photo by: Sara Shepherd

Several large ash trees shade the lawn of Fraser Hall on the Kansas University campus.

With the destructive emerald ash borer presumably on its way to spreading through Douglas County, Kansas University has made tentative plans to try to save some notable ash trees on campus while monitoring more than 200 others.

The approximately 20 ash trees deemed the most important — “those that are in significant locations and those of large and majestic size” — are slated to be injected with insecticide to, hopefully, prevent ash borer infestation, according to a draft of KU’s ash tree management plan, completed and shared with the city of Lawrence this spring.

A 2014 count found more than 250 ash trees on the Lawrence campus.

“This disease will have a significant impact on the campus landscape in the coming years,” the plan says.

According to the plan, those left untreated will be monitored for signs of infestation, and diseased or distressed ones will be removed because those conditions attract ash borers and may speed their spread to healthy trees in the area.

The plan also calls for replacing ash trees with other species over the course of five years.

Jeff Severin, director of KU’s Center for Sustainability, coordinates the campus tree advisory board.

He said KU historically has been noted among the most beautiful campuses in the world and that its trees play an important role.

“Our trees provide a shaded walk on an otherwise sunny hilltop campus,” he said. “We have a significant number of ash trees, and some clustered in very prominent places. But the loss provides us an opportunity to replant, building greater plant diversity and resistance to disease and drought, and to continue providing the landscape and campus experience Jayhawks have treasured for decades.”

Severin said visible clusters of ash trees on KU’s campus, which may be candidates for preventive treatment, include a group on the Stauffer-Flint Hall lawn, others on the Fraser Hall lawn and some by the Pioneer Cemetery on West Campus. He said there are also some notably large individual ash trees at other locations on campus.

photo by: Sara Shepherd

This ash tree, and those in the background, are among several ash trees providing shade on the lawn of Stauffer-Flint Hall on the Kansas University campus. With the arrival of the emerald ash borer in Douglas County, KU has devised an emerald ash borer management plan that calls for preventative treatment on some of the campus's more important ash trees, and monitoring of others with removal planned for diseased or otherwise struggling trees.

KU Facilities Services is charged with carrying out the ash borer management plan.

The plan advocates “a proactive, methodical, and measured approach to manage and slow the spread” of the insect.

There is no known cure for ash borers, but there is also a chance that not all KU’s ash trees will become infected, according to the plan. At the same time, even insecticide treatment is not a guarantee against infection.

The proposed annual budget to carry out the ash borer management plan is $43,500, according to the draft plan.

That includes pesticide for 20 trees, at a cost of approximately $300 per tree. The pesticide would need to be reapplied every couple of years throughout the life of the tree.

The budget also includes money for removing and replanting a number of trees each year, at a cost of about $500 per tree to remove and also about $500 per tree to replace.

In the spring, the Lawrence City Commission approved spending over $238,000 this year on treating, removing and replacing ash trees infected with emerald ash borers.

The Kansas Department of Agriculture confirmed in October that the insect, a small beetle that’s been spreading from Michigan since 2002, was present in Douglas County. Female ash borers were expected to emerge in April and lay eggs onto ash trees through the summer. Larvae feed under the bark, making S-shaped channels that stop the flow of nutrients and, basically, starve the tree to death.

Lawrence counted approximately 3,200 publicly owned and managed ash trees in the city, but there may be thousands more. Over the next eight years, if city leaders decide every year on the same financing strategy approved this spring, the city’s total cost of treating, removing and replacing ash trees could reach higher than $3 million.