunks. It really doesn't make much difference if you know exactly what it is anyway. Some just make bigger holes than others.
http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/QT/treeborerscard.html


The solution to about all of them is to dig in and pull them out and squish them. However, this solution could be tricky with a small trunk, as you will probably notice that the physical damage is really much worse than it appears on the surface. Start poking at a hole and unfortunately, you will find it goes deep and long.

Had this problem on an old collected black cherry for a decade, but luckily the trunk was big enough to avoid being killed by their chewing all the way around. Tree had numerous deep scars from my digging after the stupid things. The tree was able to grow fast enough to keep ahead of the damn things, at least for a while.
 
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Damn! I hope you get those little bastards. I'd be putting red ants on the tree to see if nature could wage the war for you. Good luck!!
 

Waltron

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These little tree fuckers are gonna get whats coming. was really excited about this too, trying to blaze trail with the swamp white oak bonsai.. I cut a huge tap root on this tree and was very pleased to see it lived.. i have more of these I can collect but this was one of the better ones, and they all have the beetles, im more confident now about collecting older oaks though, as I think I have a good method, maybe I'll try a white oak if I can find one next year. did a fair amount of root work on this one for a couple seasons... but I have a photo of the roots that were left before i planted it. planted it 50/50 pumice de, then just a thin layer of regular potting soil and orchid bark on top. collected late, just as some of the buds were popped. 1.5-2" tap root chop, the saw seemed to burn/sodder the root, but i did put cut paste on it as well. the base that is covered is very nice, fat and tapered.
 

Paradox

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Bored can be tough to treat.

We have pine bark beetles infesting native pines around here.

CCE recommends premitherin (sp). Bonide makes a product called "Eight" that is recommended or pine bark.

Of you figure out which beetle, Google it. Chances are you can find recommended products. The systemic is good but it is slower to act because the tree has to uptake it into its tissues before it will work. So spraying in addition is a good idea imo.
 

Tieball

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These little tree fuckers are gonna get whats coming. was really excited about this too, trying to blaze trail with the swamp white oak bonsai.. I cut a huge tap root on this tree and was very pleased to see it lived.. i have more of these I can collect but this was one of the better ones, and they all have the beetles, im more confident now about collecting older oaks though, as I think I have a good method, maybe I'll try a white oak if I can find one next year. did a fair amount of root work on this one for a couple seasons... but I have a photo of the roots that were left before i planted it. planted it 50/50 pumice de, then just a thin layer of regular potting soil and orchid bark on top. collected late, just as some of the buds were popped. 1.5-2" tap root chop, the saw seemed to burn/sodder the root, but i did put cut paste on it as well. the base that is covered is very nice, fat and tapered.
Following steps you're taking in case I run into this sometime. I'm interested in any root photos you might have of collected oak. I've been thinking of collecting around me....oaks of all sizes are everywhere. Can an oak be ground layered for new roots?
 

Waltron

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Tieball, photos coming. keep in mind I trenched this tree last year, and even did a little bit the year before, the tap root was very deep, didnt touch the tap until it was collected. Also, i did quite a bit of research, and swamp white are one of the few oaks that reportedly are more likely to take to transplant. swamp white oak is actually fairly closely related to beech. my research on other oaks have found absolutly no favorable data for transplanting, however most of that came from forestry and landscaping info. I'm still very leery of collecting a white or red oak, especially since i have not done any work on them. this one was collected out of clay, and actually i was rather brutal collecting it, basically bare rooted it. some branches have died but many are growing strong. also keep in mind my timing was very calculated, factoring previous days weather, upcoming weather, humidity, moon phase, and had been monitoring bud activity daily for a couple weeks. probably excessive, just sayin.

there is a funny raft growing right next to it.
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Waltron

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see what happened was, i did carefully dig the tree, but the wet clay rootball probably weighed about 300 lbs, so that plan went to shit and lost a bunch of feeders. I honestly think that using my sawzall on the tap root, the blade got hot and actually burt the wood, my theory is this acted like cauterizing the vain, but as you can see there were quite a few roots higher than my cut. these trees were the very last to bud out of all the trees. I've noticed, hackberry, beech, and this swamp white are very late to bud, usually that would mean get them early, but I figured id wait till the last minute on this one just as some of the buds werre popping, and most of the buds that had already popped, were the ones that continue to grow, some of the dormant buds seemed to die, but that could be from the beetles. i still think that if this tree can kick these beetles, those branches will come alive next year.
 

Eric Group

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Do you think this tree is worth all the trouble to treat the beetles?
I'd be freaked out about introducing such a nasty pest into my collection personally, it is never advisable to introduce insects or diseases into your garden!

I'd prolly kill these beetles by tossing the tree into a FIRE! That is just me though... If it was some gorgeous masterpiece Bonsai it might be wor the risks of keep it and treating it... For this, a tree recently collected that you don't even know itpf it is alive yet.., totally INFESTED with critters that can lay waste to a yard full of tree sit they get going? Umm no sir... Not worth it IMO.
 
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