TIMBER BORER.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18922, 10 February 1927, Page 8

TIMBER BORER.

PEST FROM AMERICA. THREATENS DISASTER TO PINE PLANTATIONS. irstas association iiligham.) NELSON, February !>. Dr. Tillyard, chief biologist at the Cawtlirou Institute, jjiv*s a strong warning thai the. large timber-boring insect known as the Giant Homtail (sires juveuciis) is gaining ground in New Zealand. It was introduced originally almost certainly in i:on.*iguuients of Oregon timber. Hecentlv a gentleman from N?ddou (Marlborough) brought to the Cawtlirou Institute some sections ot healthy growing pinus radiata of considerable size (six to eight inches in diameter) badlv infested with this insect. The wood had been riddled by galleries of the larvae, which were attacking the growing trees in plantations. So abundant was the supply of food that Dr. Tillyard found in it male specimens of the'pest as largo as the largest known females from Europe, i.e., up io about an inch and a half in length. The visitor declared he had seen females nearlv twice as !■'•;;'-•

Food for tue Insect. Says Dr. Tillyard: "That man in his unwisdom is supplying this insect with the very conditions needed to restore it to its pre-historio Bine and dominance by planting all over a new country, with a wonderful climate, immense pure stands of the very wood which it likes best of all, viz., pinus radiata. There can be only on© conclusion to this, unless steps are at once taken to check it. Within a comparatively short period of time the whole of the now forests of pinus radiate in New Zealand will probably he so heavily infested with Giant Hbrntail that the trees will have no commercial value. Every single person who is in any way interested in the future of pinus radiata in any part of New Zealand is vitally affected by this problem." What is really needed, he says, is a fund of money large enough to enable an expert entomologist to be sent to Europe and America for a period of at least two years, with instructions to spend the whole of his time studying this problem, and locating supplies of tho parasites. £IOOO Needed at Onco. "The danger from this insect is so great, judging from evidence now available, that a fighting fund of at least £IOOO is urgently required, and at once, in order that a start may bo made in Europe during the coming spring and summer, thus ensuring; that tho first supplies of parasites will bo received in New Zealand nest December or January. There is no mechanical or chemical way of. checking tho pest, and tho only hope is that tho parasites, when introduced into New Zealand, will find conditions so much to their taste that they will go ahead with as great vigour as tho sirox has done. It is a caso of tho European earwig ovcr a g a iit but the possibilities of disaster before us are infinitely greater, as they involve the possiblo complete failure of our extensive schemes of planting of pinus radiata,"