The emerald ash borer, a shiny green insect, is not known to be in Oregon.
Not yet, anyway. But it will probably make its way here eventually, and wipe out a lot of ash trees. As many as 100 Million have already died from invasions of the ash borer.
So the Oregon Department of Forestry is taking pre-emptive steps, collecting seeds from ash trees all over the state, in case new trees need to be grown to replace those lost to the bug.
The federal government is involved, too, primarily through the Dorena Genetic Resource Center of the U.S. Forest Service.
Wyatt Williams from ODF and Richard Sniezko of the USFS are our guests.