Albany, Ga. ? Dean Wilson has two decades of experience as a forest manager, but it’s not enough to protect his trees from the worst Southern pine beetle epidemic in memory.

Since the outbreak began in 2000, the beetles have destroyed millions of dollars worth of timber in northern Georgia, South Carolina, western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee and northeastern Alabama.

With no effective chemical controls, the only option for landowners is to attempt to salvage the wood.

The bugs, about half as long as a grain of rice, have forced landowners to dump diseased trees on an already-glutted pulpwood market. Besides killing the trees, the beetles introduce a fungus known as blue stain that makes the trees unsuitable for lumber.

Homeowners in Atlanta’s northern suburbs of Marietta, Roswell and Alpheretta have had to hire crews to remove infested trees from their yards.

“It’s heartbreaking to have to cut down trees that I planted 20 years ago,” said Wilson, who manages 26,000 acres of trees at Berry College, near Rome, and has been forced to cut about 1,000 acres in three years.

“In some cases, we’re not able to see the wood because it’s too far gone by the time we get to it,” he said.

Losses in South Carolina alone are expected to reach $200 million by the end of the summer, said Andy Boone, chief of forest health for the state Forestry Commission.

Southern pine beetle outbreaks are often linked to droughts that weaken the trees; Georgia and much of the rest of the Southeast are in the fifth year of a drought.

“The outbreak that started in 2000 on a regional basis is probably the worst we’ve ever seen,” said Wesley Nettleton, an entomologist with the U.S. Forest Service in Atlanta.

The outbreak peaked in eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina last year and intensified this year in South Carolina and Georgia, he said.

“Thousands of acres have been killed,” Nettleton said. “You drive up Interstate 75 north of Chattanooga, and all you see is dead pine trees, killed by the Southern pine beetle.”