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

[Ljohnsaw]

Some straight lines of holes - looks like Red Wing Flicker damage out here.

[Don P]

You have to be kind of careful throwing this name around  :D

[Don P]

Last call while I write 



 

[Don P]

As these started attacking my little row of Leyland Cypress, "Why you Yellow Belly Sapsuckers!" :D. They beat them to death. When the trees died I guess it was slim pickins and the western red cedar siding on the house seemed similar. That took screen removal and some low angle tail warmers. Don't worry, they are fast and sat out there scolding. the next year, same thing. I think I finally broke that pattern.
This is a good couple of paragraphs on bird peck damage. As Bill noticed, it is the same damage and same bird as on hickory. I think he was picking up on the bark occlusions the article mentions;
Bird Peck (mtu.edu)  
That link is worth bookmarking

Let me flip that scan right side up. Notice the bird peck and... well I learned that as included bark, but apparently its occluded bark, but whatever, the defect is called bird peck.


 
Much better, north is up :D. It looks like there was about 10 years of bliss and then the bad neighbors moved in. I can't say for certain where I am on that tree here but I think that is a deer rub and a broken or browsed branch. The rolling scar tissue below the branch stub is called a ram's horn. Trees do not heal, they cover. This is tissue growing and rolling over the scrape and again you can se it including bark in that "repair" under the branch. If you look at the pecker damage the same repair mechanism is at work.

Did the borers move in after the scrape and bring the sapsuckers in? Or did the sapsuckers do their damage and then the borers moved into the sapsucker breaches in the bark? I suspect the latter, but I got nuthin  ;D. Down low the carpenter ants had gotten into the borer cavities and enlarged them for their use.

It seems to be pretty short lived, if you had a windbreak of nice leylands to harvest I think it would make nice paneling. It does like to tear, probably use shear cutters. It has the same fine nasty dust as northern cedar or Atlantic white cedar. Oh...

Leyland Cypress is a cross of .. here we go;

Leyland cypress (Cuprocyparis leylandii) is a hybrid cross between Monterey cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa) and nootka false cypress (Chamaecyparis nootkatensis). It is a fast-growing evergreen conifer (24 to 48 inches per year in early years) with a dense, broad-columnar to narrow-pyramidal growth habit; the scaly bark is reddish-brown in color. It typically grows as a tree to 60 to 70 feet tall unless it is kept pruned as a hedge or specimen shrub. Leyland cypress has flattened sprays of gray-green foliage on slender upright branches, and dark brown 3/4-1 inch cones.

That article also says, not recommended anymore, too many pests and disease problems.

The canning jar box, happily it barely fits in the food DH, I suspect I did not get them all cut out.

[Don P]

While we're waiting on the search party, here's a favorite 



 

[Don P]

Disclaimer, I did not see that bug make these holes but I think I've got the correct parties. They seem to prefer sapwood

[Don P]

Shhhh  ;)

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=120961.msg1952632#msg1952632

[Don P]

I think the termites around the lower perimeter were secondary in this very tight white oak floor joist. The termites gave up in the heartwood but this larvae didn't. But do notice they really prefer the starch rich sapwood.




I need to polish that end grain and count rings, that is insane.

[Don P]

It got more interesting when I zoomed in and started counting rings... ~120, this tree was a sprout about the time this country was one.
Somebody bored the frass  ???
Notice checks follow the rays.
Was that one seriously wet summer? Hmm that is about the civil war and it is just a partial ring like that





The top is the side of that log joist. look for the tiny holes, that is a true.
The lower board laid on the ground and got damp, those holes are I guess a false, which one?


 

Those joists were practically on the ground hence the termites. I think we are maybe seeing both true and false with termites in the log end view. Old stuff is usually an interesting mixed bag.

[Don P]

Well this started 2 days and a page ago with a ... drum roll,
 PPB, Powderpost beetle,
clubbed antennae, the frass is smooth and fine, the hole is small ~1/16".

What I think I see most here damage-wise is anobiid ppb's rather than the "true" lyctid beetles but we have plenty of both. The anobiid beetle is hooded, needs higher moisture, slightly larger tunnels filled with a gritty frass. Will hit softwoods too. A ball point pen ball will go in the hole where it will almost go in a lyctid's hole.
There is a good description and more pics here;
Powderpost Beetles | Entomology (uky.edu)

It looks to me like lyctids tunneled in anobiid beetle tunnels in that joist above ???
The grey board with the larger diameter holes alongside the ppb holes in the side of the joist... As I looked at it in the shop at the end of the day it is oak timberworm damage. Wa-wa, I'll try to clean it up and stick it with that post a couple of pages back

And what I learned this time around, the larvae of ppb's is C shaped while a borer larvae is straight, pic here;
Powderpost beetle - Wikipedia

This is a side of things I've never paid a whole lot of attention to. The other revelation while reading, there are 70 species of powderpost beetle.

[Don P]

Hmm, looks like I killed this one  :
Nothing to lose now  :D
I was cleaning up, putting away tools, I need to make a list and hit ereplacement. Throwing scrap in the stove in the shop and some more defects,

This is easy, 2 different defects;
 

 

This is that one I think is an oak timberworm, it usually seems to look to me like a shotgun blast in one spot, and then another one in a different spot. (I'm not positive but I think I have this one right. Notice the holes are different in size.


 


Slicing through one of the tunnels that got big. I think this is the larvae getting ready to pupate... but not at all certain. The frass there might be a tell.




