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Local wood collection sites go high tech in Ips beetle mitigation
Front Range wood collection sites are looking a little high-tech in an experimental and operational effort to limit tree mortality from a lessor-known bark beetle, the Ips beetle (Ips pini).
Boulder County Sort Yard Manager Wayne Harrington, left, and Peak to Peak Sort Yard Manager Joe Turner set up a Lindgren trap.
For further information, please contact:
Craig Jones, Peak to Peak Wood
program manager,
303-443-2088, Craig Jones
Scott Golden, Boulder County forest health & utilization specialist, 303-678-6209, Scott Golden
Note: High resolution photos are available here.
Front Range wood collection sites are looking a little high-tech in an experimental and operational effort to limit tree mortality from a lessor-known bark beetle, the Ips beetle (Ips pini).“While the effort is mostly experimental, we are very much concerned with mitigating the effects of Ips on forests neighboring our sorting yards,” said Craig Jones, project manager for Peak to Peak Wood. This project, managed by the Colorado State Forest Service (CSFS) and Colorado State Parks, helps utilize woody biomass in five counties and has established Ips beetle trapping at two of its four collection sites.
Ips generally do not cause the large-scale forest disturbance of the mountain pine beetle. However, they can easily cause pockets of tree mortality, especially around disturbed areas or near forestry efforts where they breed easily in freshly cut material.
Boulder County's Forest Health & Utilization Specialist Scott Golden initiated the program after Ips proved problematic near the county's Meeker Park site. Two sort yards near the Gilpin County Road and Bridge facility, including the Peak to Peak site, also have the Ips beetle traps.
“We take in wood (from both private and public forestry efforts) in which Ips beetles are in varying stages of their life cycles,” Golden said. Ips beetles can also have three to five life cycles per year, while mountain pine beetles only have one life cycle per year.
Staff and volunteers will do most of the trapping, monitoring and analysis work. CSFS and the U.S. Forest Service provided the traps and entomological expertise, and Boulder County Parks and Open Space chipped in the hardware and installation assistance.
Synergy Semiochemicals provided the semiochemical (message carrying) lures, in part to test the efficiency of these lures for the first time in an Ips outbreak situation.
The three arrays around the collection sites include 95 Lindgren traps – each of which have 12 individual trap funnels. The traps were spaced 20 yards apart around the collection sites and will test five different semiochemical lures, including three pheromone combinations, for attracting Ips beetles.
Traps aren't considered an efficient forestry alternative in widespread beetle outbreaks, Jones noted, but containment of Ips can be an important operational component in the future utilization of forest biomass.
“Primarily, the mountain pine beetle is still confined to the lodgepole,” Jones said. “The Ips are in both lodgepole pine and ponderosa pine here on the Front Range."
