The Kansas Department of Agriculture, along with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has confirmed the presence of emerald ash borer (EAB) in Shawnee County, Kansas.

On June 6, 2017, several EAB galleries were observed and a live EAB adult was removed while peeling bark from a tree, after KDA was notified by an arborist.  The suspect tree was identified while the arborist was trimming branches for a home owner in a residential area near Lake Shawnee. KDA sent the specimen to a laboratory with USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s Plant Protection and Quarantine (USDA-APHIS-PPQ) which confirmed KDA’s findings on June 7, 2017.

Emerald ash borer, a pest of ash trees native to Asia, was first discovered in North America near Detroit, Michigan, in summer 2002. Since that time, the pest has killed millions of ash trees across the U.S. It was first identified in Kansas in 2012, and has been identified in several counties in northeast Kansas in the last five years. Trees become infested with EAB when adult beetles lay eggs on the bark, which hatch into larvae that bore tunnels into the tree. EAB appears to prefer trees under stress, but is capable of killing perfectly healthy trees.

KDA encourages anyone in northeast Kansas to monitor their ash trees for signs of EAB, and to be vigilant in not transporting any wood or tree materials from ash trees out of your county, including firewood, nursery stock, green lumber, and composted or uncomposted chips. If you have ash trees on your property and would like assistance in identifying pests or preventing pests, please contact the Kansas Forest Service or your local arborist for information and advice.

After confirmation by KDA and USDA-APHIS-PPQ, Kansas will expand the EAB quarantine, currently in place in Atchison, Doniphan, Douglas, Jefferson, Johnson, Leavenworth and Wyandotte counties, to include Shawnee County. If you believe any of your ash trees may have the pest, whether or not you are in the quarantined area, please notify KDA immediately at (785) 564-6698 or KDA.ppwc@ks.gov.

KDA is committed to serving Kansas farmers, ranchers and agribusinesses, and to protecting the state’s natural resources. All Kansans will play an important role in monitoring for EAB.

To learn the most current information on EAB in Kansas, visit agriculture.ks.gov/EAB. To learn more about EAB, visit www.emeraldashborer.info.