Bark beetles: Foresters in the Miesbach district more optimistic than in previous years

Created: 04/25/2022, 13:00

The first specimens of the bark beetle swarm out in warm weather from April.

They burrow through the bark of trees and create feeding passages in which they deposit larvae.

This is how they destroy important tissue.

© Bavarian State Forests

The foresters in the district of Miesbach have just started looking for the number one forest pest, the bark beetle.

The key to success: quick processing.

District

– The employees of the Bavarian State Forests have recently started searching for the number one forest pest, the bark beetle.

"Even if March was clearly too warm and too dry, the comparatively cool and wet weather of the winter and last year ensured that the spruce's defenses were strengthened," says forest operations manager Jörg Meyer.

According to a press release, he hopes that his forestry company will be able to keep the beetle in check again this year.

Bark beetle is in the starting blocks

The bark beetle is currently in the starting blocks.

With frost-free nights and daytime temperatures constantly above around 16 degrees, the insects begin to swarm.

For the employees of the forestry operation, this means going in search of clues.

Signs of the pests are, for example, brown drill dust that collects on the trunk when the beetles bore in, bark falling off or discolored needles.

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Even if the beetle damage last year was relatively low and the initial population of beetles has probably not increased, the forestry company will continue to search intensively for new beetle trees in 2022, mark them if they are infested and transport them out of the forest as quickly as possible.

"We must not allow ourselves to be careless," warns Meyer.

"If a longer warm and dry period comes, the fundamentally positive situation can turn around quickly."

State-of-the-art technology is used in the search

When looking for bark beetles in the forests of the Schliersee forestry company, not only the intuition and experience of the employees but also modern technology is used, for example the specially developed bark beetle app for smartphones.

With the app, infested trees can be recorded in real time and marked on digital maps.

In this way, everyone is networked and therefore always at the same level of knowledge - from the forester to the forest workers to the forestry company.

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"I hope that spring and summer will not be too warm and dry and that we will keep the spread under control with our bark beetle management this year," says Meyer confidently.

During the dry years, the state forests managed to prevent a massive increase in the bark beetle in the state forest with a great deal of human and financial effort throughout Bavaria.

More than 200,000 search hours are spent annually in over a thousand search districts.

The costs are around 10 million euros.  

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