The City is warning residents about a pest that could do some serious damage to our Ash trees.

City Parks Gardener Sara Regent said:

"We have discovered that we have Cottony Ash Pysllid in our city. It's a relatively new pest, quite new for Moose Jaw, although it's been in the Prairies for about 18 years. It's a little tiny winged insect and it only attacks Ash trees."

Specifically, it attacks Mancana and Black ash trees as well as their hybrids, so that means a lot of the trees in the downtown core are susceptible. Homeowners with Manchurian or Black Ash trees should monitor their trees for curled, distorted leaves, a sticky, white substance resembling cotton, sticky surfaces below the tree, and a reduced number of leaves.

"This is a concern because it really causes the trees a lot of stress. How it works is it will feed on the leaf juices of the tree, and in doing that it injects a toxin which causes the leaves to curl - effectively starving the tree. So if you have a high number of psyllids year after year, the trees basically starve to death".

"Most of our Ash is Green Ash, which is good news because they are not susceptible to the psyllid. However we do have a significant number of the Mancana Ash which are the ones that are in our downtown core, and a lot of our newer neighbourhoods have Ash in them because they are a beautiful tree when they're healthy. So we do stand to lose quite a few trees".

You can find out more by visiting the City of Moose Jaw website.