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

[Ljohnsaw]

Turpentine collecting?

[Don P]

or cat faces on pecky cypress  
An  Appalachicola Trip in General Board (forestryforum.com)

[Texas Ranger]

Back in the '60's and '70's we would still find fat lighter pine from the old turpentine tree faces.

[customsawyer]

I actually dug a pine cat face stump up from right behind my mill. It is sitting by my blades right now. I need to find a place to display it in my store.

[caveman]

Jake, I was thinking about the catfaces you had posted about when I put these on.  Notice the three different types of catfaces and the three different collection methods.  The Herty Cup, in the second picture we considered revolutionary and much better for the tree than the previous method, pictured on the left.  The tool used to make the scars was called a hack.  No one has mentioned the cypress yet.
The turpentine trees attracted the black turpentine beetles.  Longleaf and slash were used for naval stores production.  


 

[Don P]

This is dated and not PC at all, but it shows the industry as it was.

(1) Turpentine Industry Documentary from the 1940s - YouTube

My ancestors were tarheels and worked in turpentine, goodness, nearly 200 years ago in the census's of the early 1800's. When Sherman crossed into NC they began lighting the longleaf forest for light and spite. In my oral history, when they emerged at the railhead in Sanford muddy and covered in soot, the fresh yankee troops did not at first recognize them.

Union General Hamilton of the cavalry describes in detail his travel with Sherman's Army on this day: "In our march through North Carolina we were in the home of the long leaf pine which has given turpentine to the country and the name of 'Tar Heel State' to the fine old commonwealth of North Carolina. Here are extensive forests of trees from twenty inches to three feet in diameter and at least seventy feet without a limb but spreading at the top with a dense mass of interlocking limbs, clothed in evergreen leaves so dense as to exclude the sun. The ground is covered with four to six inches deep of pine needles, routing at the bottom but soft and clean on the surface. The turpentine is obtained by tapping these trees as we boys used to get molasses from our sugar trees long ago. But they cut notches deep enough to hold about a quart of sap, which is gathered into barrels and becomes the turpentines of commerce. The war had stopped all that and the notches are found full of congulated sap, which from different sources has oozed out and whitened the bark on the trunks of the trees higher up. Our foragers had set fire to the turpentine in the notches and the blaze extended to the resin on the bark, causing a smoke which could hardly escape through the green canopy above." (29:195)
By the time the 6th Iowa passed by the trees which had been set fire by Sherman's bummer's, one tree had burned a bit too much at the stump and the huge pine fell across the road and seriously hurt Musicians Madison Swift and George Guthces. It also badly wrecked a regimental wagon and killed Major Ennis' old mare, which at that time, was hitched to the rear of the wagon. (60:42)
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...As the Union soldiers crossed the county, they fired the turpentine stills and trees, which sent up a dense black smoke-column that could be seen for miles by the Confederates. Rice Bull, 123rd New York writes of the night of the 18th, "It was eleven at night before we reached the brigade camp. It was in a 'tapped' pine forest, lighted by setting fire to the gum on the trees that would burn and smoke for hours. We were able to stand around the fires and dry out. We were a sight to behold as the black pitch smoke had added one more coat of coal-black to our faces and hands; we were like Negroes; we slept with our shoes on; we did not dare take them off for fear they would shrink so much we could not get them on in the morning. They were good and tight when we awoke." (9:229) (3:101)
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 "We moved to the vicinity of Newton Grove Cross-Roads and camped before night. Here white oak timber was seen for the first time in many days and was hailed by the troops with shouts of joy for it was something to get out of the pine woods." (60:428)

[caveman]

Thank you for sharing the video.  
  Sorry that i do not have anything else to show with this.  A few clues:  The larvae of this insect can cause damage to plantation and forest grown pines, especially in the first five years.  The Christmas tree industry is also economically impacted by this insect.


 

[Don P]

Young and ruined leader.. White pine weevil, pissodes strobus?

[Texas Ranger]

One of the tip moths

[wisconsitom]

Reminds of white pine weevil damage, but....tree appears to be 2 needle to a bundle, not 5 like wp.

So I don't know!

