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Bark Beetle Pesticide03-09-10 | News

Bark Beetle Pesticide

The bark beetle, or mountain pine beetle, has devastated millions of acres of lodgepole and ponderosa pine forest statewide, with Larimer County forests taking the brunt of the beetle's impact last year as beetles began killing trees east of the Continental Divide. Many scientists suspect climate change is a major factor in the beetle's continued spread throughout the Rockies.

CSU emeritus chemical and biological engineering professor Jim Linden hopes a pesticide he helped create will be just the right formula for keeping the bark beetle at bay in Colorado. Called Organic Disease Control, or ODC, Linden said the pesticide is all-natural and triggers a tree?EUR??,,????'?????<

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The U.S. Forest Service is spending millions on dealing with beetle-killed trees threatening to fall on people, homes, roads and power lines. Working with Berthoud-based AgriHouse Inc., Linden developed the pesticide with Ken Knutson, Colorado State University associate professor emeritus of horticulture and landscape architecture, and hopes private landowners and public land management agencies will take notice.

AgriHouse claims ODC will make pine trees produce 40 percent more sap than without it. The sap is a tree?EUR??,,????'?????<