I used to pick my ash trees two years ahead girdle them a year in advance with the chain saw then cut split and stack a year ahead. Now i'm playing defense cutting the ones that look the worst. I heard if you cut the tree in winter the borers can't get out in spring. Anybody here the same thing. Heres some pics. I would much rather pick my trees to shape my forest. I have one old growth ash four feet across I am going to try to save. I have to spray the bark in mid May because the tree is on sandy soil in a flood plain. I may be throwing away $21.00 a year but that giant tree looks cool. I have 40 acres of ash and elm also have one elm four feet across. The worst part is the trees that grow in place of the ash are boxelder.
That sucks. You are close to me too. I'm in the town of cedarburg, but I cut my wood at my parents land and friends land in west bend. I have 1 acre here in cedarbug, but it has 3 very large ash trees that I treat every year with the bayer granules so I can save them. If these trees were to get EAB, I'd be pizzed. The only good thing that would come from that would be a lot of firewood. I still would rather not think about that. There enough wood on the land in wb that I can get, especially now that my parents sold their house in wb and they are not burning wood from the woods here.
Same here in NE Illinois. I'm in the Chain-O-Lakes area, just South of the curtain. All the mature ash trees are succumbing to EAB.
They have destroyed our ash population unfortunately! It does mean lots of dry wood at the ready but at a terrible cost...
I agree with that! I would rather burn boxelder than lose all my ash. All my elm trees grow to about six inches then die. Its easy to cut not split then stack when the bark falls off the wood sounds like bowling pins. Burns like crazy.
It's headed my way too.(EAB) Don't think it's here yet but it's in MA and So NH. Maine is a vacation destination for a whole bunch of people in the summer, a lot of them camping. It's illegal to bring in firewood from out of state and the highways have this on signs. It's a shame.
It's a huge problem. Personally, I don't have Ash trees, but I live in Ohio and see the decimation everywhere. I have elms that are short lived, lost a dozen oak to oak wilt this year alone. Hemlocks are now seriously threatened which I have many of. If these oak issues worsen, I'm not sure we realize how serious this situation can become. All these threats to our trees seem to be worsening dramatically.
Yep, I have a lot of elm in my pile, and I will for the next few years as there's a ton of it. It seems to get to a certain size then dies. A lot of it is 10-12" in diameter at my friends land. I've seen no eab affected trees by me, but it's in Newburg, and apparently West Bend. I have no ash at either place in wb I cut from, and if there was, I would leave it for my friend who burns too. The cities around here have cut a lot of ash, maybe we will get lucky. It supposedly can only spread about a half mile a year. I have a big branch from one of the 3 ash trees that needs to be cut off as it's handing lower by the driveway, and gets in the way of my boat in summer when I park it in the driveway. I'll cut the branch in winter to keep the chance of stress on the tree low. It's a good foot in diameter and probably 15' long. That's a decent sized branch.
Its spreading quickly around here, they cut down all the trees in a large section of the city to try and control it and it didn't do a damm thing, now they're all over the city, won't be long til their in mby.
I feel your pain to say the least. I started last year cleaning out the small woods here behind the house. It was infested with Honeysuckle and is mainly ash trees above their canopy. Got the honeysuckle dug out along with everything that was down cut up and stacked inside. Got it all smoothed out and basically have standing storage now as I'll cut more next spring and refill the furnace house. Put 17 cord in there this year. As you said, so sad to see them go as Ash was one of my favorite trees, especially for the yard and such. Never thought I be burning them all this quick as I hoped to just get them as they slowly died or winds got them. At least they are close I guess. Probably enough here for 4 heating seasons or more as I have load after load like this.
So, how does the cycle go? We've been told that the lumber is safe even if the tree is infested but more recently I've heard this is bs. Maybe the right strategy is to take anything lumber worth now and assume anything I leave is firewood? How long ago did the infestation start? I'm trying to get an idea how to best use what we have given that it looks to be a lost cause in the long run unless it somehow skips the higher elevations.
From my experience the lumber should be fine. They only feed in the cambium area of the tree, never getting into the wood itself. It doesn't take them very long to do the deed. Once you notice a tree is hurting, it is normally one year. Some hang on for another but it's only a few leaves here and there. They just start dropping leaves as they are effectively having there lifeline of fluids cut off. I've been told once you see damage, it's too late to save one. These things don't miss much. Is green ash lumber in demand? No one does it around here and we have millions of board feet going to waste now. Wood sellers are feeling it too from what I hear as it's everywhere for the cutting. That is why I got the stuff on the ground first. Standing dead is standing, dry storage to me till I have the space to get it inside.
So sorry guys but it is only a matter of time. But perhaps they have made some stride with the spray. When ours got hit they said the only spray they had would cost $200-$300 per tree to spray it. That's not going to happen. And when did the infestation start? 2002. I've never been a fan of girdling trees. It may kill them but it won't help much in the letting out of the moisture. Besides, cut, split and stack ash for a year and it is good to go. But even then, I prefer 2 years over 1. And we are on the 3 year plan so it gets plenty dry and burns super great. I don't believe cutting in winter does a thing toward stopping the borers. That 3rd and 4th picture of the ash tells it all with the borers and the picture where that tree is making new suckers shows how the tree tries to save itself. However, it doesn't work; they will still die. Elm: If you wait until the bark is off or most of it off the elm before you cut them, they will split much, much easier. Most can be split with a splitting maul if you don't have hydraulics. Solar I am now sorry we didn't sell the trees about 25 years ago when we had an offer to buy. Of course at that time we had no idea our trees would all be dieing. Now, nobody seems to want it for lumber. We did make some lumber for ourselves but most went or is going for firewood. As for skipping the higher elevations, that has not proven to be the case anywhere that I've heard of. As for the 1/2 mile per year spread, I would have to question that. In MI, it seems to have started in the Detroit area. In less than a year, they found a whole bunch in the Shields/Saginaw area. Then late in that winter, we found them in our woods. We still have a pastel of ash to cut and burn. Sad, but it does make good firewood. Recently we were cutting in this area. One big elm, a couple small ones, 4 ash and there is still that much more to cut in this area. And the only one we fell was the big elm. We cut that because half of it already broke off and was on the ground. I must saw we got a lot more wood from that one tree than I expected.
Kevin, the lumber is fine if you get it quick enough but in a few short years the wood will begin to deteriorate. You are correct in that once you see the damage, or the D shaped holes, it is too late to save the tree. We hoped at first if we took any trees that showed the holes we'd be okay but they eventually got into all of them. On the good side, our trees were infested in 2002 and we are still cutting them. I have enough we could cut probably another 4 or 5 years unless we sell some. But 2 years ago we started seeing a few with the tops breaking off. This year we are finding a lot of them down because they rotted at the root.
