Area cities, Wright State work to save ash trees

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KETTERING — A few years ago, it was a foregone conclusion that Ohio’s millions of ash trees would fall to the emerald ash borer.

Losing them to the insect or cutting them down in advance of the inevitable are no longer the only options.

Wright State University is a partner in a long-term research project seeking a more permanent solution than temporary pesticides — breeding an American tree that resists the borer the way China’s less-desirable Manchurian ash does.

Don Cipollini, a professor of biological sciences at WSU, said the U.S. Forestry Service, Ohio State and Michigan State universities also are part of an effort that eventually may allow partial restoration of the North American ash.

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