Seosan City Mobilizes All Efforts to Prevent Spread of Pine Wilt Disease

This year, preventive tree injections will be administered to approximately 65 hectares of pine trees.
Next year, monitoring posts will be set up to prevent unauthorized movement of pine trees and curb the spread.

Sampling of suspected pine wood nematode infected trees. / Seosan City

Seosan City in South Chungcheong Province is making every effort to proactively respond to the nationwide spread of pine wilt disease.

Pine wilt disease is a condition in which the pine wood nematode blocks the pathways for nutrients and water in pine trees, causing infected trees to die within two years.

The first case of pine wilt disease in Seosan City occurred in 2020 at Hwanggeumsan, and since then, the disease has been spreading mainly in areas adjacent to Taean County, such as Haeumi-myeon, Hyuam-ri, Inji-myeon, and Palbong-myeon, resulting in increasing damage.

In particular, damage is severe along National Road No. 32, which connects Taean County to Seosan City, raising concerns in the region.

In April, the city held a regional pest control council with seven organizations, including South Chungcheong Province and the Forest Resources Research Institute, to discuss control strategies focused on Bongnak-ri in Buseok-myeon, where pine wilt disease has newly occurred.

In addition, the city carried out emergency control measures and administered preventive tree injections to pine trees across a total area of 60 hectares. Aerial surveillance was also conducted twice using helicopters leased by the Korea Forest Service.

In the second half of the year, the city plans to control 373 infected trees and administer preventive tree injections to pine trees across 5.25 hectares in the Seongyeon-myeon Forest Experience Center area.

The city identified the use of firewood from infected pine trees and unauthorized movement as the main causes of the artificial spread of the disease, rather than its natural spread, and will implement projects to prevent this next year.

Key initiatives include installing monitoring checkpoints to control the unauthorized movement of pine trees and allocating a budget of approximately 300 million won for control projects such as preventive tree injections.

Mayor Lee Wan-seop stated, "The most important thing to prevent the spread of pine wilt disease is to detect dead trees early and block the movement of infected trees," and added, "I ask for the active cooperation of all citizens so that Seosan City can be restored as a pine wilt disease-free area."

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