 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
National Forest
Week 2000
Careers/Mountain Pine Beetle
Resources Included in Kit
• Primary lesson plan (K-4) & Intermediate lesson plan (Gr.5-7)
• Visual Resources
Primary & Intermediate Lesson (see Primary Lesson Plan for overheads)
-bark samples with beetle galleries
-pitch pockets
-blue stain
-lodgepole pine and cone samples
-overheads
-picture sheet of industry careers
Primary Lessons
-Increment borer (or picture of one)Intermediate Lesson
-video: The Right ChoiceINTERMEDIATE LESSON PLAN (5-7)
Introduction
• Introduce yourself and give a brief description of what your job is.
Explain why you are visiting the class.
• Show the bug vial and ask the following.....accept all answers but do
not give the correct answer at this time. Explain that you will return to the
vial of bugs later on:
- What do you think these are?
- What do you think they do?
- How many (bugs) do you think are in this vial? ....Guesstimate.
Intermediate Lesson
• CAREERS
- What do you think the term “Forest Industry” means? After you
have heard a few responses, explain the term refers to all jobs relating to
the forest & production of wood products
- Overhead of “Then & Now”: What changes do you see?
- What are some of the jobs that you know of in today’s forest industry?...
Accept 5 or 6 answers and then tell them you will be showing them a video about
careers in the forest industry.
- Ask them to watch for 2 things:
a) What careers are mentioned that you didn’t know were part of the industry?
b) How does the vial of bugs relate to the video?
• VIDEO
- Ask the students to name “one” career that they hadn’t know
about before the video. Insist on only one answer per person.
- How did the bug vial relate to the video? answer: The entomologist. Be sure
they know the word and what it means......write it on the board.
• BEETLES
- overhead of beetle: most beetles attack old or sick trees (eg. fire or wind
damaged). The first female that attacks a tree gives off a pheromone or scent
that attracts the males and mating occurs. The males in turn emit a pheromone
that attracts more females which can lead to a mass attack if the conditions
are right.....hot dry summers, mild winters and a large food source (weak, mature
trees). When there is a mass attack, the natural predators like woodpeckers
cannot reproduce quickly enough to maintain the beetle population at a manageable
level.
- overhead of lifecycle: discuss the lifecycle of the beetle...summer- flying
adults/female lays eggs which will hatch about 2 weeks later; fall- parent adults,
eggs & larvae, winter- mainly larvae stage, spring- pupae/adult
- overhead of tree layers: explain the purpose of each layer and that the female
adult beetle burrows in under the bark
- gallery sample: female beetle chews out galleries or tunnels, usually about
30 cm long, where she then lays her eggs
- gallery sample & overhead of tree layers: When the eggs hatch, the larvae
chew the inner bark area cutting off the tree’s supply of water and nutrients
(food)
- lifecycle overhead: The larvae then pupate in their own gallery and emerge
as adult beetles who burrow back out of the bark and move on to new trees where
the process is repeated
• MOUNTAIN PINE BEETLES
- beetle overhead: this is a Mt. Pine Beetle, an adult beetle is 3.7-7.5 mm
long
-vial of bugs: tell them approx. how many beetles are in the vial (45)
- Pine Beetles: worst of the beetle pests in that they do two things differently:
a) they will infest healthy mature trees, especially during an epidemic
b) blue stain fungus sample: they introduce a fungus, a blue stain infection,
via a microorganism they carry-trees can withstand a light attack by “exuding”
pitch (pine sap).
- pitch pockets sample and overhead: -trees can withstand a light attack by
“exuding” pitch (pine sap). Whitish pitch indicates the tree has
repelled the attack, reddish brown pitch means the attack was successful and
the tree will die.
- gallery and blue stain samples and overhead: the combination of the gallery
construction and the fungus associated with a mass attack overcomes the tree’s
defence system and eventually kills the tree
DETECTION
• What are some of the symptoms?
-2 overheads: healthy & infected trees, Tweedsmuir Park:
1)foliage turns red 2) pitch tubes at point of entry 3) boring dust at tree
base
*To positively identify the mountain pine beetle you must look under the bark.
PREVENTION AND MANAGEMENT
• Why is there such a major problem today when the beetle has always been
here?
- Fire prevention....pine is now considered a valuable species to the industry
and efforts made to eliminate or prevent fires have been very successful. The
result is that we now have an abundance of mature (even aged) pine whereas in
the past, fire was a part of the lodgepole pine’s life....fires thinned
and renewed the stands leaving a forest of uneven aged trees. Mt. Pine Beetles
prefer mature trees so an uneven aged stand was less likely to have a mass attack
- lodgepole branch and cone sample: lodgepole pine depend on the heat after
a fire to open its seed cones
.
• What preventative strategies are used to reduce the buildup of beetle
population?
- reducing tree density
- establishing a mix of species, ages and sizes within an area
- harvesting trees as soon as they become mature
• Sudden cold snaps (-25o) in early fall or late spring, or sustained
frigid winter temperatures (less than -40o) can also reduce beetle population.
• What are some of the Management strategies that exist today? (Bark
Beetle pamphlet)
- Pheromone baiting - traps
- sanitation harvesting/clear cutting - harvest trees and use for lumber
- pesticide - doesn’t work well. Why?.....beetles are under the bark
- snip and skid, mosaic burns, fall and burn
IF TIME:
• Management strategies are designed and applied in a way that protects
the “ecological integrity” of the area. This is done by preserving:
- adequate buffer zones around lakes, streams and wetlands
- old growth management areas
- wildlife trees
- wildlife corridors
CLOSURE
-Tell me something you learned today?
-Leave for class: 1 poster, 1 brochure, 1 CFA booklet, 1 activity sheet, &
info on poster contest (MoF contest and the Vernon school district poster contest)
Facts
- mountain pine beetles attack: lodgepole pine, ponderosa pine & white pine
from mid July to mid August. They have a one year cycle.
- in 1999 a total area of 125,289 hectares in BC was infested by beetles
-under epidemic conditions, the beetles that emerge from one infested tree can
move on to kill 2 or more trees of similar size next year
- it is impossible to predict the spread rate or direction of an infestation
but attacked trees are usually near previously killed trees
- beetle-infested logs have some economic value if cut and processed within
a couple of years of being attacked but the value is less than it would have
been prior to the attack
- tight controls are maintained on transportation of infested logs
- infestation increases the danger of fire
- outbreaks generally last 8-10 years
- an area is considered infested it 10 or more trees per hectare are being attacked
- in the past 80 years, it is estimated that more than 500,000,000 trees have
been killed by bark beetle attacks
- when dealing with an epidemic, younger trees may be attacked