Gyeonggi-do Invests 12 Billion KRW to Control Pine Wilt Disease

[Asia Economy (Uijeongbu) = Reporter Lee Young-gyu] Gyeonggi Province has completed a control project to block the damage caused by pine wood nematode disease.

Gyeonggi Province announced on the 8th that it had invested 12 billion KRW by last month to complete the pine tree nematode disease control project, including the treatment of 71,580 dead pine trees and preventive tree injections over 3,214 hectares of forest.

Pine wood nematode disease is caused when the vector beetle, the northern pine sawyer beetle, gnaws on the new shoots of healthy trees, allowing the nematodes inside the beetle to penetrate the wound site, causing pine and Korean pine trees to wither and die, with a mortality rate of 100%.

For prevention, control measures must be completed before the emergence (羽化, the process of developing wings and becoming an adult insect) of the nematode vector beetle.

The number of dead pine trees damaged by the nematode disease in the first half of this year was 71,580, a 21% decrease compared to last year (91,347 trees).

The province plans to establish a meticulous control network in the second half of this year to minimize damage caused by pine wood nematode disease.

Lee Sung-gyu, head of the Forestry Division of the province, emphasized, "Surveillance and prevention are the first steps in controlling pine wood nematode disease. We will do our best to prevent the spread of the disease by managing the history of damaged trees and expanding the areas for preventive tree injections to provide a pleasant forest environment."

The pine wood nematode disease first occurred domestically in 1988 on Geumjeongsan Mountain in Busan. In Gyeonggi Province, it first appeared in 2006 in Gwangju, Namyangju, and Pocheon, rapidly spreading to peak in 2014, and has been declining since then.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.