By – Karen McIlwain – August 14, 2023
Have you noticed orange dots on some of the trees in town? This week the city workers are out marking trees needing to be removed this winter.
We spoke with Todd Seymanski, with the city Of Great Falls forestry division, to find out the extent of the project.
“We are in the process of removing American Elm trees that are infected with Dutch Elm disease,” explained Todd. “We’ve been battling Dutch Elm disease yearly since 1990 or so. We had a nice cool wet spring which is great, but it is also good for fungus, so we have seen an increase in the amount of trees that are getting infected with Dutch Elm disease.”
“We are also combating our green ash trees that we’ve had a lot of issues with over the last 10 years or so,” continued Todd. “We’ve been having some pretty sporadic freezes early and late over the last 12 years, which is slowly decreasing the health of these older trees. Also there’s the ash bark beetle that likes to feed on stressed out trees,” concluded Todd.
Author: Karen Anderson
Karen is the Editor-in-Chief overseeing all news operations at Foxys Publishing Co. She also loves photography and spending time with her dogs.
