Insect and Disease Control 
In the years after World War II, action was also taken to 
control the more destructive insects and diseases that had 
long caused heavy losses of forest trees in the South. Bark 
beetles are endemic to southern forests, and periodic seri- 
ous outbreaks as in recent years have resulted in heavy 
losses of timber. Seed and cone insects limit seed produc- 
tion and complicate regeneration programs. Diseases in tree 
nurseries, rots in damaged trees, the littleleaf disease of lob- 
lolly and shortleaf pines, brownspot disease of longleaf pine, 
and fusiform rust in slash and loblolly pine stands also 
seriously limit timber growth and yields. 
Insect and disease control has been effective 
in nurseries. Without such control, it would 
be impossible to produce the billions of tree 
seedlings needed each year for planting. 
The availability of new pesticides and herbicides during the 
1940’s shifted the emphasis toward direct treatment by 
chemical agents. While herbicides and pesticides were never 
as widely used by foresters as by farmers, these agents saw 
increasing service to control forest pathogens and suppress 
unwanted vegetation. Because of recent environmental con- 
cerns, however, there is increasing emphasis on the use of 
biological and cultural controls instead of chemicals. 
Federal funding for control of forest insects and diseases 
was provided by the Forest Pest Control Act of 1947, 
administered since 1954 by the Forest Service. Federal 
expenditures in the South for insect and disease control in- 
creased moderately, from an average of $3.3 million (1982 
dollars) in the last half of the 1960’s to an average of about 
$5 million in the first half of the 1980’s (fig. 2.8 and app. 
table 2.22). Expenditures by non-Federal agencies for State 
and private cooperation in this program have averaged about 
half the amount of Federal funding, rising from about $1.2 
million (1982 dollars) in the late 1960’s to an average of 
about $2.4 million in the early 1980’s. 
Under this control program, the Forest Service and State 
agencies have conducted continuing surveys to identify and 
evaluate outbreaks of forest insects and diseases. Control 
projects such as spraying or removal of trees are carried out 
by the Forest Service on Federal lands and by the Forest 
Service in cooperation with State forestry organizations on 
private lands. The State forest services have increasingly 
been called on to implement direct control methods and to 
coordinate the salvage of dead and dying timber on private 
lands, as in the fight against recent major outbreaks of the 
southern pine beetle. 
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