Burning green conifers to destroy pine beetle habitat

[bigsnowdog]

What is your point?

[SwampDonkey]

That it's as much about looks as it is bugs. Don't see anything negative in it, being that it's small acreage and lots of free time apparently. ;)

[bigsnowdog]

I am trying to have trees live, rather than die from whatever reasons, including overcrowding and stress.  It is not clear to me how efforts in response to insect control and mortality are summarized as all about looks.

No, I really have no free time. That is one reason this is such a problem.

I have had roughly 10% of my white pines die over a period of five years for unexplainable reasons. Evaluation includes specimens being analyzed by state forestry and entomology labs. Their best explanation is stress. One suggestion to reduce stress is to thin. Ag chemicals are another possible factor. The mortality has followed a rather distinct path through the planting. It is about 2/3 of the way through.

I am trying to be conservative and do as much damage control as possible. Perhaps this is small at 15 acres, rather than 20,000 acres, though no one has ever questioned the value of it due to size. Typically I am complimented for having put for the effort to reforest in an ag state.

[Piston]

Bigsnowdog,
Based on what you know, and the fact that you are just trying to learn, I can see why you can get aggravated with some of the replies  ;)

It sounds like all your trying to do is follow the advice of your forester and learn a bit about forest management and pest/disease control, nothing wrong with that. 

Your doing the right thing by listening to your forester, the problem seems to be that he may/may not be right.  There is a lot of experience from people on here and they seem to question your forester.  It may be wise to get a couple other opinions from other foresters who could visit the site if that is possible. 

The guys are just trying to save you time and not do unnecessary work.  I think your doing the right thing based on the info you have and I give you credit for caring about your little slice of earth  ;)

I also want to see you try out the leaf blower trick I mentioned on your brush pile  :D :D :D

Keep asking questions and try not to get discouraged  ;)  The foresters on this site are some pretty *DanG smart people and they are only here because they love what they do.  Ask your forester if he is as interested and dedicated in his job as these guys are  ;D

[bigsnowdog]

Thanks for your post. Regarding the leaf blower idea, I will definitely be trying it!

[SwampDonkey]

The precise wording is "as much about looks as it is bugs".   ;) As your local forester(s) seem to have told you, you need to thin at this point. But that's only effective if the trees can respond positively if they are now healthy. A suppressed, weakling isn't going to spring back to full vigour. With white pine, blister rust and weevils, the two not in your list of damage agents, are most likely to cause grief than bugs in slash piles. Have any of those local foresters visited your woods? You may be getting some type of herbicide entering from fields as you were offered. However, I have no information on how some of those chemicals can move. Then there is the possibility of root disease which gets amplified by root grafting between the pines. I have a small spot on the edge of my woods, where fir, spruce and aspen die. Don't know what it is, but it's just a tiny patch within a 6 foot radius. And I don't see ants. The soil is well drained. My suspicions are that the logger dumped his burnt oil and jugs under the berm that was pushed up when making a yard. A common practice I see quite often.

I care about your 15 acres to. I don't get paid to be here, so 15 acres or 20,000 acres I'm still poor. ;)

[bigsnowdog]

I appreciate your help. To say I am an uneducated forester is to suggest I am any sort of forester at all. I have learned a lot the hard way in these efforts since 1979.

I am, in addition to thinning, also removing any trees that lack vigor or seem in questionable health. Thirty years ago I had the idea that you plant a tree and it lives because there will be nothing to kill it. How wrong could I be? At times it is depressing to see all the things that cause mortality.

[beenthere]

................
I have had roughly 10% of my white pines die over a period of five years for unexplainable reasons. Evaluation includes specimens being analyzed by state forestry and entomology labs. Their best explanation is stress. One suggestion to reduce stress is to thin. Ag chemicals are another possible factor. The mortality has followed a rather distinct path through the planting. It is about 2/3 of the way through.
............

That info helps a lot. 
There may be something to the knowledge that white pine are out of their range in IA.

