And we pay these people???

[Patty]

http://www.treesforever.org/News/20110113/42/Iowa-Takes-an-Ax-to-Ash-Trees.aspx

Over a year ago, Iowa started a program to cut down all the ash trees, so they would not get infected by the Emerald Ash Borer.  :      This program is as stupid as cutting off your arm, in case you might break it at a later date.  : Or getting chemotherapy treatments now, in case you may get cancer someday in the future.

Yesterday I heard that Iowa State University has completed it's demolition of every ash tree on campus so that IF the EAB gets as far south and west from its current location, to reach the campus, no trees will be infected.

Yep, stupid is as stupid does......and we taxpayers get the pleasure of paying for it all.  >:(

[westyswoods]

Interesting post as I had a forester come in earlier this year to look at a woodlot with a very nice stand of ash. My concern for the landowner was if the trees were to be infected with EAB what would happen to the value of the trees.
Would a mill even take them if they had EAB.

His answer was quite simple don't worry about it as he had yet to see any in the area. Basically he stated exactly what Patty has said. STUPID IS STUPID.
Cut em all down before they are infected so they don't get infected. Yup makes sense to me. I think

Stay Safe Westy

[Magicman]

A few years ago I read about a huge tree that was felled so they could accurately count the growth rings to determine how old it was.   

[beenthere]

Yup, can get an accurate measurement for height at the same time.  ;D

[sandhills]

Gee Wiz, maybe if I shoot all my cows my herd won't get mad cow disease.......

[SwampDonkey]

I heard the same kind of line "you should cut all the mature fir and spruce before the budworm kills them."  Whats just as bad is looking in the fir tops and seeing where the mature cones fell apart leaving the axis and calling it budworm damage, same for the next years cone buds. :-\

[Ron Wenrich]

When the gypsy moth came through PA back in the '70s, we would have stands that had up to 90% mortality.  I don't know what the mortality rate is for EAB and ash.  There were 2 camps of thinking on how to deal with the moth.

One was to spray all sorts of pesticides in the infected areas.  That proved to effective in the area sprayed, but the moth traveled in outside the areas rapidly and through other forms of transportation.  Most notably, they traveled through wood products or with visitors to infected areas.  The spray method was also very expensive, often costing more than the value of the timber.

The other camp was to let the moth have its day, clean up the mortality and introduce natural predators.  This camp also suspected that the moth would be controlled by natural barriers like the Susquehanna river.  They jumped the river rather quickly, so natural barriers were out.  But, this method did prove to be cost effective, and the moth has become only a sporadic problem.  Large stands of mortality are over after the initial wave.

Dead trees are not as valuable as live trees.  We had timber buyers and landowners who got rid of timber well before the moth had any affects.  Wise management?  I don't know.  It wasn't a matter of controlling the moth, just a matter of liquidating assets before any problems.  Sort of like selling your stocks before a market crashes.  You could see the moth advancing. 

[Cedarman]

A few years ago I read about a huge tree that was felled so they could accurately count the growth rings to determine how old it was.   

MM, I heard this was a bristlecone pine that turned out to be the oldest tree on earth.  (Was the oldest living tree).

[SwampDonkey]

With budworm it's the over mature and weaker trees that suffer as they are barely hanging on. And away from the settled areas we had a lot of those old stands and many were deer winter areas because they tended to have a lot more breaks in the canopy from fallen softwood timber that many times red maple would seed into. The deer ate the little hardwoods and the old man's beard off the dead falls. Healthy softwood forest can usually take some budworm damage for a couple years at least, then recover and continue on. Lots of spruce and fir wooded woodlots that were not cut and the trees didn't all die and fall down. The spruce behind the house here had budworm in them and you could see them hanging down on their silk threads. Those trees went through that 30 years ago and I still have my trees. Some have gotten rot and fell over only in recent years, from but pruning that was done, the knots heal slow on spruce. Some woodlots that never have much harvesting with old timber were the ones to suffer. The old saying with the loggers after the budworm years was if it wasn't cut for decades then most of it must be on the ground by now. In most cases it was true and if fir goes, so does the white birch along with it and the aspen isn't far behind. White birch can't take the shock of the balsam fir falling down around it, sun scald happens. On many of our thinning blocks the white birch was left behind to stand and along we come to thin it in 12-14 years and the birch is all dead and pretty much turned to soil on the ground. Awful trashy walking through though.

[Magicman]

Cederman, you are jogging my memory and you are correct.  It was a Bristlecone Pine.  And you are also correct about was.   :-\

[Don_Papenburg]

So did the wise administration burn the trees  to kill the bugs that were not there? or did they sell the trees off for the lumber.  I am betting they took them to the land fill.

[Ron Wenrich]

Penn State has a large amount of American elm on campus.  But, they also have a problem with Dutch elm disease.  When they cut those trees down, they bury them. 

Now they have a problem with the yellows.  Those trees are being cut into lumber and the lumber made into various items that are sold for big dollars.  An idea I had about 5 years ago, and may have got started when I made an inquiry. 

[Magicman]

And then maybe Archeologist can dig up those buried trees and make a great discovery about how smart we were.   :-\

[EZ]

This is one of the reasons I quit watching the news. I got tried of getting headaches over stupid things are so called leaders do.
I vote for Patty.
Ez

[Patty]

So did the wise administration burn the trees  to kill the bugs that were not there? or did they sell the trees off for the lumber.  I am betting they took them to the land fill.

The giant ash trees that were taken from ISU campus were given to the furniture maker's classroom, to be used by the students for furniture designs. I am not sure what was done with the smaller ash that were sawn down. The cities have been taking their trees to the landfills, I think, but each city must work up a plan and involve mountains of red tape and permissions, etc...., and then follow their plan accordingly. I have not heard of any city donating the trees for lumber usage, but I do not have all the facts.