The State Forester says Missouri’s black walnut trees are threatened by a rapidly-spreading disease for which there is no cure. Lisa Allen says Thousand Cankers Disease is carried by a tiny beetle that has already killed trees across most of the western states, and four states east of us. It has not been detected yet in Missouri, the world’s leading producer of black walnuts for food.
The disease started killing black walnut trees in Colorado in 2003. Allen says the state Departments of Conservation and Agriculture are monitoring and trying to trap the walnut twig beetles, but so far they have not been found here.