Hopefully you don't become discouraged over our responses, but even your experts can only come up with a "best explanation is stress". I think our responses were meant to help you get through the exercise of burning green white pine and your plea for help to do it with no money for a chipper, no money for a grapples, and what appeared to be a lack of information as to why. We could only attempt to read between the lines. We were just as frustrated trying to help you with your "problem".

[woodtroll]

You gave another clue in the "path" of dead trees. Causes of tree death can be many, but they leave clues. Pine beetle, doesn't matter which, would show evidence. They attack live trees. You should see bore holes, sap, and sometimes saw dust when first attacked. The trees should have galleries (beetle tunnels)under the bark. The different bark beetles have distinct galleries, whether the tunnel is filled with in with saw dust or open, or the shape of the nuptial chamber. Ips leave their gallery open, (mountain) pine bark beetles fill theirs.
Both beetles attack stressed trees. The tree can be stressed from being to thick or affected by other pathogens.

[terry f]

sorry Bob I thought Ips and pine beatle here were the same thing. doesent seem to hit the ponderosa but if you remember this area in the 70s and early 80s it looked like montana does now. which beatle was that and do you think the old BCC lands are in as good of stewardship as they were with boise.

[BaldBob]

Terry,
That was the Mountain Pine Beetle that was responsible for hitting the Eastern Oregon Lodgepole so heavily in the 70's & 80's. Both MPB and Ips are bark beetles, but Ips usually only causes top kill in otherwise healthy trees. The Mountain Pine Beetle can and does cause extensive mortality in Ponderosa. A few stands of pole to small saw timber sized PP that I didn't get thinned soon enough, just North of Elgin, OR and some in the Dayton, WA, area suffered some heavy MPB mortality in the early 80's.  Colorado is currently  experiencing heavy mortality in both their Lodgepole and Ponderosa from it.  However, except in the most extreme outbreaks, mortality to PP from it usually occurs in younger trees that are overstressed by either over crowding or drought. Unlike Lodgepole,which produces little resin, a healthy Ponderosa can "pitch out" the beetles unless it is overwhelmed by sheer numbers of attacking beetles. Because if that trait, while thinning in Lodgepole prior to a beetle outbreak is usually only marginally effective in protecting the stand, Ponderosa stands can be made almost beetle proof with this practice.

The current owners of the former BCC lands have different objectives than we had when I was managing those lands. Their level of harvest is heavier than what we did. But overall, from what I saw prior to my leaving that area  in 2009 (retired from BCC in 2000), they seemed to be practicing good forestry. They seem to lean more heavily to even-aged management than I did.  I managed about 50% of the stands (the drier sites) on an uneven aged basis, while they seem to be putting 80 -90% of the stands on an even-aged regime. While even-aged management may not be as aesthetically appealing as uneven aged management, biologically it is not necessarily inferior.

[terry f]

Thanks Bob,I prefer uneven stand. I like seeing the bigger trees and you know how long they take to grow on the dry side of oregon, but i'm not a forester and don't have to make money from the harvest.

[bigsnowdog]

My district forester has read this thread and is engaging in further discussion with other state foresters and entomologists. He indicated good questions were raised in the thread.

[woodtroll]

Terry,
I recently had the pleasure of hearing the gentleman from Alberta and their massive strategy to hold strong against the m pine beetle.
It sounds good and practical. It has to do with setting areas of priority for management. Areas that are to far gone, areas that can be helped with thinning and harvesting then areas on the out skirts using individual treatment of trees. It is all to get the forest thinned to a healthy level in the pine, an uneven aged level also.
I need to start a new thread.

Bigsnowdog, glad to hear it.

[loblolly]

I realize this is an old thread, but it could be helpful to clear-up some ambiguity and disagreements on whether to remove slash for future readers.

Quoted from: https://wiki.bugwood.org/Archive:Northeast/Pine_bark_beetles  Which is U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. 1979. A guide to common insects and diseases of forest trees in the northeastern United States.

The southern pine beetle is the most destructive bark beetle in the group. During severe outbreaks, it has destroyed millions of board feet. Loblolly and shortleaf pine are preferred hosts, but it will attack any southern pine species.

