Matt Gentry | The Roanoke Times

The hemlock woolly adelgid can be detected by white puffs, which look like cotton.

Jim May, owner of I.V. Tree Care, injects a systemic insecticide in the ground next to the trunk of a hemlock tree in Blacksburg. May's business -- which he took over in February 2008 after former owner, Olen Sharron, died -- is dedicated to eradicating the hemlock woolly adelgid, an insect that attaches itself to hemlock leaves and sucks out the nutrients.

CHRISTIANSBURG -- Olen Sharron loved trees -- hemlocks to be exact.

So in 1999 he started I.V. Tree Care, a business dedicated to eradicating the hemlock woolly adelgid, an insect that attaches itself to hemlock leaves and sucks out the nutrients.

He worked steadily until June 2007, when colon cancer kept him from working any longer. He died in August of that year.

Jim May, Sharron's longtime friend and certified arborist and horticulturist, recalls sitting with Sharron about a month before he died, talking about the future of the business. Sharron knew he needed to sell it, but wanted to make sure he sold it to the right person.

"We said goodbye, and on the way home it hit me that I needed to be the one who bought that business," May said.

"I called Olen and he said 'Jim, I think God must have sent you because I was thinking the very same thing but I didn't want to say it. I would love for you to be the one to buy the business.' "

May bought the business from Sharron's widow, Becky Sharron, in February 2008 and adopted Sharron's mission as his own.

"He was one of those fellows you couldn't help but like," May said, his voice catching with emotion. "He was a good man, he loved what he was doing and he loved trees."

The New River Valley is right in the middle of the area that is being affected by hemlock woolly adelgids, said Scott Salom, professor of entomology at Virginia Tech, who has studied the hemlock woolly adelgid and is working on finding ways to prevent it in natural forests.

The pest was introduced to the New River Valley in mid-1990 and continues to move and expand in eastern Kentucky, western Virginia, western Pennsylvania and as far north as southern Maine, Salom said.

Spring and fall are prime breeding times for hemlock woolly adelgids, which thrive in cool weather.

"From a standpoint of an individual species predator, it's devastating," Salom said.

The difference between Salom's work and I.V. Tree Care is Salom works in forest populations and May works to save trees on private land.

The name I.V. Tree Care came from the way infected hemlocks are treated. May treats infected trees by injecting a chemical about eight inches into the ground near the roots of the tree, hence the name I.V. Tree Care.

"He knew he wanted to specialize and decided to do systemic treatment, so that's how we came up with the name of the company, I.V. Tree Care," Becky Sharron said.

As the tree takes in nutrients from the ground, it also takes in the chemicals, which are then passed on to the hemlock woolly adelgids, killing them.

Injecting is safer than spraying chemicals into the air, May said.

"It's only about eight inches deep, so really the only way it can hurt anything is if a child or a pet were to dig those exact eight inches and get directly in it," May said. "I don't wear a mask or a respirator when I'm injecting."

May will spray occasionally to follow up on certain, necessary spots, he said.

In larger hemlock populations, such individualized care would be too time-consuming and expensive, Salom said. Instead, entomologists are testing natural enemies, such as predator beetles, as a way of controlling the spread.

Olen Sharron treated various kinds of tree diseases through injection when he started the company but eventually focused on the hemlock woolly adelgid, especially after seeing the widespread problems in the Mountain Lake area, Becky Sharron said.

May has kept the business intact the way Sharron left it, clientele and all, in memory of his friend.

"He loved it so much even when he was so sick at the end; he did not stop until he couldn't do it anymore," Becky Sharron said.

"He said it was good to get out in the sunshine ... he said he could sit at home and be sick or he could be out enjoying himself and that would take his mind off it."

For more information

To learn more about I.V. Tree Care and hemlock woolly adelgids, visit ivtreecare.com.

Want to help?

A memorial fund has been set up in Olen Sharron’s name to benefit the Mountain Lake Conservancy. The fund also honors Warren Mays, a professor of entomology at Virginia Tech who was also dedicated to saving hemlocks. For more information on the Olen Sharron-Warren Mays Memorial Fund, call626-7121, extension 444, MLC@MountainLakeHotel.com or mtnlakeconservancy.org/donations-OSmf.html