This is from the local paper from the "big city" of Aberdeen South Dakota (26,000 pop) Good for the wood piles, but bad for wind breaks and shade trees. Most of you might remember this winter I found "Red-Headed Ash Borers" in my basement. Green ash is the species of Ash tree that grows well in our area. Good firewood.....not much Oak here
I heard warnings for at least 5 years before it finally wiped out our ash trees. The extension service sent out State and county sightings. Creeping Ash death. I think I picked one of the beetles out of my mil’s hair today. SD doesn’t have enough trees to lose.
We already have big problems with the Dutch Elm Disease, killing all our American Elms. Now this other bug is going take out our Ashes....... Like I said good for the wood piles but bad for shade and windbreaks
This may be prairie where i live, or grassland here. But Trees (especially cottonwoods) saved this part of the country from the "Dirty 30's"...(Dustbowl). Changing the land and stopping the wind from whipping away the topsoil, ruining our farmland.
That’s the spirit! Black locust, Osage orange, mulberry… all the best firewood errrr I mean windbreak trees
Any field or unkept piece of land I'm going to buy black locust seeds sprout the seeds and spread that stuff everywhere. I don't give a s***
It's here as well, not sure how long here in CT. But they're here. My next big volume job is 100% ash, 6ish trees, all large. And all mine. But sad to see them go. Sca
The EAB has been in the Denver area for years. The cities here even started cutting the healthy Ash trees down to try to get ahead of it, which seems strange to me.
Boy I dunno, I have heard a bunch of reports that treatment is a hassle and really adds up if you have more than a couple trees...I don't know that I have heard of any big trees that people have been able to keep healthy, at least long term...probably is one somewhere though.
Have had em here in western Maine for at least 8 years. When I took down ash in 2013 & 2014, I saw a few of them. Unmistakeable green color... hard to miss.
Yeah, that seems bout dumb as chit. Let the tree have a chance. Yes, EAB will probably end up killing it, but you know what happens when the saw shoes up. And it's not like the borer goes from the ash to other trees, so you're not saving anything. When they get affected bad enough to be a safety concern, then remove. The decision makers of that city must be of a certain....uh mindset. Err nevermind.
This isn't the first (or second, third, fourth...) time something came from Asia that threatened a native species here. If we look to the past we can gain some insight. When chestnut blight started spreading throughout the eastern US in the beginning of the last century, outright killing the vast majority of mature chestnuts, a lot of people in areas not yet affected took a proactive approach. They figured the best thing to do was cull all the chestnuts while they were still healthy, in order to both harvest what they could for timber and make a feeble attempt to stop the spread. That was the conventional wisdom of the time. It's now understood by many in the field that the better thing to do would have been to let the fungus run its course naturally. Within any tree species population, there is a certain amount of genetic diversity. While almost all trees were susceptible to the blight, a very tiny fraction had varying degrees of resistance. By cutting all of the chestnuts, people made the gene pool smaller and eliminated potentially blight resistant trees. The same concept could be applied to our few remaining healthy ash trees. Some trees could naturally have some resistance, especially natural forest-grown trees as opposed to planted known cultivars. I say give the trees a chance, especially those that are still producing seed crops. They could hold the keys to survival for the entire species.
Try getting in under a 2-year dead ash and cut it to land where you want, and your understanding will increase! These trees are going to die - they are likely working at it systematically while the sun shines and the crews are not on overtime. My electricity bill includes an EAB fee, and it (EAB) hasn’t really impacted wide swaths of the state yet.
I have seen none on my land yet. The state has 10-mile radius management areas around each known infestation, and I’m about 1 mile outside and down wind of one of those. We harvested some of our trees last year but did not put extra pressure on the White Ash. The plan was to build infrastructure (landings and woods roads) so we can react quickly once it gets here.
