Renew your TRAQ and then attend the Texas Tree Conference! The TRAQ Renewal Course is a one-day refresher, with five hours of instruction, and three hours to take the exam. Current TRAQ holders can complete the course as early as three and one-half (3 1/2) years into their Qualification (18 months before your expiration date). Once your current expiration date passes, you will need to retake the full course and assessment to be reinstated. Class size is limited to 30.

Once you have successfully passed the renewal requirements, you will be given five (5) years from the date of your previous expiration allowing you to take full advantage of the five-year period granted with the credential.

EAB was first detected in Texas in April 2016 when four adult EAB beetles were caught and confirmed in a monitoring trap in Harrison County just south of Karnack, Texas. Texas A&M Forest Service began monitoring for the pest in 2012 by strategically deploying detection traps each spring. The traps are monitored throughout the spring and summer months during peak EAB emergence and movement.

While it is important to note that there has been no confirmation of ash trees infested with emerald ash borer (EAB), the borer has shown up in two-possibly three-new Texas counties in 2018. As of July 31, 2018, traps in Marion and Cass counties near the northeastern corner of Texas have caught adult EAB beetles. In addition, six to seven additional traps in Harrison County, initially infested in 2016, have caught EAB beetles, indicating the spread of EAB throughout the county. A photograph taken in Tarrant County in 2017 but only recently noted appears to show an emerald ash borer, although without an actual specimen (adult or larvae) nothing can be definitively identified.  Trees in the area will continue to be monitored to see if larvae or adults can be obtained.