TIMBER BORERS

Hokitika Guardian, 11 February 1927, Page 1

TIMBER BORERS

PEST FROM AMERICA

NELSON, Feb. 9. Dr Tillyard, chief biologist at the 'Uawthron Institute, gives a strong warning flint- the large timber-having insect known as the Giant TTorntnil (sirex juveneus) is gaining ground in New Zealand. It was introduced originally almost certainly in consignments of Oregon timber.

Recently ;i gentleman from Seddon (Marlborough) brought to the C’awtliron Institute some sections of healthy growing pinns rat lin t a of considerable size (six to eight indies in diameter) badly infested with this insect. The wood lied heen riddled liv gill lories of the larvae, which were attacking the growing trees in plantations. So abnntlitnt was the supply of food that Dr Tillyard found in it male specimens of the pest as large as the largest known females from Europe. i.e.. up to about an inch and a half in length. The visitor declared he had seen females neai !y t w ice as large. FOOD FOR THE TNSFCT.

Says Dr Tillyard : “That man in his unwisdom is supplying this insect with the very conditions needed to restore it to its pro-historir size and dominance by planting all over a new conntry. with a wonderful climate, immense pure stands of the very wood which it likes best of all, viz... pinns radiata. There can he only one eonelusion to this, unless steps are at once taken to chock it. Within a comparatively short period of time the whole of the new forests of pinns radiata in New Zealand will probably be so heavily infested with Giant Horntail that the trees will have no commercial value. Every single person who is in any way interested in the future of pinns radiata in any part of New Zealand is vitally affected liv this problem.”

What: is really needed, lie says, is a fund of money large enough to enable an expert entomologist to hie sent to Europe and America for a period of at least two years, with i” structions to spend the whole of his time studying this problem, and locating supplies of the parasites. £IOOO NEEDED AT ONCE.

“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 staid may be made in Europe during the '■oniing Spring and summer, thus ensuring that the first supplies of parasites will he. received in New Zealand next December or .January. There is no mechanical or chemical wav of checking the nest, and the only hope is that the parasites, when introduced into Now Zealand, will find conditions so much to their taste that they will go ahead with as great vigour as the sirex lias clone. It is a case of the European earwig over again, but the possibilities of disaster before us are infinitely greater, as they involve the possible complete failure of our extensive schemes of planting of pinns radiata.”