[caveman]

Pine tip moth.  That Texas forester is tough to get one by.
https://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/trees/moths/nantucket_pine_tip_moth.htm

[Don P]

My first day off road since racking an ankle around thanksgiving, don't believe I'll be dancing tomorrow.
I don't know if it matters, because, I know a common name but I don't really know who this is. Old red oak off the ground but bark gone and punky sapwood.  These guys showed up at the splitter.



 

 


While we were down in there, this caught my eye, and then several more in different species but all with about the same facing. I'd trust that more than "moss on the north side".



 


And this was just cool;

[Don P]

Best I can tell pic #1 is a wood roach. I believe a parcoblatta, either a Virginia or Pennsylvania
Wood Roach Nymph

I've seen the egg packets (ootheca) before but had not associated it with the bug. In that capsule are a couple dozen eggs. The insect emerges as a nymph, my pic above, and lives in that stage for a year or 2. The adult lives a few months. So this bug goes Egg>Nymph>Adult

[Don P]

The middle pic above is a frost check on a sweet birch. Ususally on ~ the WSW face. Sweet birch is a likely candidate, t has a lot of green on the leafless tree, it is working at a pretty healthy clip all year. This probably happened on a clear cold winter day. The tree warmed and was working. At some point late in the day a cloud passed over and the tree flash froze, popping that long check. Even though it was almost 70 the day I took that pic and 22 this morning, I don't believe that is fast enough to frost check one.

The burl, someone else will have to explain that to me.

[Texas Ranger]

The big boys down at the poolhall say might near anything can cause a burl.  In other words, no single source is known.  I read an article where carolina cherry laurel stems were routinely shot with a .22 to induce burl formation.  I am with the mases. No idea.

[caveman]

This not really a disorder but it could have caused me some discomfort had I not seen it on the log I was sawing this morning.


 

[Don P]

What species is that behind that hundred legged critter? That is beautiful, and outta the pond it looks like 

[caveman]

That some slash pine that made some 1x6's today.  It was at the point that it needed to be sawn or it was going to start feeding borers.  I'll post pics in the sawmill section.

[Don P]

A couple from this week. This one was all over the roof of an old farmhouse but luckily the weight was on the ground.





This was in a very long walnut branch reaching over from the other side.
 

 

Oh, then there was this.

[caveman]

The top pic looks like butt-rot of hardwoods.  The second pic looks like "heart rot". and the bottom picture is a mystery to me, maybe a fence line tree.  Thank you for posting.

[Don P]

We got a bit of rain yesterday from the outer bands. The dog was out walking me this morning and we saw this on the ground




Into the grove we saw this under some trees, almost looks burned


 

Looking up we saw this;
 

 

Here's what the individuals look like;


 

I had thought it was calming down... hardly  :.

[caveman]

You may have to share your knowledge on this one.  I've been checking in looking for an answer.

[Don P]

This is the beech blight aphid. I think it often occurs with beech bark disease which starts with a white scale insect that whitens the trunk, then a nectria fungus, then the aphid. I think I just have the aphid but these are not healthy trees, the aphids have come and gone for at least 20 years. The black under the trees is the fermenting honeydew from the aphid poo. Often when they die down the branches are black for the same reason.

Also known as the boogie-woogie aphid, when you touch a branch they all do the wave, kind of fun to play with them.
Is it beech bark disease? - MSU Extension

Dancing Bugs! Beech Blight Aphids - YouTube

[caveman]

Thanks for sharing.  I don't see beech trees here.  When I looked at the pictures, they looked like some type of wooly aphid or even a little like the hemlock wooly adelgid, but I did not see any hemlocks.  

[KEC]

My neighbor had some lumber stacked on stickers with a piece of roofing over it to shed the rain. He gave me a wide White Pine board because the ends had Carpenter Bee holes, made worse by the holes from woodpeckers extracting the bee larvae. The cut off in the photo with round holes is where the bees bored into the bottom of the board. The cutoff with elongated holes is the top of the board where the woodpeckers (I suspect Hairy Woodpecker) opened it up to get the larvae. I had never heard of this on stacked lumber. I get Carpenter Bees in the logs in my house and they are often in fascia boards. Thought you guys might find this of interest.