Hello! New member and first post. Happy owner of a Quadra Fire Pioneer III in a 1.5 year old new construction home that we absolutely love. The thing is a beast and we just love it. My property is about four acres with the two back acres being zoned and officially delineated wetland/100 year flood storage. Unfortunately this area has been decimated by EAB and 95% of the acreage is dead ash. From studying past aerial satellite imagery, I estimate most of the trees have died in the last five to eight years. I call it my "sea of dead ash". I would estimate between 60 and 100 trees still stand. This year I began work on processing a lot of the stuff that is down or readily accessible. 90% of what I have cut is very dry, not rotted and in great shape. I have noticed two distinct types of wood that seem to be presenting. The one commonality is its all bored out with distinct EAB galleries. I think I have done enough research to know what I have, but figured some extra opinions would be great, and I also could be way off! There are no longer leaves or other clues to help ID these trees, so bark, grain etc are the main identifying factors. Wood type one: EAB galleries Heavy and firm, mid to difficult to split Behaves much like Oak. We call these "Heavy's" and we are saving them for the 0 degree days. I believe them to be White Ash or possibly Green, but I don't know how to tell the difference just looking at a split log. Wood type two: EAB galleries Distinct Ash bark Wood appears to not be rotted but feels much lighter, less dense When I split it, a lot of time chunks fly off and it doesn't break crisply in half Lights up very easily, obviously doesn't burn as long (but still nice wood) I believe this to be Black ash, which would be consistent with the wetlands most of this is coming from A rack of it I had drying since April grew a lot of mushrooms and the ends became black over six months. Do I have this right? The other reason I would like to get the species differentiation nailed down is to just make sure that is indeed what is happening and not that some of the wood I cut is more rotted and some of it is just really good. Pictures attached for reference:
Welcome to FHC! I am only vaguely familiar with americana. Could your examples be same species with different stages of decay? Our white ash got wiped out around the time I joined the forum. Cut a 36” beauty that summer that gave me a nice pile of firewood.
Welcome to the forum! I am not sure you have a different species there...you might. I have cut a ton of dead white ash and as it rots standing, it will start looking like your pics you say are lighter. But there are several members here that are very skilled at tree ID. Hope you get a truly informed answer!
Looks like the same species, just one has decayed to a punky stage thus its lighter. Ive cut dead ash where the bark fell off early and its nice and dense whereas if the bark stays on it holds in moisture and causes the wood to rot faster. Most I encounter now are in between. Last May I actually cut living ash and forgot how nice it is to process. Primarily white and green ash around here. Welcome to the FHC absentx Great to have you on board.
Welcome to the club! I’m in the group thinking this is the same ash just differing levels of decay. I’ve recently had a scare felling some ash. Use caution for sure!!
Thanks all! Yeah that is definitely my main concern, just different age of decay etc. The Wood Wolverine - I have heard about troubles dropping Ash, and I approach all trees with extreme caution. Luckily, most in my acreage are not all that large and have a good lean to them already since they have been dead for so long. I only go down and process on light to no wind days, and I still have a spring and fall's worth of downed stuff to process first. Also trying to just work the land slowly, lots of great bird life that enjoy the trees, dead or alive. I have two from seed Silver Maples that are about four or five years old that hopefully will start to regenerate the wetland in the coming years once they start spreading seeds, bottom line just trying to thin out the dead and let nature do it's thing in the wetland. There are three real beast Ash Trees back there...beautiful huge trees, and a real shame they are dead. Dropping those is not in the short term plan. Erik B Cheers man, love Wisconsin...My foks live in The Northwestern Part of the state. Can't wait for the lakes to start icing up!
Welcome to the forum absentx. On that lighter stuff, I wouldn't even cut that. However, I understand why you did because of being limited. I would caution you concerning the warning caution The Wood Wolverine gave. I think what he was getting at is that with trees that far gone, sometimes the bottom of the tree can almost disintegrate and you never will know what is going to happen. Even trees that have a slight lean can do unpredictable things when felling. One always has to ash, "Is it worth taking a chance or should I let mother nature take care of it?" Good luck.
Backwoods Savage yeah this is a great point...over a long enough time frame they keep naturally falling down anyways. I appreciate the advice. I am thinking each spring and fall there will be enough freshly fallen that I won't even need to mess with the standing ones.
Welcome aboard absentx ! I concur with the others here. There is a chance you may find these differences from the same tree at times.
The wood on the right looks "punky" and I would not hoard it but would feed it right into the furnace if dry. Black ash and White ash start with very different bark, black is flaky and white is ribbons/ridges. As standing EAB white ash decays, the bark looks more and more flaky with age and so like black. White ash bark is generally much thicker than black as it decays but not always (smaller limbs will get flaky while not having the thick bark). Black ash bark just stays flaky/thinner as it decays. Black ash wood is darker than white ash on average but some white ash, especially smaller limbs, can get dark. Main trunks of white ash are almost always whiter than black ash. Dry black ash wood is always much lighter than white ash but... white ash density varies A LOT, from only a little heavier than black ash to much heavier than black ash. Some tough to split twisted grain white ash can produce a TON of heat and be very heavy. I have never had a black ash that was heavy when dry. Black ash wood contains more moisture than white and so can feel heavy in the field but dry to an elm like density. Flaky thin bark and darker butt log heart wood is almost always black ash. Green ash wood is more white than white ash and has the same ribbons/ridges but smaller sized ribbons/ridges. Green ash is the best ash to fight off EAB and survive.
Welcome to the club. Lots of great folks here sharing knowledge and humor. I'm not very familiar with ash, only getting it a few times. I know it makes great farwood
Hard to tell from just a picture but if I had to guess from that alone I’d say it’s the same species— just that the one piece is getting punky.
While hiking off trail yesterday, I found six green ash poles with bark and no EAB damage even though EAB has gone through like an ash "bomb". I have one black ash pole left alive in the home woods with bark but it suffered some EAB damage. I would suggest folks not cut living green ash since it is our best hope for ash in our forests.
