The wife and walked through our small patch of heaven (woods) and the ash kill is staggering! After this next round of heavy rain followed by a dose of white death I'm gonna have to crank up the saws. Two trees justify the 661 with the 25" bar. The 461 with the 20" will easily make shot work out of the rest. Man. I ain't gonna live long enough to split, let alone burn, all this ash!
Yup that's a terrible problem to have too much quality firewood! I do hope you have some other species to fill in.. Was reading there is a ash hybrid that is standing up well to EAB.. Maybe Arbor Day group should start selling seedling cheap!
There's so many ash trees in our area! I have just over an acre of mature woods, but there's enough dead ash in there to keep myself and my parents loaded with firewood for the next 3-4 years. I'm not sure I can get to it all before it falls and rots, as several trees have already started falling over. I'd say I've lost over 50% of my trees, that's how high the percentage of ash is behind my house. And white death?!! I didn't realize we were supposed to get snow tomorrow. Heck, I didn't even bother wearing a coat in to work today it's so warm. I guess this is just another example of our awesome Ohio River Valley weather!
I have a 14 acre planting that is about 20% ash so as I see them dead I will harvest them but no way will I make good use of all of my ash. Wholesale cutting is just not my style but I have another younger planting on 18 acres that is also heavy in ash. I'm just going to have to check for dead trees each spring and mark my harvests. We definitely have EAB here in the county so it is a matter of time for me.
Good news is that some of our ash did not get hit by the EAB. It is amazing because we'll find a tree and within 10' or less there will be another. One is dead and the other does not even have holes where the borer goes in. That to us is fantastic news. We knew we had 2 for sure but this winter we've found several more. Most are fairly small but that is okay, so long as they are alive.
The good news is they can keep well for many years. The borer hit our woods about 14 years ago. Yes, we still have lots of cutting to do and it is doubtful we will get it all. In fact, some has already gone to waste. We're patiently awaiting the GTG this spring and hoping we can get most of the rest of this white ash cut, split and stacked.
It hit my area maybe 6 years ago, and by 3 years ago all of my ash trees were dead. This past fall and winter I've already had three 20"+ trees just fall over. After the borer hit them, the trunk seems to be a lot weaker than if they died of other causes.
It took several years before any of ours tipped over or broke off at the top. Now lots of them have fallen because they rot at the root then tip over. Makes a mess of things.
I wonder why mine are acting so differently? Within the first year most of the smaller branches fell off the top, and then the next year the larger branches fell. But when the trunk goes, it's always between 3-10 feet from the base of the tree. It just snaps in half!
Some ash are apparently growing resistance to the borer, with no human hybridation. There's also proof that the beetle larvae can't survive very cold winters, which we've had 2 in a row before this year. I treat my ash on my home lot, but there a ton of wild, untreated ash that have shown no signs of EAB. Let's keep it that way.
I have no dead ash on my property up here, I also don't see any dead ash as I travel around the area. I have a friend who said that when he purchased his property he went through and removed all of the ash trees that had sprouted suckers on the sides and he hasn't had any show symptoms since then. Maybe this area is just behind schedule for tree disease, Dutch elm disease didn't arrive here until the 60's. Or maybe the winters are consistently hard enough to prevent the eab from taking real hold.
I really need to harvest as many of the larger, straight Ash I have for saw logs. And sell them to the Amish mills. If any want them right now. I wonder if I put them up on dryers. How long would the logs last for and still be good for saw logs? The rest I can always use for firewood.
No, there's not any suckers on any of the trees at my place. Actually I haven't seen that at all period.
A long, long time!! One of the great things about ash. However, beware of splitting if you want to use for saw logs. You will have to treat the ends no doubt.
I'm not certain how long they'll last, but I'll give my experience with a sawn in half paper birch log I found last winter at my parent's cottage in the basement. It was an 8ft or so piece that was 7" or so that was stored in the basement from an old project. The project was a yule log from when we were in cub scouts. Probably 30 years ago. Lol. There was no rot, it was solid, bark on and sawed in half the long way.
