New hope for Vermont’s ash trees

Ash: A hardwood hero

Vermont’s ash trees, which make up about five percent of the state’s forests, provide unique and important benefits for our environment and economy. They support hundreds of species of wildlife, while their fallen leaves retain nutrients that improve the soil. Their high-quality lumber is used in wood products and flooring. Black ashes, found in the state in lower-lying wetlands, have been used by Indigenous people for basket making, ceremonies, medicine, and art for millennia.

The Emerald Ash Borer isn’t native to North America, which means it has no natural predators to keep its numbers in check. Because VLT plays a key role in improving forest health on conserved land, our staff have been actively monitoring ash trees since 2019 and educating forest landowners about how to manage their woods to slow the spread of EAB. In 2021, VLT forester Caitlin Cusack added a new tool to our ash management toolbelt: injecting ash tree stems with insecticide.

Testing the approach

Caitlin treated ten ash groves on VLT property between 2021 and 2024 and lent the injection equipment to other landowners, including the Catamount forest in Williston She coordinated that treatment with Terry Maron, who serves on the town’s Catamount Community Forest Management Committee. Terry is a passionate advocate for removing invasive species in the forest where possible. She said the committee spends as much as half its annual budget on invasives removal.

“There are a lot of invasives, but just the little you do can make a difference,” Terry said. “Some people get overwhelmed and say why even bother because there’s so much of it. But you can see progress, you know, when you take small steps.”

Last year, Caitlin alerted Terry to a new program that helps landowners cover the cost to treat their trees. Terry coordinated this year’s second round of treatment through Arborjet, a tree care solutions company that has donated injection equipment and technical assistance as part of its Saving America’s Iconic Trees campaign.

Buying time to develop largescale solutions

Ash injections are time-intensive and costly, which makes them impractical as a largescale solution to EAB. Still, the treatments help safeguard genetic diversity and sites for future seed collection as we learn more about how to protect these magnificent trees. In the case of Catamount, the treatments also preserve culturally important trees like Big Jim.

Other investments in the future of ash are equally important. Although millions of ash trees have died, some trees have expressed genetic resistance to EAB. These trees are called “lingering ash.” Scientists are breeding lingering ash to increase their offspring’s resistance to EAB, with the hope that the saplings can be used in future restoration efforts. Forest managers can help by leaving plenty of sexually mature healthy ash trees standing to monitor their resistance to EAB over time. VLT has set up several research plots to monitor and identify lingering ash through the Monitoring and Managing Ash (MaMA) research project.

Other organizations are saving ash seeds to create a seed bank for future plantings. Landowners can also play a role in regenerating ash and then protecting young ash trees from deer browse. Together, these actions help buy time for scientists and ecologists to research and develop larger-scale or biological solutions.

Fortunately, in the meantime, Big Jim isn’t going anywhere.