Farm Progress

Slideshow: Here's how technology saves trees from the emerald ash borer.

Mindy Ward, Editor, Missouri Ruralist

July 7, 2017

13 Slides

 Trunk injection is a relatively new way to treat insect and disease problems in trees. Arborjet is a small company with eight regional technicians who travel across the country injecting trees in parks, cities and farms.

Emmett Muennink, a tree technician with the company, stopped by one park in the St. Louis area to treat a tree under attack by the emerald ash borer. This pest is wreaking havoc on America's forests and has destroyed hundreds of millions of ash trees. It has been confirmed in 36 states.

Muennink shared how the tree injection treatment, known as TREE-äge, works. Check out the slideshow to see the step-by-step process.

About the Author(s)

Mindy Ward

Editor, Missouri Ruralist

Mindy resides on a small farm just outside of Holstein, Mo, about 80 miles southwest of St. Louis.

After graduating from the University of Missouri-Columbia with a bachelor’s degree in agricultural journalism, she worked briefly at a public relations firm in Kansas City. Her husband’s career led the couple north to Minnesota.

There, she reported on large-scale production of corn, soybeans, sugar beets, and dairy, as well as, biofuels for The Land. After 10 years, the couple returned to Missouri and she began covering agriculture in the Show-Me State.

“In all my 15 years of writing about agriculture, I have found some of the most progressive thinkers are farmers,” she says. “They are constantly searching for ways to do more with less, improve their land and leave their legacy to the next generation.”

Mindy and her husband, Stacy, together with their daughters, Elisa and Cassidy, operate Showtime Farms in southern Warren County. The family spends a great deal of time caring for and showing Dorset, Oxford and crossbred sheep.

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