NASHVILLE (AP) — Two more Tennessee counties have been placed in quarantine after a beetle that kills emerald ash trees was found there earlier this month.
Tennessee agriculture officials say Hickman and Dickson counties have joined 63 other counties under state and federal quarantine for the emerald ash borer.
The quarantine bars the movement outside the county of firewood, ash nursery stock, ash timber, and other material that can spread the beetle.
Signs of the beetle include a thin canopy or yellow foliage on the tree, small holes through the bark of the tree, or shoots growing from roots or a tree trunk, the Tennessee Department of Agriculture said in a news release Friday.
The state Division of Forestry estimates that there are 5 million ash trees on urban land and another 261 million ash trees on Tennessee timberland, with a combined value of about $11 billion.