By KATH GANNAWAY
THERE are calls for a more robust and widespread attack on elm leaf beetles that are decimating elms across the shire.
The Mail reported last week that the annual problem that resulted in trees being eaten bare was particularly bad this year, with calls for individual elm-owners to treat their trees against the beetle and its voracious larvae.
Yarra Ranges Council (YRC) told the Mail it had a treatment program in operation across the shire and cited Healesville and Lilydale’s main street stands as examples of trees that had benefited from the program.
There is concern however that the trees on other publicly-owned land are being left to the ravages of the beetle.
Healesville resident John Darby said he was concerned that trees around the Healesville railway station and in River Street were at risk, and another Mail reader pointed to stands of trees at the Yarra Glen football ground that had been stripped bare.
While the beetles don’t directly kill the trees, they can cause stress if untreated over successive seasons and continued defoliation over a long period can eventually kill them.
“The whole character of the town will be changed if we lose our autumn trees,” Mr Darby said.
“It looks to me like we are going to lose a lot of our elms and I would say it’s going to take a couple of thousand dollars to take them down, and hundreds of dollars to replace them, so it makes sense to treat them against the beetle,” he said.
A YRC arborist, however, told the Mail on Friday that while resources dictated the number of trees they could treat, they used a systemic insecticide that protected the targeted tree.
He said trees at Yarra Glen Reserve were treated, but not those that self-seeded.
The trees on railway land would need to be treated by the railway, he said.
“We get a number of customer requests to treat trees every year and assess those on a case by case basis. “We’ve had a lot of requests this year and if they look as if they are worth treating, they are put on the program for next year.
“It’s bad this year, right across Melbourne, and people are particularly noticing it.
“Most elms that are looking dead, I suspect are completely defoliated by the feeding activity of the beetle and will flush again in spring.”
Healesville elm owners, David Johnston and Catherine Nolan, said they were faced with the beetle problem several years ago and after having a weeping elm and a golden elm treated, they were encouraging other private elm owners to do the same.
Mr Johnston said their initial response was that the treatment was prohibitively expensive, but said they had found the cost was now affordable.
“In recent years an eastern suburbs company has injected our trees biennially and the costs seems reasonable, and well worth it,” he said.
“We whole-heartedly suggest that business and property owners with significant elms do the same; our elms are looking beautiful this year.”