The black and red turpentine beetles prefer trees of reduced vigor, but are capable of attacking apparently healthy trees as well. The most destructive populations usually develop in stands disturbed by logging, lightening, or fire. The black turpentine beetle attacks all southern pine species, although it affects loblolly and slash the most severely. The red turpentine beetle attacks all pine species within its range, and occasionally attacks spruce, true firs, Douglas-fir, and larch.

Engraver beetles are second only to the southern pine beetle in the mortality they cause. They usually prefer trees that have been weakened by lightning or other damage, or infest fresh slash remaining after logging operations. Ips calligraphus, Ips grandicollis, and Ips avulsus attack all southern pine species in their ranges. Ips pini attacks all pines in its range and several spruce species, as well.

And from: https://www.barkbeetles.org/ips/ipsfidl.htm  Which is Forest Insect & Disease Leaflet 129 of U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service

Ips beetles usually attack weakened, dying, or recently felled trees and fresh logging debris. Large numbers Ips may build up when natural events such as lightning storms, ice storms, tornadoes, wildfires, and droughts create large amounts of pine suitable for the breeding of these beetles. Ips populations may also build up following forestry activities, such as prescribed burns that get too hot and kill or weaken pines and clear-cutting or thinning operations that compact soils, wound trees, and leave large amounts of branches, cull logs, and stumps for breeding sites.

I can see some logic to leaving slash in winter:

Because very little development takes place below about 15° C (59° F), Ips are not a serious problem during cold weather.

Does "not a serious problem" = "not a problem"?  I guess it depends how careful you want to be and how accurately you can predict the weather over the course of time it takes for the slash to become uninhabitable by beetles.

The following practices are recommended during logging or thinning operations:

- Use as much of each crop tree as possible. Avoid leaving logging debris in contact with or close to residual pines.

- Remove harvested timber from a stand as soon as possible, especially during warm weather. Whenever feasible, stack harvested timber or pine firewood away from living pines.

- Minimize the damage to future crop trees that is caused by logging equipment and vehicles. When thinning, use the lightest suitable equipment to minimize soil compaction and root-breakage. Scarred portions of trees and root injuries, especially during hot, dry weather, attract Ips and black turpentine beetles. Wounds invite infection.

Does "especially during warm weather" = "only during warm weather"?

For a commercial logging operation where it's not feasible to remove slash, then that's the way it is.  But for someone with their own personal stand of limited acreage, it seems prudent to remove debris rather than gamble with 20-30yr investments.

I figured I'd offer this up since I happened upon it during my quest.

[WDH]

My next door landowner burned his 29 year old loblolly plantation a few weeks ago when it was too warm.  About 70% of the trees ended up with crowns that were 100% scorched.  I suspect with last Fall's severe drought and the resulting stress, he will have a pine beetle infestation and will have to clearcut the stand to save the timber.  If the butts of the logs are blue or the bark is slipping, then the sawmills will not take the logs and they downgrade to pulpwood at best.  Even the pulpmills don't always take beetle killed logs where the bark is slipping.  It was a bad decision to burn this year with all the stress that the trees had been through from the drought, and they picked a very bad day to do it.  The temp the afternoon they burned was over 70 degrees.

Southern pine beetle populations are at a peak, and this is looking to be a devastating year for beetle mortality in Georgia.  It was like this in the mid 1980's.

[Catenaut]

I was not trying to be offensive with my ocean comment.  Thousands and thousands of acres of pine trees are thinned each day, especially in the South.  The tops and limbs are not piled and burned to prevent pine beetle attack.  To pile and burn this residue would be a massive effort, therein, the ocean comment.  However, your situation may be different and the advice that you have been given may be sound. 

I have never heard of this before as a control for pine beetles unless the trees were already attacked and you were making a salvage cut.  Even with a salvage cut, the trees are felled, but are not piled and burned.  I think that you could be wasting your time doing this piling and burning to ward off pine beetles, but maybe pine trees in Iowa have different issues that I am not aware of.  Good luck with your project.

I wanted to add my two cents as well. What you described sounds a bit...inexperienced. I'm a 3rd generation forester and have been practicing forestry my whole life and I've never, not once, heard of this as a control for pine beetles. Totally agree with the above comment about it appearing to be a waste of time.