A History of Southern Pine Beetle Outbreaks
In The Southeastern United States

Edited and Compiled By:
Terry S. Price - Forest Entomologist, Georgia Forestry Commission, Macon, GA
Coleman Doggett - Pest Control Forester, N.C. Division of Forest Resources, Raleigh, NC
John M. Pye - Ecologist and Research Forester, respectively, USFS, Southeastern Forest Experiment Station, Research Triangle Park, NC
Bryan Smith - Research Associate, Department of Forestry, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC

For the Southern Forest Insect Working Group, consisting of state and federal forest health specialists. Individual contributors are listed in the Appendix.

The southern pine beetle, Dendroctonus frontalis Zimm., is the most destructive insect killer of pines in the southeastern United States. This native bark beetle attack and kills southern pines in an area roughly approximating the geographical range of shortleaf pine (See Appendix). For poorly understood reasons, the insect periodically increases to epidemic proportions, causing severe timber losses. For many years, a vast amount of data on the beetle has accumulated in files and archives. Some of the early information is very sketchy, but data collected since 1960 is reasonably accurate. This publication summarizes historical information on the southern pine beetle and documents damage and spread of the beetle since the 1960’s.

Contents

• Methods
• Discussion
• History of Southern Pine Beetle Control
• References
• Damage Estimates of Southern Pine Beetle in the Southeastern United States
• Alabama
• Arkansas
• Florida
• Georgia
• Kentucky
• Louisiana
• Mississippi
• North Carolina
• South Carolina
• Tennessee
• Texas
• Virginia
• Animated Map of Outbreaks
• Single Year Map of Outbreaks
• Map of Cummulative Outbreaks
• Host Volume Using Most Recent FIA Data
• Relative Change in Spots by State
• Relative Number of Counties in Outbreak by State

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