MINNEAPOLIS - It snows. It gets gold. It's winter in Minnesota.
Nothing to see here. Move along. Right?
Sure. But think about this. The cold snaps can be a killer for the pesky bugs that live inside or at the roots of trees and cause tree disease.
"It's good for the trees in the perspective that the pests that are after them, there is mortality as it gets cold and colder and colder," says Jim Walsh, a Master Arborist and part owner of Vineland Tree Care in Minneapolis. "So once you get zero you start to kill some emerald ash borer larvae.”
Walsh says prolonged temperatures below zero and especially in the -10 to -20 range can be effective in killing tree pests.
"I think as you are killings the bugs ... it's a prolonged period of cold," he said. "Like, I would say seven to 10 or 14 days."
According to the Minnesota DNR, the Twin Cities and surrounding metro areas have the largest concentration of ash trees in the state. St. Louis County in northern Minnesota and Olmsted County in southern Minnesota are the two counties that compare.
The Emerald Ash Borer wiped out hundreds of trees in Minneapolis and St. Paul as both cities began cutting infected trees down to keep the disease from spreading.