The EAB is an insect that does physical damage to the ash trees. They are not a fungus or other disease like those that took the elm, chestnut, etc. As such, I have to wonder if the ash could regenerate in the future from seeds lying dormant on the ground... The EAB would presumably move on and/or die off once the live ash supply is exhausted so perhaps the ash could regenerate. Thoughts?
Absolutely. I'm 90 miles north of the US EAB ground zero (Port of Detroit). I discovered the first EAB in our county 11~12 years ago. Having cleared well over 500 dead ash (trees were without a doubt dead before felling) from the property, there are now saplings up my ash. Several mature trees that had been hit have recovered fully and some were skipped over by the bug completely.
I'd like to hear a discussion on the likelihood of EAB making a return trip / 2nd pass through an area. Did they skip certain trees due to some built in biological self preservation mechanism?
I read somewhere that something like 1% of the ash in rural areas survived, but that basically none survived in urban areas. The theory was that urban trees had little genetic diversity, since they were likely planted from nursery stock.
1% is pretty accurate on my place. It's weird that the trees surrounding the survivors were attacked. There is no "pocket" of missed trees.
A related tidbit. Last summer a couple older gentlemen standing in the road by the cabin "up north" were having a conversation about how "those three big ash trees are still alive". I could hear them 2nd guessing their tree identification abilities since there isn't a live ash for miles in any direction. The trees, all > 20" dbh, were treated religiously with Bayer Tree & Shrub since well before EAB was found in that county.
Well, it's heartening to hear that some of the ash trees do survive. I am cutting most of the big ones on my hill farm, but am now wondering if there is a cetain size or terrain associated with EAB resistance.... Any thoughts?
Have always seen the same thing with beech. A 16" (or any size) for instance, smooth beech among a sea of infected dying beech. Don't know if insects skipped it or fungus couldn't infect it. And like the beech, I would not cut the ash ahead of the insects in case there is some resistance. When it's cut, too late to find out. I know there is a monetary issue, but price of hardwood is so low up here that it might as well be firewood in furnace. Mills don't pay much these days for hardwood logs, pulp price or slighty more. Those days are gone for now. $170 a cord for logs won't get my logs. :D
Quote from: SwampDonkey on June 11, 2017, 07:26:28 AM
Have always seen the same thing with beech. A 16" (or any size) for instance, smooth beech among a sea of infected dying beech. Don't know if insects skipped it or fungus couldn't infect it.
There are strains of beech that are resistant to the Beech Bark Disease. Read an article about it a while ago. Often the disease will still attack the resistant ones, but the result looks different. (Unfortunately, I can't remember what that difference looked like right now.)
QuoteAnd like the beech, I would not cut the ash ahead of the insects in case there is some resistance. When it's cut, too late to find out. I know there is a monetary issue, but price of hardwood is so low up here that it might as well be firewood in furnace. Mills don't pay much these days for hardwood logs, pulp price or slighty more. Those days are gone for now. $170 a cord for logs won't get my logs. :D
I agree - if you can afford not to cut the Ash you may be helping to contribute to the species adaptation to develop resistance/tolerance for the EAB.
On about resistance......... it was discovered that our strain of butternut in New Brunswick has different genetics than in the rest of it's range. Our population here and part of Maine is isolated. There is work going on to study resistance in our strain to the canker. There is no evidence yet that there is any special resistance. The study is in it's infancy. Although I have not seen any canker in any of my trees so far. I have seen some that are dying elsewhere, but I have not studied those trees either. They might just be old or week individuals. They don't live very long to begin with, compared to sugar maple.
Quote from: square1 on May 21, 2017, 04:36:04 AM
1% is pretty accurate on my place. It's weird that the trees surrounding the survivors were attacked. There is no "pocket" of missed trees.
A related tidbit. Last summer a couple older gentlemen standing in the road by the cabin "up north" were having a conversation about how "those three big ash trees are still alive". I could hear them 2nd guessing their tree identification abilities since there isn't a live ash for miles in any direction. The trees, all > 20" dbh, were treated religiously with Bayer Tree & Shrub since well before EAB was found in that county.
Bayer tree and shrub contains Imidacloprid, which is a systemic insecticide. Systemic means that it's taken into the tree to provide long term protection. Imidacloprid is the same insecticide that companies use to treat ash against EAB. However the companies that treat ash trees generally use injection as the entry method. This method involves drilling holes in the trunk and inserting containers of the insecticide to the tree, which is probably more effective than trying to spray large trees.
Here's another tidbit, Imidacloprid is a neonicontinoid, a synthetic nicotine which is toxic to many insects. In old days people use to make and insecticide from tobacco leaf tea.
That's the problem. Use a neonicotinoid to save a tree, and you kill your bees.....
Many reports claim that neonics at real world application dosage are relatively safe for bees. Bees don't eat the plant and they are not applied while flowers are in bloom.
Maybe an analogy not quite perfect, chlorine is toxic to humans. If a person drank bottle of chlorine it would be deadly, but chlorine is added to drinking water in small amounts.