 


And totally unrelated but this piece has kicked around and under the building there for 20+ years. It has gotten smaller, it cannot rot. This is a board out of a salt curing meat house. A salt lick with fiber  :D. The floor of this building collapsed when I set foot on it. It was hanging on very rusty nails in degraded holes.



 

[caveman]

I've got a cypress slab that has the same looking pattern as your top picture.  I did not know that that insect would or could cause that in cypress.  I called WDH and asked him if he ever knew of that insect causing that phenomenon in cypress.  He suggested that it may have been caused by an imported variety of the bug.  I do miss picking his brain on a variety of things.

[Don P]

The one in the top pic is ambrosia maple, in red maple, generally black lined holes in pairs or 3's. Not the best pic, a floor in a wine cellar.


 

There is another Danny taught me that is a similar "flagworm" damage to both of those, in poplar among others Columbian timber beetle, or chestnut timber worm, Corthylus columbianus;
South/Corthylus columbianus - Bugwoodwiki

I'm bound to have an example of that one... alas  :D

[caveman]

If you look at the streaks on the cypress, you can see the Ambrosia Beetle holes.  This is the only cypress that I can recall seeing with the streaks.  I do not intend to sell it unless someone offers a sizable sum.

[Don P]

Before it rolls by. The stick of poplar on the ambrosia maple in my pics above. That is wicked bad bird peck in poplar. That tree was also shakey. Ever notice how many times when you see something bad in a tree, you start to see multiple things. In that case I doubt the birds were the first thing going wrong with that tree.

[Don P]

I saw this in my gallery while looking for something else, columbian timber beetle  in yellow (tulip) poplar;

 

[caveman]

I finally got a few minutes to add a few this morning.

These are the galleries created by the beetles below.  This beetle attacks southern yellow pines, usually at the bottom 4-6' of the tree and below.  If the number of pitch tubes is less than the tree's diameter in inches, the tree may survive an attack of this beetle.
 

 

This is a pressed flat pitch tube created by the beetles pictured above.

[Don P]

Down low and looking like that on our EWP would probably be a BTB, black turpentine beetle.

[caveman]

Guilty as charged. 

 Black turpentine beetle is the largest of the three types of bark beetles commonly found in southern yellow pines.  These make the largest pitch tubes, the widest galleries, which are usually "D" and fan shaped.  I usually find them in trees that are stressed from a lightning strike, drought or other source. 
  black turpentine beetle, Dendroctonus terebrans (Olivier) (ufl.edu)    

[Don P]

I think this is why I originally looked them up, it was like a shark attack,
 little sharks  :D

Adults are strongly attracted to volatile pine odors

[Texas Ranger]

I was the "bug forester" for 5 southeast Texas counties for 5 years, at one time flying those counties for weeks on end, that was back in the '70's when Texas was being decimated by the beetles.  We were ground checking 5 days a week for most of the year.  The largest timber loss for one entity was on the Alabama/Coushatta reservation where we estimated 3 million board feet of SYP was salvaged or lost, largely lost because of bureaucracy, another story.

We were working on all 5 syp beetles, big, middle and little Ip's, SYP beetle and the black turpentine beetle. Towards the late '60's and early '70's a bunch from Boyce Thompson Institute of Tecnology had a 640-acre square block of relative old growth timber under experimentation.  The came up with frontelur, a synthetic hormone that could direct the beetle in a stand.  They finally found that cut and leave was the best control.  We had been using cut and spray with benzine hexachloride for control, much to the horror of the environmentalists.

The three Ip's were the least of our worries, other that when they got started the real spb came in after them.  BTB was a matter of telling the landowner what spray combinations could control it.  Old timers would simply close the entrance hole by heating the pitch tube and mash it down.  

Long time ground checkers would look for the red tops, and at times could smell the attack, due to fresh rosin and some said the hormone. One of my best ground checkers was color blind and could spot the infestation by wilted needles, he said.

The heavy losses ended in the late '80's when most of southeast Texas had become one large plantation.

 

[customsawyer]

I remember back in the late '90s when eastern TN. north GA. area got hit hard. I think a company called Bow water took the biggest loss but it hit everyone in that area. I really hated it for them in that area as the losses had to really hurt lots of folks.

[caveman]

@Customsawyer, weren't those loblolly pines you took down between your house and your mill recently, attacked by black turpentine beetles?

Another disorder.   This is all that I have for this one, but I'll provide a few clues in addition to the galleries.  The pitch tubes are white (sometimes red), about the size of pencil erasers, occur between the bark plates and attacks generally begin in the upper parts of the tree, unlike the black turpentine beetle.  The accepted way to deal with it here is to clear cut all infested trees and also cut healthy trees 50' or more beyond those infested to create a buffer.  Infestations usually occur due to stress brought on by overstocking.
 
 

[Texas Ranger]

The bureaucratic problem I mentioned came from the reservation leadership.  They would not let the logger jump ahead of the bug spot and cut back to it.  They had a member that was a truck driver for a major timber company that told them to only cut the red tops. Red tops being dead trees with the needle's dead and red.  The logger asked me to help, met with the rez leadership and was ignored.  Two weeks later they called me for advice which was to move out front of the beetles as Caveman mentioned.

We shut the spot down in about 10 days.  You fight bug spots like fire, with denial of fuel. 

[Don P]

SPB?