So maybe I’m beating a dead horse here but I’m going to proceed with caution anyway. I noticed something for the first time here in my area. Long dead Ash trees that are stump sprouting. Foliage looks healthy enough. I’m guessing these sprouts are 1-3 years old but a professional here would know better than I. What strikes me is not every dead Ash stump sprouts. The bulk of what I see shows no signs of life. Either these sprouts will eventually form mature Ash trees or they’ll too be killed off when they get larger. I’m going to keep an eye on these in the meantime. As long as these are alive, they’re feeding the root system and I’m hoping... there’s hope. Maybe it's worth mentioning that this Ash clump is itself the result of a stump sprout, which is evidence that years ago it was felled and sent up several new trunks. Thoughts?
When a live healthy ash is cut down, the stump will sprout. I don’t know all the technicals on how the eab kills the tree. I’m assuming it destroys the cambium and phloem and tree can’t survive. Once the food source is gone bugs move to next food source. If a root/s survive and there is enough stored energy to grow a sprout? I imagine the eab will eventually come back around and destroy the new tree. That’s my semi professional theory anyway.
We lost over 50 EAB ash here on Oak Hill. None of them sprouted from the stump but we do have some that sprouted from seed a few years back. I cut a dozen or so large, green and healthy ash around the yard about 10 years ago and none of those had stump sprouts either. These were cut late summer so maybe that didn't work for stump sprouts.
By coincidence today was the first day I actually saw an EAB, right in my backyard. I've seen the larvae behind the bark before. It surprised me how small the actual beetles are. Probably the size of a grain of rice. I tried getting a picture of the two I saw but they took off before I could.
Funny you posted this as i noticed a small ash just into our woods the other day. Ive seen them sprout from stumps before. Only time will tell.
Took some pics earlier. Few feet in from the edge of the yard. Looks like they sprouted from a stump. Landlord did cut some trees down before she moved here in 2007 and some were ash. I harvested the trunks the following year as they were left in the woods.
It would be nice if these trees came back. In our area, I haven't seen a live one in years. When we bought our house 20 years ago, they were everywhere. We actually had a few in our yard we had to take down to open up the yard a bit. The ones that were left died off years ago from the EAB.
EAB will follow the same path as the Dutch elm disease. The pathogen will wipe out virtually all the trees and the vector in this case Emerald Ash Borer population explodes. Eventually as the trees are eradicated the # of beetles will dwindle to very few. But there will always be some. A few remaining trees will keep sprouting up and will live to 6-8 years before a EAB finds it and infects it. You just aren't going to see mature Ash any more just like you don't see large American Elm anymore.
I'm just hoping they don't completely extinct. I'd have to imagine they won't just by looking at the fact that Asian Ash species didn't go extinct. Over time, the EAB and the Asian Ash became a coevolved species. Maybe that's what'll happen here at some point in the distant future. Maybe that'll happen with Dutch Elm disease and even Chestnut blight too....
These two EAB ash are in my stepdaughters yard. Clinging to life as some leafing on lower limbs. I observed the "D" holes in the lower trunks.
yep, the logging by my farm had ash trees hauled at at length. No bucking. We to be shipped to China that way. China is aware of the commodity increasing in value and will hold onto them for a while.
No place to drop them safely (wires, property line, stream bed) so i may have to rent a cherry picker and take em down that way.
Been there. I used a tow behind for the smaller ones. In the woods I cut em almost thru and use a lot more cable than I think I need to pull em down.
So, stump sprouts are definitely not an isolated incident. I came across more a couple miles from home today.
Then, in an area surrounded by completely dead Ash I found a healthy living one. This is the first Ash with a full canopy I’ve seen in person in years. I uploaded pictures of it to the Tree Snap app I’ve been using.
