50 years ago – 1967 – Pine Bark Beetles – Ips sp.

Little damage from bark beetles was encountered in the Northwest, West Central and East Central areas. Damage in the east central counties was restricted to trees that suffered from drought in 1966. Advance reproduction was destroyed in two Jackson County timber sale areas (West Central Area) where pulp operations continued through the summer and wood was left in piles until bark beetles had emerged.

Three minor infestations of bark beetles were reported in young red pine plantings in the Northeast Area. A half-acre of fifteen-year-old trees was killed on a good site in Florence County (Section 12, T39N, Rl8E). Individual trees and small groups of ten to twelve-year-old red pine were killed on a quarter acre in Vilas County (Trout Lake Headquarters, Department of Natural Resources) and two patches of ten-year-old trees, between a quarter-acre and half-acre in size, were killed by the insects where there was little evidence of other causal agents in Shawano County (Section 8, T27N, Rl5E, Forty SESW).

25 years ago – 1992 – Two district pest specialists were hired in 1992; Todd Lanigan in Eau Claire in the Western District, and Andrea Diss in Green Bay in the Lake Michigan District.

Content taken from the Forest Pest Conditions for Wisconsin Annual Reports from 1967 and 1992.

Written by: Linda Williams, forest health specialist, Green Bay (Linda.Williams@Wisconsin.gov), 920-662-5172.