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Dying ash trees

Started by Jesse Duke, May 15, 2020, 06:31:58 PM

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Jesse Duke

I asked a local tree guy if he thinks some ash trees here in Erie County Pennsylvania will survive and he said the only reason any of them are still alive is because of how far north we are. He claims they will all die here. Is he right? 

square1

EAB was discovered in my county in Mid Michigan in the summer of 2005. My trees started dying in 2007. I cut 12~13 cord of firewood, all ash, for 10 years and left anything that had an inkling of life in it. Many of those were removed in following years.  I can count on one hand the number of trees that honestly we re e not attacked out of well over a thousand.  Last spring a resurgence of EAB appeared. My guess is the survivors of the 1st round will not make it through round 2.

dgdrls

Mine have been declining for 2-3 years.
I started cutting them this year for lumber and
firewood.  DEC forester I spoke with effectively
said they have given up trying to contain it.

very sad situation  my fear is when the Ash are decimated
those bugs will move to another species.  I sure hope not.

D

Jesse Duke

Quote from: dgdrls on May 15, 2020, 09:12:45 PM


very sad situation  my fear is when the Ash are decimated
those bugs will move to another species.  I sure hope not.


Oh my goodness! I never even thought about that. Do a lot of the experts think that will happen? All I've been cutting on my property the last 3 years is the dead ash but I haven't been able to keep up so I'm letting my neighbor cut some for himself just so it doesn't go to waste. Even with his help the harder to get to trees probably will rot.

square1

Early on Michigan State University forced EAB to lay eggs on several non ash trees. Different types of Maple & Black Walnut were two, I don't recall the others.  The eggs hatched,  the larvae burrowed through the bark into the cambium but wasn't able to sustain itself. Possibly it has adapted, but I haven't heard that it has.

Funny story about trying to get the ash before it rots.  There was a particularly nice size dead ash i was working toward.  Taking the smaller trees as I progressed. The area was swampy so it could only be worked when it was very dry or frozen. Two years my eye was on that tree and the easy cord or so of firewood it held as steady progress was made toward its harvest. Finally the day came to drop it. The  money was in the bank!  It exploded when it hit the ground. Other than a couple rounds just above the  felling cut it was completely rotted. It may have been the EAB ground zero tree in the woods.

peakbagger

Northern Woodlands had a recent article advocating that there could be some Ash trees that develop resistance to EAB, the problem is that means leaving the vast majority of the Ash trees standing in hope a few have resistance rather than dropping them prior to EAB to get commercial value.

Ron Wenrich

If you have some specimen trees that you want to keep, you can do that through using an insecticide that you can inject into the tree.  I used some imicide that I bought on Ebay to use on some ash I didn't want to lose from an aesthetic standpoint.  It is used by the mauget system.  You drill small holes around the base of the tree and put the mauget container in and let it soak in.  The imicide is taken up by the tree and it kills the EAB.

I did this to an ash tree that was standing next to some smaller ash that were dying.  This spring showed that the ash has survived very well.  i do have a few small dead branches where I may have missed putting an injection container.  It isn't cheap, so it wouldn't be cost effective to use on a woodlot.  Most of the other ash on my woodlot are dead.  I'm not sure if the injection is needed on an annual basis.

I don't think the ash will become extinct.  We had the same prognosis for the oak trees when the gypsy moth, oak leaf roller and oak wilt came through all about the same time.   We surely had large swaths of mortality.  But, eventually the moth populations collapsed, as well as oak populations.  They never moved on to other species.  The state put in a lot of money, time and effort to find natural controls for the gypsy moth.  Perhaps they'll do the same for EAB.
Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

Al_Smith

I'm not certain if any survived but there is a light at the end of the tunnel .The little skinny saplings that were not infested by the original EAB attack evidently did not contain enough inner bark to provide for the larva and were bypassed  .In addition any that were cut before the stump was completely dead did have sprouts which are now about 12-15 feet tall .Zillions of little tiny saplings are all over the place from having clearings previously blocked from the sun .
They could make a come back but it will be over 100 years until another 2 feet in diameter 100 feet tall ash trees will ever be seen again in this portion of Ohio .
I do have American elms but they seldom reach even 1 foot in diameter .They replenish but never get as large as they were 60 years ago .Maybe they will or maybe they won't in time . 

Jesse Duke

Thanks for all the responses. This place is as awesome as I hoped it would be. Speaking of hope, let's keep our fingers crossed that the Michigan State test doesn't change. It sure will be nice if that nasty bug can't adapt and goes extinct. If anything ever exterminates soft maple I'm in big trouble. 

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