As most of you know Dutch Elm Disease hit Arcola very hard last year. To help stop the spread of the disease we had a municipal inspector go around town and mark all of the trees that had DED. We then removed all of the trees on town property, and wrote letters to any residents that had diseased trees on their property. There was about 100 trees in total that had to be removed as quick as possible and disposed of properly. We also had a contractor go around and apply basal spray to any elm tree. Basal spray is an insecticide that kills the elm bark beetles.
This year we have appointed DR Tree Service as our municipal inspector. He will be around the week of July 20th-26th to once again mark any trees that have Dutch Elm Disease. He will be in and out of yards in order to get the best look at all trees. Any residents that have a tree marked as diseased will have a time limit to get the tree disposed of. He will also be back around August 15th-31st to do basal spraying again this year.
With all of our combined efforts we hope to get DED under control, and completely rid it from our town in the next couple years!
Below is an example of what Dutch Elm Disease might look like. Anyone that might have questions about DED can stop by the office or give us a call.
