Question
I have at least 50 pin oaks with bores. I live in MO. I have pine wilt and ISP bore on the many pine trees that were here before the oaks.  I have looked at some of the other types of trees on the farm and looks like the other trees are getting bores as well.  Could the bores from the pine trees that were not removed immediately be mutating into the pin oaks?  Do you have a solutions to rid these oaks of the bores?  Thank you for your help.

Answer
The Ips bark beetles will not attack oak trees. Insects for the most part attack by species of trees--insects that attack pines will not infest oaks--insects that attack oaks will not infest pine trees.

Borers attack trees under stress. You can spray an insecticide on the bark of the oaks where the borers have entered and this will kill the insects under the bark. Use an insecticide called Onyx or Merit. Check with your local garden type store for these.

Stress can be caused by many things--dry weather or lack of nutrients in the soil are a couple of them. I would expect that your area has experienced drought like conditions this past year or so. Not much you can do in this situation but try to reduce the borer population with the insecticide spray. I would suggest fertilizing the trees with 10-10-10 fertilizer at the rate of 1 lb of fertilizer per inch of trunk diameter scattered around the tree and watered in good, Apply just before a rain storm and you will not have to water. This is ok for the trees around your house but would be too big a job and expensive for all the trees on a farm.