How longs it take for EAB to kill the Ash

Was back at the in-laws farm in NW Iowa today doing some fence row clean up and CSS some firewood. I noticed 3 ash in their “secondary” shelter belt didn’t come back this spring, definitely EAB, I counted 25 in the area.

how long would you expect the rest of the trees to start dieing? I would assume by next spring, but will they already be done by fall?

 

I am no help to you, but had a Ash pic I took tonight that I was looking for a place to put. I was looking for sign of EAB, but nothing yet. The tree was cut by a harvester with a processor head, and the bark is peeling as they handle it.

 

The EAB has been in this area for over 10 years now...probably 15 honestly...just now down to the last of the live ones.

Does it look like this under the peeling bark? If so, you have EAB...

 

I had seen some of these nasty pics and have been keeping an eye out because some EAB were found about 8 miles from here. So far all I’ve seen has been slick, smooth wood, like the one with sweep in it, in my pic above.

 

OK, because its hard to tell in that pic...but it almost looked like there is some EAB tracks there.

It won't be long now then...

 

The forester left some nice Ash unmarked for this harvest - said to roll the dice and try to get some more growth on the, but to cut it once the EAB arrives.

 

EAB has wiped out our ash. We lost a lot of good wood. A year after no leaves, the tops rot fast and make it dangerous during felling in tight quarters. My opinion, cut em as soon as you can.

 

Homeowner Guide to Emerald Ash Borer Insecticide Treatments

You may be able to save them. Wish I had looked into this ten years ago when they showed up.
Not sure if an annual treatment will be worth the cost.

I did save our backyard hemlocks from wooly adelgid infestation with a ground treatment about 20 years ago.

 

I live in the EAB GZ area. I could not agree more with the above statement. They get brittle fast, and since the tops have no weight, they do not fall in tight quarters like you think they would. No brush penetration, and they shed branches as they start over. Have a few closer calls than I care to talk about with year old EAB killed ash.

Some will hang on another year or so, but not much beyond that. Cut them as soon as you see the tops start to die.

 

Cutting down my last ash tree this year. 60 feet tall 42" diameter trunk. I have been spraying it and drenching it for the last 10 years but that still did not stop the bugs. Just hope I can get some lumber in addition to firewood.

 

You will see it put out fewer leaves and in a last ditch effort lots of shoots will spout from the trunk before it dies. Seldom do i score ash and the bark stays on. The few ash in my woods are skeletons waiting for me to cut them down. Ask me where ive seen a living ash with full foiliage and i cant tell you.

 

Just out of curiosity, since many places are not like Dakotah Territory and trees are everywhere unlike us, how mobile are these creatures? Do they fly in the wind, need to be transported, can they get taxi services by hopping on a bird? The reason I ask is out here in the open prairie there are shelter belts of ash planted around farms but then it can be miles until the next place that has ash trees. Will this provide any hope of limiting the devastation here or if there is an ash within 100 miles can they smell it and will find it and there is no hope?

 

I've read they can travel 15-30 miles per year on their own. Being that your Ash trees are spread further apart might help to slow the spread some, but in the end it's still a bleak picture. Also if all of your Ash were planted cultivars, there is very little genetic diversity so chances for survivor trees, ones with a rare natural resistance are very slim. The one good thing in your area are those extreme low temperatures in winter. I thought I remember reading a few months back that at around 30 below zero EAB larvae cannot survive. Time will tell...

 

It's strange to me that after 20 years and most of their food source gone, the EAB population in your area hasn't completely collapsed yet. You would think with almost no host trees left that the beetles would die within a generation, unless they're feeding on dead trees too.

 

The temperature thing is what I do hope will help along with distance. I read an article once that, don't quote me on exact temps, at -26° there starts to be winter mortality and if it can be sustained -36° for 30 hours there is complete kill. We routinely get the -24° and -30°s is not uncommon so hopefully that will help.

 

Greenstick , I’m sure glad I live in the southern part of the territory! I can’t remember it ever getting that cold! I don’t think I could handle -30!