Why I don’t use Tree-age

With the infestation of the Emerald Ash Borer in Kansas City now, there are a lot of different opinions on how to treat this terrible pest. One thing is for certain, if you don’t treat your tree(s) will die. Preventative measures are the only way you can save your Ash trees, but they can be saved!

I have been treating both healthy trees and sick trees in Kansas City for 23 years now. I have always looked for the best and most effective treatment measures available. Not only for the long term viability of the tree, but also giving the customer the best value for their dollar and allowing me to sleep at night knowing I have done my best to provide the most effective treatment available.

I look at EVERY tree I treat as my own.

I have personally used the Arbor-jet injection system in the past to treat trees. With it being a new system to me I started on a small number of trees to see for myself how good it is. To keep this short I will just say after treating a couple dozen trees I was unhappy with the inconsistent results and put the system on my shelf 7 years ago never to use again.

I knew when the Emerald Ash Borer, EAB hit Kansas City that this was not the way I wanted to treat the Ash trees. Below are some examples for you to see for yourself. This only addresses one reason why I feel there are too many variables for failure with this system.

A homeowner called me for an estimate to treat his Ash tree which was previously treated by an Arborist company in KC. This tree is 16” in diameter and according to the Tree-age label is supposed to be drilled with 7 holes for the treatment. This tree only had 4 holes drilled. I saw the plug through the crack in the bark in the picture on the left. After cutting away the dead bark you can see in the next picture the hole was drilled and inserted into dead wood. The callous growth around the plug is much older than 2 years which tells me this was nothing but pure disregard of the person doing the treatment. This homeowner is now a customer of Tree Doctor and happy to know his tree won’t have to be drilled every two years.

Below is another tree in Leawood, Kansas treated by another well known Arborist company from the Kansas City Metro Area. This tree is 32” in diameter and has 13 holes drilled in it. As you can see in the picture the plug is barely set into the bark. There are three trees in this homeowner’s yard; two in front treated by the city, both the same size. and all 26 plugs are set too shallow. He is now a customer of Tree Doctor and paying out of his pocket to treat the trees the city already treated because he doesn’t want to loose these big, beautiful, irreplaceable trees in his front yard. I see this way too often.

Pictured below are the plug placement instructions straight from arbor-jet. After looking at this refer to the picture above and tell me if you think the plugs on those 60 plus year old trees was done correctly. Who will apologize to the customer when his tree dies from Emerald Ash Borer, EAB because it wasn’t done correctly? In terms of inches, or should I say millimeters, what do you think the difference is between too deep, too shallow or just right is? Do you know anyone who can be that consistent 100% of the time?

The Right Way

It just didn’t make sense to me to drill multiple holes in a tree every two years. When I started researching this past six years ago I decided to go where they were having a major issue with this pest in Michigan and Illinois. I talked to a number of people who had been treating for years and discussed treatment options and success.

The one that intrigued me the most was Wayne White of Emerald Tree Care. You can visit his site at www.ashborer.com. Wayne is a Board Certified Master Arborist and has been treating the Emerald Ash Borer, EAB since its initial finding in 2002. Wayne treats 10,000 Ash trees each year in the heart of the infestation with 99% success. That 1% of failures he’ll tell you are trees already infected that he probably shouldn’t have treated in the first place but the customer wanted to try and save the tree.

After talking to Wayne extensively along with driving to meet him in person at one point, I knew his method of treatment was the best method available to battle this pest. I couldn’t find anyone with that much experience, track record and success. It is an annual treatment instead of every two years. We don’t drill holes, we are very competitively priced to tree-age and we offer a guarantee. If you are on our treatment program and your tree dies from EAB (of course we don’t believe that will happen) we will refund you two years worth of treatment cost.

So when it comes to treating your trees, rest assured that you are in good hands with Tree Doctor as your trees health care provider!