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

[Don P]

Weevils have the "proboscis, elephant trunk appearing head" unlike the bark beetles. 

Cool, I was having a hard time forcing a BTB into that club foot face.

[caveman]

Out west we have lerp psyllids attacking the eucalyptus trees.

I just did a little reading on the lerp psyllid.  It is native to Australia and seems to really like red gum trees.  The lerp is the little white conelike things on the leaves.  They are where the psyllids develop into adults.  There is another bug, similar to a parasitic wasp that has been introduced to California as a biologic control.  It is reported to be most effective along the coastal regions and not so effective in the hot dry interior regions of California.

[doc henderson]

 

 

 

 

the first pine log had "bugs".  lots of tunnel and fras.  many still had moisture and were soft, making me think they were still viable.  they have all been used in the woodstove now.  I had sterilized 4 of the boards, for use in the pine paddle charcuterie boards, but tossed them in the fire as well.  each pass of the planer revealed more greenish smears of a borer.

[doc henderson]

 

 

 

 

 

[doc henderson]

here is the last log.  this is the tree from the neighbor.



 

2 days of fans in the shop.  started at 28% MC.  after down to 14% it went into the heater at 160 overnight.  no bugs in this log.

[Don P]

I'm going to guess again because Kyle is nice enough to explain both the answer and my guess  :D.

It is hard to tell if that borer has been through the planer or not but they are first broken into 2 classes, flat headed borers, (metallic beetles) and round headed borers(longhorn beetles). The holes are rectangularish and roundish respectively.

From that broad flat head I think you have one of the shiny metallic beetles and if you look at a section of the galleries they should be more rectangular.

Looking at those fatwood edges in the drying cabinet. We set/sterilized a load of somewhat resinous white pine not long ago. It was miserable through the planer and then cleaning up the planer, I would have gladly paid for another day's energy. It takes a while to dry out and set heavier pitch.

I have a chunk of fat lighter wood on the radial arm and slice off a sliver to help fire the stove down there. Clean to the right side of that stove, mine gets that way, your cubbyhole is still summer stocked  .

What species is the pine?

[caveman]

I'll noodle lightered wood with a chainsaw and keep that in a coffee can on the Gator for starting fires.  I don't like cleaning the planer after running heart pine through it but the last couple of times, I made a slurry out of mineral spirits and paste wax (Minwax) and it did a good job of removing the sap off of the bed and feed rollers.



 

 

 

In the pictures above are longleaf pines.  The first is of one in the grass stage.   They stay in the grass stage for 5-7 years, growing a taproot, then enter the rocket stage.  You may notice a little yellow and brown area at about the halfway point of some of the needles.  This is the most serious disease of longleaf pine while it is in the grass stage.  The most effective way to treat it in the forest, is to burn it.  In nurseries, it is sprayed with a fungicide.  The last picture is what happens to beautiful longleaf pine stands when the biologist, forester, or ranger burns too hot of a fire.  I suspect a lot of you will be familiar with this one.  

I have another that I took a pic of that I have no idea what weaved the needles.  BELOW

[caveman]

The disorder above on the longleaf pines (not severe cases) is brown spot needle blight.  

[caveman]

 

 

I apologize for not having a whole tree picture, but this is what I have.  This insect usually attacks young pines.  I see it most often on slash pines.  It can cause misshapen terminal buds but seldom kills the trees.  The larva is in the bottom picture.  It lives in the house of frass seen in the top picture.  I most often see these on the terminal shoots of pine trees less than waist high.


It is kind of difficult to see the frass house on this small slash pine, but it is there, about eight inches down from the top.

[tule peak timber]

Today's forest pest/disorder eventually will turn into a moth.  This is the larval form below.  The eyes on the caterpillar are one of the most distinguishing features.


Bonus for identifying the leaf, which is a hint to what the caterpillar is.  The leaf is alternate, simple, entire, revolute and thick compared to most of the same genus.

Looks like a live oak leaf

[caveman]

Rob, the picture of the oak leaf, caterpillar and the cup was to show the Variable Oak Leaf Caterpillar with some clues of species and size. 

Sorry about the poor picture.  It is of small slash pine with the ______ ____________'s nest in the upper half of it.  The nest looks like the one in the first picture above.  I did not really have time to look for better examples of this insect/damage while we were out there.  We cut down a few standing dead pines at a neighbor's place about a half a mile away and had to hustle home to meet a customer.

