The experience of injecting firs with systemic pesticides to control four-eyed fir bark beetle

The prolonged action of the complex preparation Abazol on ophiostomy (ophiostomatoid) fungi spread by fir trees was evaluated by the four-eyed fir bark beetle (Polygraphus proximus Blandford). Abazol, susceptible to insecticide Abaside and fungicide Debacarb are intended for injection into tree trunks under the bark after tree injection. A month after the treatment of healthy trees with Abazol, they were inoculated with a live culture of the fungus Grosmannia aoshimae. Abazol rises from the injector along the length of the trunk in a strip of 7–9 cm wide. Inoculation is carried out within this strip. Phloem necrosis caused by the fungus around the inoculation point was measured after 4 weeks. Phloem necrosis caused by fungal inoculation did not differ in the control (untreated trees) and experimental (treated trees) variants and averaged 62–63 mm. This indicates that as early as a month after treatment, the growth of the fungus was not inhibited in the preparation lanes. Additionally, three months after treatment, bark samples were taken from one tree, from the area where the pesticide was passed. Mycological analysis showed the presence in the samples of ophiostomatid fungi – associates of the four-eyed fir bark beetle. Previously published results of studies on the effect of Abasol on this bark beetle showed its effectiveness immediately after use and prolonged protection of Siberian fir from this pest for 2 months. But in our studies, Abasol did not demonstrate prolonged protection against ophiostomatoid fungi spread by the four-eyed fir bark beetle. The absence of significant differences in the length of phloem necrosis caused by the inoculation of G. aoshimae mycelium between the control and the experiment indicates that the fungus could quickly spread in the area of the pesticide passage after 1 month.

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