Community Corner
What is the Purple Box in the Tree on Baboosic Lake Road?
This contraption recently caught the eye of a Patch reader who wrote in to ask if we knew what it is.
A few weeks ago, an eagle-eyed reader sent Patch a question wanting to know more about a purple box she'd spotted hanging from a tree on Baboosic Lake Road at the intersection with Mitchell Street.
Having a pretty good memory for news stories I've read in the past, I was pretty sure I knew what our reader was asking about, but last week I headed down to that intersection to take a quick look and snap a photo (ironically I'd been in front of that house before snapping a photo of the trees when the homeowner at that intersection was busy cutting down limbs from a tree damaged by Snowtober).
It was as I expected. The purple box our reader was referring to is a trap for emerald ash borer beetles.
Theses beetles are highly destructive and responsible for the death of millions of ash trees in the midwest, according to a page on the UNH Cooperative Extension.
In a column he wrote last year, The Nashua Telegraph's Granite Geek David Brooks said the purple traps arrived in New Hampshire (about 350 of them) to alert us when the EAB had arrived. Brooks said the beetles had been discovered in Connecticut and could be in New Hampshire as soon as 2013.
The EAB are reportedly attracted to the color and the scent of the traps.
Brooks said in his column he hoped the traps would never be needed, however, according to an article on WMUR, larvae of the EAB were found in a tree in Concord in April.
Ash trees only make up a small percentage of trees in New Hampshire, but with an outbreak of the EAB, that tree population could drop significantly in just a few short years.
Get informed about the EAB, one of the biggest things people can do is refrain from bringing untreated firewood in from out of state. Burn wood where you buy it, as untreated wood can transport pests from one state to another. If you transport wood across state lines, make sure it's been treated or kiln dried before doing so.
Learn more about the emerald ash borer beetle here, and have some fun with your kids while you're at it.
Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.
