i think hiring a ASA certified forester .... would be well worth the money ...

we can opine all we want.. and i hope the peeps do.. but you need some hands on ... local.. in person advice ... see link ...

and i am not talking about a monkey with a chainsaw.. who calls himself an arborist ... i am talking about a highly educated forester ....

and i would suggest you start.. by contacting your local.. COUNTY extension office... and try to find out who the traveling forester is .... and see if you cant track that person down.. and talk with them... not only about EAB near your area ... but also his recommendation on a highly certified consultant ...

in my area of MI.. the forester.... travels a circuit.. they are not in every office every day .... so it would take a while... to make contact in person ...

i mentioned my 20 footers in the other post .... i treated them with bayer soil drench .... when they were smaller.. but as they grew.. it started costing 40 bucks per tree ... time the 8 or so i had ... and increasing exponentially as the tree aged and grew.. and i suddenly realized ... these would become some very expensive trees.. if i had to do this for the rest of my life ... so.. i chainsawed them myself.. the year prior to when i figured i would have to pay to have them removed ...

and the worst part of the story .. i paid for them in the first place.. a few years before EAB started ...

BTW.. i have no real knowledge on injections as i dont have any ash .. lol ... and that was not an option back in the early 2000s ....

and to be clear.... these thing happen in tree years ... there is no real hurry ... inside the next few months ... so if it takes the forester a month or two.. to get to you.. be patient .... dont forget.. you can look at trees all winter long ....

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: link

All of Ken Adrian's suggestions are excellent. A soil drench of imidacloprid based insecticide is effective. The price of it has come down considerably in recent years as a number of companies other than Bayer have started to offer it. Treating 2 trees of this size is something a homeowner can manage in terms of both cost and skill. If the trees' value to you warrants it, professional treatment is a perfectly reasonable option.

Do also look into injections of "Tri-age" insecticide. The active ingredient is emamectin benzoate, the spelling of which I may have massacred there, but this is a more cost-effective treatment in many cases, in that it can last up to three years a copy. It has become the preferred treatment although the Beyer-type imidacloprid treatments still have their place as well...primarily in that the tree owner can do that one.

In any case, it is precisely trees like yours-high value and as yet unaffected by EAB which are good candidates for such.

+oM

Start treating now! The bug is probably further along than they think. I have been watching the spread in Missouri as I own a big white ash myself.

I went with the do it yourself imidacloprid treatment. Bought a jug of concentrate off the internet and nearly dress up in a hazmat suit the two times I have applied it.

Maybe Ken or the others in the long term affected areas can chime in and change my opinion. How are the treated ash trees in your neighborhoods doing?

IF you find a tree service willing to warranty their work I'd pay the pros. These treatments are not as good a thing as getting a flu shot from what I can tell reading so I aam skeptical.

I don't know, Tor...all the evidence I've seen is that these treatments are indeed effective. What have you heard to the contrary?

OP's case is exactly the type of situation where such treatments can be justified. Much, much worse is the demise of all the wild trees everywhere you look. There's a LOT of ash! If you look at the low, floodplain forest type, that plant community has already lost it's monarch, the American elm. Now comes EAB and a whole bunch of additional trees lost. In my part of the world, that really only leaves silver maple, red maple (Where soils are acidic) and the naturally -occurring hybrid-Acer freemanii. My concern is that all the new openings will fill up with junk.....buckthorn, non-native honeysuckles, etc.

+oM

I had 4 large ash trees on my property - 3 near the house providing desired shade, 1 I didn't care for.

I've had the 3 treated for several years by the arborist and let the 1 go. Just had it cut down, as the AEBs had killed it. The other 3 are green and healthy.

Cost is a lot more than $40, though.

Wow thank you for the feedback everyone.

Itilton - what state are you located in and how big are the 3 ash trees you have been treating??

I'm going to get my trees treated before the next round of hatching/spreading occurs, which I believe starts in May.