KNYSNA NEWS - In the wake of shocking reports last week (9 July) that the dreaded shot-hole borer beetle was heading towards Port Elizabeth, forest ecologists from Sanparks' Garden Route National Park announced that early observations in the Knysna forest and surrounds showed a welcome absence of the destructive creature.

A sigh of relief went up in local eco-circles with the announcement earlier this week by ecologist Graham Durham that the killer bug has been declared temporarily absent from sites in major parts of the indigenous forest on the Garden Route, inspected by professor Francois Roets from Stellenbosch University.

The tiny but deadly polyphagous shot-hole borer (so-called because its spread of multiple holes resemble the effect of a shotgun blast) that has spread globally from Southeast Asia, has devastated the avocado industry in Israel and stands poised to kill tens of millions of trees in California according to Guy Rodgers reporting for The Herald last week Tuesday – and it is now headed towards PE.

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The beetle was first spotted in Kwazulu-Natal some two years ago, speculatively introduced to our ports by infected wooden transport pallets, the Herald report states. It wreaked havoc on the oaks and other trees in Knysna central but has now thankfully been declared absent by Roets and other experts from Tsitsikamma Big Tree, Diepwalle, Storms River, Nature's Valley and the Garden of Eden. Roets also visited the Garden Route Botanical Gardens in George, Knysna's Pledge Nature Reserve, the Forever Resort in Plettenberg Bay and Kat River.

Its attack on Cape Town was mercifully halted when a speedy response by authorities helped to curb its normally rapid expansion, but Johannesburg, according to Rodgers, has not been so lucky, with an estimated 40% of its well-known urban forest in danger of being lost after a less prompt response to the onslaught.

According to the SA National Parks (Sanparks) statement, the beetle burrows deep into trees and leaves a fungus inside their circulatory system which blocks water and nutrients, causing branch "die-back" and eventually the death of the tree. Infection occurs, Rodgers reports, when the fungus is transported by an impregnated female from a dead tree to a new one. Quoting retired metro horticulturist Chris Hay, The Herald says the female is normally capable of flying anything from 500m to 1km – but much further on the wind.

The experts from Pretoria University's Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI) who also visited the Garden Route infection sites, said in the Sanparks statement that the bug is most likely to be found at spots accessible to the public, particularly where they could have been introduced by firewood to places such as picnic sites, rest camps and access roads. Final control requirements following a provincial task team meeting in Cape Town, are being finalised which might prohibit the entry of firewood in protected areas.

A national reporting hub is being set up but in the interim, members of the public in the Garden Route are requested to report possible infestations to Sanparks. Guidelines for detection is included alongside.

Here's how to detect this beasty from the East:

According to retired Port Elizabethan horticulturist Chris Hay, in the 9 July edition of The Herald, this is how you could look out for the polyphagous shot-hole borer beetle (PSHB):

1. Check your trees regularly and have a match handy. "PSHB holes go right through the bark into the trunk. They're big enough so you can twiddle a match in them without the head of the match fitting in," Hay told The Herald. If the match goes no further than the bark layer, then it's a bark borer beetle and no cause for concern.
2. Depending on the kind of tree, PSHB-infected areas are also characterised by stains of resin that ooze out and tiny fountains of sawdust.
3. One way to try to guard against spreading PSHB, Hay points out, is to avoid moving firewood from area to area.
4. The only way to deal with an infected tree, which could contain tens of thousands of beetles, is to burn it, Hay says.
5. Sanparks urges Knysna residents and members of the public to report possible infestations. You can send any queries you have or possible reports, to graham.durrheim@sanparks.org, or jessica.hayes@sanparks.org.

The shot-hole borer beetle typically leaves these marks on oak trees.

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