The dreaded emerald ash borer hasn’t made its way to Dane County yet, but the county now has a plan for homeowners and communities to deal with the pest.

 The invasive beetle, which has ravaged ash trees throughout several states and Canada, was first discovered in southeast Wisconsin in August 2008 and then in Vernon County near the Mississippi River in April.

The departments of Natural Resources and Agriculture Trade and Consumer Protection have been monitoring trees in Dane County since 2004, including the use of about 450 beetle traps last year. There are nearly 2 million ash trees in woodlands and on private residential property in Dane County.

Dane County is the first Wisconsin county to develop a plan to battle the beetle, County Executive Kathleen Falk said Monday.

The plan includes information on what would happen if a number of ash trees in the county needed to be removed and how they would be collected and processed.

It details the signs that homeowners should watch their ash trees for to determine the presence of the pest, such as dead branches near the top of the tree, off-color foliage, D-shaped exit holes in the bark, vertical bark splits and the presence of more woodpeckers, which feed on the larvae.

Dane County is looking into incentive programs and partnerships to help offset the costs associated with removing and replacing ash trees on private property. Vouchers for arborists’ services or replacement trees may be part of that program.

The complete Dane County’s Emerald Ash Borer and Wood Utilization Strategic Management Plan is available at

  www.co.dane.wi.us/lwrd/parks by clicking on the Emerald Ash Borer link on the left side of the page.

Are maple trees dying?

  Hundreds of maple trees are exhibiting unusual symptoms this spring — the leaves appear to be scorched with red and brown blotches.

The condition is no reason to panic, says Mike Korlesky, green goods manager for the Bruce Co., a Middleton landscaping and garden business. The condition, called anthracitic, is caused by a fungus and resulted from the cool, wet weather this spring. The problem, which occurs every six years or so, is more "aesthetic" than anything, Korlesky said.

"If it’s a larger tree, you usually don’t have to do a whole lot … unless we go into a real drought situation later in the season," Korlesky said. The only way to protect younger trees is to spray them with a copper fungicide when the leaves start to bud early in the season.