[caveman]

The most recent disorder was the pine webworm.  

Today's will be a weed, known to be one of the 10 worst in the world.  It is said to have entered a port in Louisianna sometime in the 1800's in a crate and was used for packing.  This weed spreads like crazy due to the airborne seeds.  County mowing crews do a phenomenal job of spreading it due to not cleaning their machines properly.  It will also spread through the rhizomes.  When it infests pine stands and it catches fire, it often burns hot enough to kill the trees in the stand.  Cattle will eat the new growth, but it does not provide much nourishment otherwise.  The edges of the leaf blades are sharp.

What is it?


 

 

 

 

[caveman]

For both of you who are sitting on the edges of your seats waiting for the name of the weed featured recently, it is Cogan Grass.  Cogon Grass / Invasive Non-Native Plants / Forest Health / Our Forests / Forest & Wildfire / Home - Florida Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services (fdacs.gov)  

When John and I were sawing some SYP logs earlier in the week, I took the opportunity to take a few pictures of some beetles that generally attack weak, dying or stressed pines or are often found in fresh cut logs.  When these beetles attack the trees, they usually enter the trees at the mid-level of the tree.  The Black Turpentine beetles usually enter the bottom six feet of the tree, while the dreaded Southern Pine beetle usually enters between the bark fissures closer to the top of the tree where the bark is not as thick.

  The beetle featured today actually has at least three different species, but they all leave Y and H shaped galleries that are vertical in arrangement, have medium sized pitch tubes, roughly the size of a nickel and have a jagged rear (looks like it was carved out by a spork- the spoon/fork combination utensil).  The pitch tubes are formed by the sap the tree produces in the hole created by the beetle.  The pitch is the tree's defense, attempting to expel the invading insects. I have noticed a bit of white fungus also associated with this beetle's infestation as well as blue stain fungi, which is usually associated with Ambrosia beetles.


 

 

 

 


 

I evidently do not have any pictures of this beetle's pitch tubes on standing pines.  Regardless, they, like other bark beetles, kill the trees by girdling the trees while feeding on the phloem/cambium which is between the bark and the outer xylem (sapwood). The phloem is what transports sugars manufactured in the leaves down to the rest of the tree.

Who would like to identify today's forest insect?

[Don P]

Is it related to Doc's laser hobby?

[caveman]

It could be related to Doc's hobby.  

The beetles pictured above are Ips Engraver Beetles.  Today, let's go with something environmentally caused.  What is it?


Longleaf pine
 
Longeaf pine boards

Loblolly pine that was healthier a day before. 

 

 

[doc henderson]

very en-lightening!?

[Don P]

Massed pitch is a sign of some kind of injury.
Did you lose the fence controller?

[Old Greenhorn]

Dems is electric logs!

[Texas Ranger]

Shazam! Have you seen this where the ground is blown out above the roots?  Most often on hardwoods due to rooting structure.

[doc henderson]

even the Spanish moss appears to be a bit fuzzier.   

[caveman]

Finally, this thread has been energized.  The loblolly pictured above is still alive.  Had the lightning girdled the tree it would have died.  John and I had taken shelter in the shop a few years ago as a storm rolled in.  In that storm we watched as a cedar tree about 150 feet away from the open shop was struck by a bolt of lightning.  It did not survive but was blasted apart and split in three different directions.  

Quite often after a lightning strike, some of the other disorders get into the weakened tree and finish it off.  On one group of pines which used to stand where our sawmill shed is now, I found black turpentine beetles, pine sawflies and ambrosia beetles following a lightning strike.  They all (five or six) died within a few months of the strike.

[caveman]

 

Today's featured disorder is often found on slash and loblolly pines.  It is a fungal disease that, in addition to pines, it must have oaks to complete its life cycle.  I rarely see it in my neck of the woods but north of here in Florida and Georgia, there seems to be a higher incidence of it.  There are genetically resistant strains of trees which can be purchased from the Florida Forest Service as well as other sources.
What is the pictured disorder?

[Poquo]

Pine Gall Rust?

[caveman]

This has some similarities to Western and Eastern Gall Rusts, but it is a little different.  There is a lot more taper on the canker of the one pictured than the abrupt "ball shaped" gall on the other gall rusts.

The one pictured is considered the most serious stem disorder to slash and loblolly pines.

[Don P]

Fusarium Rust