Thank you. We have a couple fireplaces and a woodstove. I try to keep stove going to save a little gas but truly just enjoy cutting and splitting. I give some wood away also. I would add another woodstove insert but the wife likes an open fireplace. I guess more wood to cut and split so i get to play with more toys. And it will be alot of ash burning for next few years.
Cambridge MA is a well-to-do city... Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) Confirmed in Cambridge ..."The City of Cambridge was the first municipality in New England to develop a comprehensive treatment strategy to protect the ash tree population on city property. Healthy Ash trees on city property, including street trees, have been protected from EAB through proactive treatments of TreeAzin over the past 3 years. TreeAzin is a product derived from seed extracts of the Neem tree and is administered by injection at the trunk of the tree. TreeAzin is listed by the Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI) for use in organic production in the U.S. This pesticide is not hazardous to humans or animals."
Here’s a northern New England EAB map, updated last week. Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) Updates : Pest Survey (CAPS): Division of Animal and Plant Health : Maine Agriculture, Conservation, Forestry (DACF)
That is interesting. I know it does not take longer or cost us more to cut dead trees. For sure it should not with ash. That is, I'm thinking that some dead trees will be hard on the chippers. Not so with ash as once it gets dead it does not get hard nor is hard on chains or chippers. I would be interested to know what they think will cost them more.
Yet we have not had problems with the exception that now, 16 years after the infestation there are still some standing dead ash that we deal with and we are a bit more careful now. So far there has been zero problems. Some have fallen on their own (roots rotted and they tip over) but we still have some left to fell.
Welcome to the forum Dave. Great that you can get all you want of those ash trees. As for your area, our experience is that you do not have to be in any big hurry in cutting down the trees as they will stay standing strong for many, many years after they are dead. Another good point with ash trees.
We thought several years ago we'd have all the dead ash cleaned up. Wrong! We're still cutting but the end is in sight.
If they cut em all at once, it’ll probably be a single contract... One bid. If they wait for the trees to die, they won’t die all at once.. so if they cut them as they die, they may have to send several smaller jobs out to bid. Costs money to move equipment and people, so the cost of several small jobs will likely add up to more than one big job. Add to that the economic cost of closing down roads or a downtown area to commerce several times as well as police to direct traffic and finding a place to haul the logs/chips... Perhaps an unaffected tree can be hauled and disposed of much cheaper than one that is infested. I know with the Asian Longhorn Beetle, there are maximum dimensions for chips and the entire tree needs to be chipped... So with the ALB infested trees, that was one reason they were so expensive to remove...
Interesting article! I won't argue weather treating the tress is the right thing to do..... But I would not say they(Cambridge) are well to do, most of NH is nicer. Median household in Cambridge is only 82k household per capital of 50k, hardly well to do.....the city is very.....spend thrifty....Wikipedia says as of 2010 the residendtial tax rate was 6.99 per 1,000. Last I checked lakes region was almost double those demographic numbers? NH statewide does really well at 70k.
Here’s another VT article on the EAB. They caught a bug in the purple sticky traps on the southern border. https://vtdigger.org/2018/08/26/vermont-towns-gearing-fight-emerald-ash-borer/
More reading, from Northern Woodlands (one of my favorite magazines) Editor’s Note | Summer 2018 | Articles| Editor's Note The Fall issue has a number of letters to the editor regarding the piece above, but aren’t available online. Nothing particularly new, but for those of us still coming to grips with this, it is interesting reading others’ experiences.
Thanks for sharing, that is a great read. Just another symptom of the greatest affliction to ever hit the earth; modern man.
Quarantine Spent, N.H. Eyes New Strategy for Emerald Ash Borer Quarantine Spent, N.H. Eyes New Strategy for Emerald Ash Borer By ANNIE ROPEIK • SEP 7, 2018 TweetShareGoogle+Email The red represents a "generally infested area" of the Emerald Ash Borer. Map produced by N.H. Department of Natural & Cultural Resources. CREDIT STATE OF N.H. State officials are proposing changing their strategy for slowing the spread of the invasive emerald ash borer. The destructive beetle arrived in New Hampshire in 2013 and has now entered seven counties, including Carroll and Grafton, where the majority of the state's ash trees grow. Ash makes up about 6 percent of the state’s hardwood forests, netting at least $1 million for the forest products industry every year. State forest health program coordinator Kyle Lombard says the way the ash borer has spread means the quarantine that has long kept untreated firewood from crossing county lines is no longer worthwhile. "We just can't afford the resources to protect a very small amount of ash while all the ash we're trying to protect is actually inside the quarantine, and there's no regulation on the movement inside of a quarantine,” he says. Now, the state is proposing banning the transport of ash logs anywhere when the insects are active, between June and September. They also want people to keep untreated ash logs out of their firewood, and only move those logs within a five-mile radius of where they were cut – or leave them to season for 12 months before moving them farther. Treated firewood is still fine to use. But as under the quarantine, no untreated firewood should be brought into or out of the state. Lombard says the ash borer has spread relatively slowly in New Hampshire – but since the beetles can fly, no quarantine could fully contain them. The ash borer has also emerged in neighboring Vermont and, more recently, Maine. Now, he says, it’s time for a longer-term approach. “We don't want people to get the impression we're throwing our hands up,” he says. “It's just the opposite." He says the state is also releasing “biocontrol” wasps that hunt the emerald ash borer. Within a few decades, Lombard says, the beetles’ population should level off. The public can comment on the change in quarantine and management strategies through Sept. 21.
Thanks for sharing that! I don’t have a link, but about a week ago I saw a notification of a stop movement order on firewood out of three towns in far northern Maine, right on the Canadian border, so we’re getting it from both ends.
I'm not anticipating a lot of free EAB infested firewood to be available to scroungers like myself. I'm afraid the state will send all it can to the chippers. Maybe years later in the outbreak, there will be too much standing dead ash to chip, and some will get given away. And as this is bearing down upon us, the state wants to stop subsidizing our biomass to electricity plants.
It’s a shame that it doesn’t get used for firewood instead of chipping it but I understand the logic. Hard to tell how Maine will handle this but I hope we’ll see an over abundance of ash firewood as it progresses. I’m not rooting for the EAB, but it looks inescapable.
Those big firewood operations that heat treat their wood should do well. I wonder if and how they will regulate the little guys that don't. Ugh, I hate chippers.
So far almost all the trees Asplundh has been culling near the powerlines in Pelham and Windham are ash, just leaving them in place. They dropped one at the top of my street that I snatched, and the EAB had been through it
