Insect infestation destroying Nevada’s pinyon pines
By Jeff Delong, Reno Gazette-Journal
For some time, it’s been clear to Melinda Cash that something was wrong with her trees.
Many of the pinyon pines on Cash’s Mound House property east of Carson City looked sick and scraggly, their branches largely devoid of needles.
“You can see right through them. Usually you can’t see through a pinyon,” said Cash, 56. “I have a lot of trees dying with their needles falling off. It’s crazy.”
It wasn’t until Cash attended a meeting of the Nevada Fire Safe Council last summer, when Gail Durham of the Nevada Division of Forestry spoke of a growing threat posed across much of Nevada by a tiny insect, that Cash realized what is killing her trees.
