Standing trees killed by drought

[Texas Ranger]

Texas has standing dead pine trees from the Red River to the Gulf..  Ther is no way even a small percentage will be harvested.  All drought killed, some oak as well.  Bettles have not been a problem for years, other than Ips, and they have taken advantage of the drought.

[doc henderson]

Happy birthday Tex!

[customsawyer]

So the drought was bad enough to kill pines from TX. through MS. Maybe further. That is a lot of wood to be taken out of the market. It might raise demand in some other areas. I hate it for the ones that are effected. It's a shame to put in the funds, time, and effort to get a stand close to harvest, just to lose it with no return.

[Texas Ranger]

Happy birthday Tex!

Thanks, Doc, received an unexpected gift, an email I have inherited 5.5 million from an unknown source! Gee, I wonder if that Nigerian Prince that kept mailing me has finally died?   

[doc henderson]

  8) 8) 8)

[Woodpecker52]

Would be curious as to is it slash and loblolly pine that are most effected, or is longleaf pine faring better under the drought and beetle infestation?  In our delta town all the pine trees have died, but they are being killed by the herbicide drift clouds from all the pre,pending,post emergence continually never ending 2-4d mix concoctions they are coming up with, since roundup ready is dead around here.  Even the cypress trees are looking like sick toothpicks.  Looks like people forgot about agent orange days of Vietnam. Chemicals they use now volatizes and drifts and settles at night for weeks. It will only increase in the future since the embrace of no till and cover crops.  The cover is being sprayed and killed before planting, it is sickening around here.  I swear it looks like one big flat dirt patch with sick trees everywhere.

[Magicman]

I am not going to dispute what Woodpecker52 said above but what I am seeing is Drought and Pine Beetle weakened/killed trees.  Certainly not the herbicide drift that he described.


 
This is the first time that I have ever seen a Magnolia tree die.  It is directly across the street from us.


 
Here is a completely dead Pine in my next door neighbor's yard.  It's less than 50' from....


 
The 8 Pine trees in my front yard.  The closest one has two small dead limbs which I hope is not an indication of full infection.   

[Magicman]

A closer examination this afternoon showed dead branches in at least 4 trees which range from 25" to 31" DBH.  I have a tree service coming tomorrow afternoon to take a look. 

[Ianab]

Are they lower branches that would naturally be shed over time?

[Magicman]

No, Pine Beetles fly from the infected tree to another and generally start toward the crown of the tree.  The tops are what you first notice.  As you can see from my front yard trees, they have self pruned and the crowns are about all that is there.  It's about 50 feet to the lowest significant limb.  Each tree will easily make three 16' relatively knot free logs and then a 12'.

As you can see in my last picture in the top left corner, the neighbor's tree limbs are no more than 10'-15' from my tree limbs.

I'm good to "wait and see" before doing a complete removal, but I'll listen to what my tree service guy says.  This is sickening.   

[cutterboy]

MM, I know how you feel as my ash trees are dying from EAB. :-\

[jasonb]

This is the first time that I have ever seen a Magnolia tree die.  It is directly across the street from us.

I have seen several Magnolias dead around here.  There are 4 water oaks in a row across the street from my house, 2 got hit by a twister about 5 years ago.  Those 2 are dead and the others are living.  It makes me wonder about the stress that the drought has placed on the trees around my community.

[Magicman]

I saw another dead Magnolia yesterday.  Planted (ornamental) Cedars are dead and dying by the hundreds.  I have not seen any dead "natural" mature Cedar trees....yet.   

My tree service guy will not be here to give me an estimate on my Pine trees until tomorrow.

[Magicman]

The tree service guy came by and did his thing.  A "ball park" figure is $1k per tree to remove and cleanup which is about what I had figured.

I'll wait until warm weather and see if I am infested.  I am certainly well exposed with Pine Beetles on three sides and less than 50 feet away.

[Southside]

That's a better rate than around here for sure.

[Ianab]

Tree jobs depend so much on the actual job. A medium size tree, able to be dropped whole into an open space and chipped. Couple of guys, couple of hours, job done, take the $1,000 and on to the next tree.

Another tree, big spreading thing hanging over a house? Crane ($$) or a bigger crew taking 2 days to rig it down?  Yeah the bill goes up for sure.

The Cypress i sawed some of last year was a standing dead tree on the town reserve. Took a 4 man crew 2 days, and that was basically just bombing it down because nothing valuable under it. But the job wouldn't have been cheap, even leaving about a 10ft tall x 6ft dia stump standing. The tree was on the reserve land, but access was via a homeowners section. He got about 3 years of firewood and all the garden mulch he will even need from it. Also a new back fence, reseeded lawn and some new trees planted on the reserve side of the new fence. The crew were happy to leave some 3ft dia upper logs intact, as that meant less work for them.

[Magicman]

Yup, different prices for different trees.  I actually ended up with 10 trees when I added two Oaks to the mix.  The Oaks will not require any cleanup because I will recover the logs and firewood.  Two are overhanging the power primary and one is completely overhanging my shop.

Two were $1800 each and two were $850 each.  The overall average was. $1000.  Now I wait to see if I have Beetle kill and to what extent.

[Magicman]

So the Dead SYP saga continues:

This morning I went to get my sawmill for tomorrow's sawing job and found this:


 
Yes, it could have been much worse.  Marty had told me that a limb had fallen across the sawmill but I did not expect this.  You can see the umbrella detached from it's mounting above.


 Knocked the swagged top off of the ball.  I failed to swag it back so I took the torch and brazing rods and


 Brazed 6 little anvils for the ball to press against.  It worked.


 
My "brandy spanking new" seat had a ragged hole punched in it.


 
From experience I know full well that neither tape nor anything else will fix the tear so I'll have to order another seat.  I have seen a product advertised on the web that I will try if I can find it again.  I think that it is what @Jeff used on his backhoe seat.

Anyway, the sawmill should be good to go tomorrow morning if we survive the forecast blow that we will get tonight.  The prediction is for strong damaging winds, strong tornadoes (EF2+) and large hail possible tonight.   

[beenthere]

Bummer MM   :(

[Southside]

Revenge of the Pine Tree

[caveman]

I just caught up on this from back in the fall.  I'm sorry to see so many of your trees dying.  Thankfully your trusty LT-40 did not get damaged too bad.  It's tough to lose crops, especially when the rotation is 20-50 years or more. 

Are y'all getting any of this El Nino wet winter weather that we have been getting?  My pond was nearly dry in October but has been filling up some since.  Usually, October is the beginning of our dry season.

[Magicman]

According to the map, we are still in a certified drought.  We would normally be sopping wet right now but instead we are powder dry.  I have not measured my pond, but the pier is completely out of the water and at high water, it is 6'.

[Magicman]

From experience I know full well that neither tape nor anything else will fix the tear so I'll have to order another seat.  I have seen a product advertised on the web that I will try if I can find it again.

I have very limited expectations for the success, but I ordered a sheet of repair material today. 

[jasonb]

Bunch of rain here the last few weeks and the most rain since last winter has fallen today.

MM

Bad break about your sawmill.  Good thing the operator wasn't in the seat.

[Magicman]

The effects of the drought & Pine Beetle kills are showing up big time with folks calling.

A previous customer called yesterday stating there are ~60 large Pines being taken down which have ~22"-34" butts.  They will each make two or three 16' logs plus a 12' before reaching the bottom limbs.  That will be a whale of a job that I really do not want to saw.

Another previous customer called this morning that I have not returned the call yet. 

I knew that the sawing opportunity would be crazy this year and it is only beginning.  :-\