Some good reading on an invasive species affecting our hardwood forests. The Beech Bark Disease is killing Beech trees here in Canada and northeastern US. Beech nuts are great food source for deer and bears. Beech Bark Disease – Ontario's Invading Species Awareness Program https://www.ontario.ca/page/beech-bark-disease
Interesting article thanks for posting. As if our forests didn’t have enough problems, what’s next hickory? I hope Asia and Europe are having nightmare problems with invasive species from north America just out of spite.
I have read that a lot of forest management plans call for eradication of beech due to its' growth habits. Foresters will go through a stand and kill off the beech trees as it hampers the growth of "high dollar" species. Black locust is treated the same way - that's actually considered an invasive species here. I dunno about anyone else, but if I had a forest with nothing but beech and locust, I would be a happy wood hoarder.
Beech is the most prevalent tree on our farm followed by cherry & soft maple. My dad used to call it beech blyte. Don’t know if this is the same thing or not. But on our place anyway beech abounds!
We have a stand of beech on our hill that’s come down with bark disease. Pretty aggressively. As part of our management plan we are harvesting some of the beech to use for log grown mushrooms in our mushroom yard. The disease only affect the bark and doesn’t limit or hamper the woods ability to support mushrooms.
Good amount of beech here in our woods and ive noticed it. The diseased section snaps off in storms and the bad section is too punky for decent firewood.
Michigan has lost a good share of its beech to this disease. So sad to see and yes, it is excellent food for deer, bear, turkeys and all sorts of small animals.
