Officials say individuals can save their pine trees

Representatives of several companies and agencies recently demonstrated proven treatments to ensure that pine trees live and to take care of those already infested with mountain pine beetles.
“We have two challenges,” said Frank Carroll, a Custer homeowner. “The first is to save the trees we want to keep. The second is to take care of the trees that are already dead or dying.” Carroll said the clock is running and people need to prepare now for the beetle flights this summer.
Scott Guffey from Pennington County Weed and Pest control and Greg Josten, South Dakota State Forestry, said individual homeowners can save trees and clean up dead trees.
Sawyers from Baker Timber Company showed the proper way to cut down and chunk beetle-killed trees at Joan Davis’ Mistletoe Ranch north of Hill City. Cutting and chunking the trees and scoring the bark speeds the drying process and reduces the threat from beetles infesting individual trees. This method costs about $25 dollars per tree, officials said. Josten said on Monday there is still “plenty of money” available to help homeowners with this kind of treatment.
Timberline Tree Spraying and Fertilizing owner Erik Rusin showed how trees are sprayed to protect them from the beetles.
“Spraying is the single most effective way of saving individual trees,” Carroll said.

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