?Would y'all be interested in a forestry bug, disease or disorder of the day?

[Texas Ranger]

wood borer

[caveman]

The swamp is so dry around here that I decided to go for a short walk in the woods in what is now a preserve near my house (used to be a ranch).  I took a few pictures of some disorders and bugs that I will use with the FFA forestry team.  Some of these will be repeats from previous posts but it should be entertaining or educational for some.

1.
 

These were on a red maple.  I'm not certain what caused the damage, but I have suspicions.  


2.
 

The two pictures above are on a water oak in the pasture in front of my house.
.
3.

This is a young slash pine.


4.

This is on another young slash pine.  


5.

 

The above two pictures are of a slash pine with a terminal stem that has died but is resin soaked and swollen.  The tree is 12-14' tall.



6.

This is also on a young slash pine.

7 and 8 (below)

 

 

 

The poor tree pictured in the four above photos had a lot going on.  It was in an area where the foresters, biologists or whomever is managing this parcel continue to burn too hot and kill really nice longleaf, slash and some loblolly pines.  This tree is still alive, but not for long.  The pitch tubes on the bark are not from the biggest or the smallest pine bark beetles that affect SYP's.  Most of the trees in the background are dead from the previous burn and some from the most recent.

To avoid confusion (I hope), the descriptions are below the pictures and the numbers are above.

[Texas Ranger]

A challenge, sap sucker, internal rot, needle cast, slash pine is slash pine, tip moth, bark beetle of either SPB or big Ips, without looking under the bark can be either, no evidence of black turpentine beetle.

All challenging on a daily basis for a forester, neat post.

[caveman]

Thank you, Texas Ranger.  I enjoy finding this stuff.  It sometimes frustrates me when at district forestry contests some of the county foresters just put some pictures out on the table of a few disorders.  I found all of the stuff pictured on 2-7 on a one-hour walk.  There were several other disorders, diseases or invasive that are on the list that I did not take pictures of.

Based on the list that we have for the FFA contest, I would have called 2. Butt-rot of hardwood (Ganoderma maybe) 3. Pine needle rust 4.  Needle cast 5. Pitch canker  6. Ips engraver beetles.  I don't see southern pine beetles here often, but when I do, the pitch tubes are generally white and in between the bark plates as well as about the size of a pencil eraser.  I did not peel the bark to look at the gallery patterns.  7. Ambrosia beetle dust at the base of the tree and wood borer holes in the bark (they may not have shown up in the pics).

If I'm wrong on any of these, let me know please.  My team members were at the National FFA Convention last week and their state contest is 11/15.  They will likely all be ill this week and need to get better at forestry every day from now until then to have a shot on the 15th.

I was hoping a few more folks may have found this of interest.  I'll post a few more pics of some we've already done just because.

[caveman]

These pictures are all of one bug and its effects on pine logs and lumber.


 

 

 

 

I probably need a manicure but will likely not get one.   

[Texas Ranger]

Familiar, but have to go to the books.  Got old, ya know! 8)

[caveman]

You are still as sharp as a tack.  I appreciate the knowledge that you share.  I enjoy reading about your experiences as a forester.  Had I known anything about the profession and if I could have sat close enough to a smart person to pass the math classes, I may have chosen that career path. 

[customsawyer]

I for one appreciate all the effort you put into keeping this going.
On the last pictures I'm at a loss but will be watching with interest.

[Texas Ranger]

You are still as sharp as a tack.  I appreciate the knowledge that you share.  I enjoy reading about your experiences as a forester.  Had I known anything about the profession and if I could have sat close enough to a smart person to pass the math classes, I may have chosen that career path.

Math didn't bother me, it was that pesky dendrology that gave me a fit, Ozark boy being faced with Latin binomials.

[Texas Ranger]

More of a disorder, and the most common problem we face in the woods.  Two cookies of southern pines. Both in the 80 year old range.  Whats the problem?  Oh, bonus, what caused the hollow in the big cookie?

[caveman]

I'd be leaning towards red heart of pine on the pictures above, which is one of the heart rots mature and overmature pines, especially longleaf pines get.  If this is indeed the disorder, the lack of mature and overmature longleaf pines is one of the main reasons for the decline of the red cockaded woodpecker.

Customsawyer, the pictures I posted right before Texas Ranger's post were all of pines that had ambrosia beetles.  The beetles vector a fungus into the wood which feeds on the sugars in the sapwood.  The fungus causes blue stain in pine.  The little straw-like tubes and the fine boring dust at the base of the tree is also from the ambrosia beetles.  The beetles eat the fungus.  The ambrosia beetles, when viewed from above, look like they have little devil horns on the back ends.  
https://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/trees/beetles/platypus.htm

[Texas Ranger]

red heart.  But why the difference in size for basically the same age?  I was leaning to ambrosia beetle but old eyes didn't let me get a good look, poor excuse, should have gone with the straw.

[Ljohnsaw]

The smaller diameter is a result of overcrowding? Not enough sunlight or moisture?

[Texas Ranger]

The smaller diameter is a result of overcrowding? Not enough sunlight or moisture?

You are looking in the right direction, but, south east Texas, lots of rain and sunlight.  Possible over crowding, small stem plantation grown, planted around 1955-60.  Big stem grown in woods, from about the same time.  On the crowding you need to look down, not up.

[Ljohnsaw]

So if not lack of sun and water, then root space? Growing on hardpan or other very poor soil? I can't see a lot of brush crowding causing stunted growth.

[Texas Ranger]

You got it.  The little stem is slash pine, out of range and the wrong soil, black gumbo.  Poorly matched species to a really bad soil for trees.  The large cookie is  loblollly pine from the best soil and site I know of, in a bottom on the Reservation.  Back in the '50's some of the companies with south east ties decided slash and its form would work here in Texas, not much and I know of no slash plantations left.

[caveman]

Slash pine grows well here.  If an area of longleaf is clearcut, slash pine will fill in, in a hurry.  We have some loblolly here, but there is a lot more to the north.  I planted some loblolly here several years ago.  Some have a dbh of 2" and just a few feet away, others have a dbh of 10" or more.  I planted them really close to each other to try to increase stress and have a convenient place to collect disorder samples.  They have grown better than I anticipated.  

[Don P]

I could have gotten a borer but he must have been too quick.
I saw this end grain on some pallet runner stock and remembered a recent conversation about stain, but I can't remember where . These are bookmatched consecutive cuts This was a standing dead Eastern White Pine. I didn't look for the cause but several have succumbed to BTB, black turpentine beetle, and that bit of pitch pocket has me wondering. The 2 stains I was wanting to show are common in EWP, bluestain is from slow drying in warm weather, it is a sugar eating fungi that is going after the sugar in solution within the cell cavity. The brown, or coffee, stain is from slow drying, usually humid conditions, it is the extractives moving to the drying front, dissolving and carried along with the moisture as it is slowly wicking to where drying is happening. You can see some unaffected heartwood towards the center. Those were 1.5x3" runner sticks, that tree was moving on.

Anyway, a good example of a couple of stains;