Just my two cents but the ask borer will be just like the dutch elm. When a elm gets so big they seem to die I think when these little ash get a certain size the borer will get into them and there die. Elm in my part of the county is hard to find anymore because they never get big enough to make seed. I think the ash trees will go the same path get so big never big enough to make seed and there disappear from the landscape also.
But I remember someone on this board commenting on how there are ash trees that are not attacked in a group of trees that are dead? I did misread or did my brain do that thing that brains do?
I remember when the gypsy moth came through my area in the '70s. It was going to be the end of the oak forest. The moth population collapsed, and the trees came back. We still have an occasional outbreak, but nothing like before. There are also some natural controls that our state put in that has helped.
Ash only grows on some pretty good sites in my area. I have some on my property, and the smaller ones are getting nailed. They're also close to the road. I noticed that the trees on one side of the property are getting hit, but on the other side they're not. A total distance of about 500'. I'm not sure of the correlation. I've noticed the smaller ash get hit harder and die. The larger ones seem to have more resilience. Also, I cut a flagging one early this year and noticed I've gotten sucker sprouts on the stump.
What I have to wonder about is what happens to the EAB when there are no ash in the area. The gypsy moth had some alternate species they would munch on. I'm not sure if there are other species they can survive on. It seems that they can survive on olive trees, but ash is in the olive family.
I had some sprout from the roots from almost completely dead ash,some three feet in diameter .About 5-6 years ago .Those second growths are 12-15 feet high and look good .In addition with the removal of some of the larger ones the dormant under growths sprouted and there are hundreds of them about a foot tall .
For reasons unknown the little 2-3 inch saplings were not attacked by the borer and those look good .Never the less I doubt in my great grand childrens life if they ever see the 3 feet diameter 100 foot ash trees like I have in this area .It takes about 125-150 years to get that large .BTW I've saved the big logs and have 12-15000 BDF to get sawn up .A good big ash used to yield around 1500 BDF same as an average oak in these parts .
Quote from: Crusarius on July 13, 2017, 04:41:36 PM
But I remember someone on this board commenting on how there are ash trees that are not attacked in a group of trees that are dead? I did misread or did my brain do that thing that brains do?
You're correct. I have (someone put the number at 1% and I think it's pretty accurate) untouched trees surrounded by the stumps of dead ash.
If anyone still believes EAB are only in the cambium layer...While splitting a block of ash yesterday I found this dead larvae. The gallery starts about mid picture and trails off to the right and slightly upward. At the right end of the gallery, where it looks darker, is the larvae. The beam on my splitter is 6" wide so this guy is at least 3" into the tree. I took close-ups, but forgot to allow for the lens / viewer offset on the camera. If you blow up the picture you can make out the distinctive bell shaped body segments of the EAB larva.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/38506/20170729_0926115B15D.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1501399701)
The EAB is going to be making another come back here shortly. the bug prefers trees at a certain DBH 5"+ or so and we (in southeast Michigan) are having thousands of re sprouts that are starting to hit that size and will be dying off again. There are mature Ash that were skipped over by EAB and the reason why they are trying too find out. They think that its possible it had a genetic mutation and the bug just passed them by, in our park system we have several of them that are 20"+ trees that are standing healthy amongst several dead of various DBH.
It's been my hope that the EAB would basically eat itself out of its food source and collapse in population before it could make a second wave. Maybe too optimistic. But my feeling on ash management has been that we should get regen established while we have the seed source in the hopes of keeping the species alive until a solution is found. I'm seeing a trend of whacking all the ash here when there's harvests but I think it's the same mistake made a century ago with the chestnut. There were likely some trees with a bit of resistance cut and we lost those genetics. Test the trees with fire so to speak and we'll potentially get some resistant survivors.
I became somewhat disheartened after finding fresh woodpecker activity last weekend on trees that had survived the initial attack. Woodpeckers know where EAB larvae are before any other signs are evident. I wondered if there would be a return visit or re-emergence after a long dormant period, apparently that is happening. I plan to drop and peel one or two trees this weekend to verify presence of EAB larvae.
Bad news. EAB has reemerged after probably a 5~6 year absence. That's a live larva I found this morning. Guess that's the answer to my question :(
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Struggled to post the pic using my phone. Much easier from my desktop PC
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/38506/20180318_103600.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1521391764)
New info for an old thread.
Jennifer Koch, and other researchers with the U.S. Forest Service, has spent the last several years studying what are known as lingering ash – trees that have fared much better against the emerald ash borer.
Koch says they've identified at least two reasons why. Lingering ash seem to attract fewer hungry adult ash borers, which means they're less likely to become homes to eggs. And when eggs do hatch on lingering ash trees, they tend to be smaller and have a higher mortality rate.
https://www.purdue.edu/fnr/extension/blog/2018/06/08/new-hope-for-fighting-ash-borer/ (https://www.purdue.edu/fnr/extension/blog/2018/06/08/new-hope-for-fighting-ash-borer/)
They have also collected a lot of samples from "lingering" trees for cloning and cross breeding. Could be decades before real data is available, but this is positive news for those in Ash country.
Just read about the cottony ash psyllid looks like its something else to help kill off all the ash trees....if its not one thing its another. Now I wonder if there will be any ash trees left for our great grand kids.