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Aug 29, 2006 10:52 pm US/Mountain
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New Product May Be Answer To Pine Beetle Problem
SUMMIT COUNTY, Colo. (CBS4) ―
A Boston-based company may give new hope for mountain homeowners dealing with the pine beetle problem.
Arborjet Inc. developed a product that may be able to repel the bug which has ravaged the hillsides in Colorado's high country.
The new insecticide also acts as a fungicide that repels insects and prevents the blue fungus that beetles leave behind from suffocating the tree from inside out.
To use the product, holes are drilled into a tree and plugs put in to keep the solution from leaking out. The tree is than injected and its own veins are what distribute the insecticide.
The product hasn't been approved by the EPA, but Arborjet believes an approval could come as soon as next spring for some small scale projects.
The company will start doing tests on a select group of Colorado's lodge pole pines this fall. So far, the tests are showing great results.
"We found that the injected trees were completely protected and all of them survived attack," said Donald Grosman from the Texas Forest Service.
While the injections may work, the company said it's good for homeowners, schools and ski areas to preserve the trees more so than for the entire state.
"It's not feasible to do the entire forest but it is feasible to do tens of thousands of trees," said Peter Wild, president of Arborjet.
So far, tests have shown that the injections are lasting about two years but their hopes are that they can get them to last three years or longer.
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