Been cutting down some ash at the grand daughters, noticed some thing on quite a few of them. The center of a lot of the trees have rot inside them. I haven't seen this before when cutting other ash trees. Its even in some of the smaller ones like 5'' in diameter. Some of the bigger one's have it some don't. And, the centers are almost all dry rot, meaning the very center wood is completely dry inside where the rot is almost to the point of being powdery. These are not old tree's by any means, the biggest being in the 12-16 '' range. And, all of them no matter the size have really shot up in height. I told her the best thing she could do is let me cut down all the one's that are close enough to reach her house. I'll try to take some pictures and post them so you can see what i'm looking at.
Wow, that is weird. The only time I've had center rot in ash is one time a tornado went through not too far from us. We had some strong straight line wind and it took down a big ash. It broke off about 12' up but was still somewhat fastened. Leaves still grew out of the tree even though it was down. After 2 or 3 years it did die so I then cut it. To my surprise, it was hollow and full of carpenter ants up to where it broke. I don't know if the ants got in before it was down or after but it was full of them. I split the wood in the winter so the ants were asleep. We had a flock of turkeys that crossed the back yard daily at that time so I took some of my wife's birdseed and drew a line from where they were crossing up to where I had split and where the ants were all over the place. It worked as they cleaned them up nicely. What did not work well was stopping them from checking the woodpile daily after that, but I did stop them after a bit.
Here's a picture of what I was talking about. The stump is about 14" the other picture is of the same tree but higher up on one of the forks. There was also some really punky type wood as I cut more towards the top of the tree.
I can understand why you thought it was ash, the rot pattern on that piece is just what cherry does after a little while. I've cut and stacked some perfectly sized rounds of cherry , in the dry mind you, and about a year later, go out to get some wood. Its HOLLOW, and just the bark is holding it together. I'm really glad i cut that one big ash down, it was really punky up higher in the big forks. Might have some thing to do with the wet ground back in this area. The bad thing is, might not be able to burn all the branches and brush i've got stacked up. I covered them yesterday, well some of them, they say rain by this coming tues. The ground is pretty dry back there, and the leaves are deep and super dry as well. Thought i'd add this, the wood is already cracking, from the time i cut it till i got it home was maybe 4hrs, and it has cracked in 3 places about 2'' long. Shoot, if i'm lucky, it might split itself, lol.
They say there are no emerald ash borer's here in the PNW, but, I'm beginning to wonder about that. I'm going to really start looking at this wood as i split it, and see what i find.
I just looked up the rotting from the inside out, i see why you asked that question. It say's the center rot could be caused from damage to the bark, or the tree by improper pruning, which causes a fungus to go to the heart of the tree and start rotting. Its called heart rot. I don't think these tree's have been damaged like that, but, if some of the limbs have been broken off by a storm, or some other way, maybe this is the cause to this rotting in the middle of the tree.
I see it a lot with maple trees planted in lawns. I also see heartwood gone in swamp maples from broken and dead branches. Might be more prevalent in the trees growing in standing water being more prone to decay.
Tons of EAB destruction around here. That doesn’t seem like it’s from the beetles though. I’d have to agree that there may have been a busted branch somewhere that rotted down in following the heart. I’d say it may have had some help from other critters, squirrels, bugs or woodpeckers. I do know that I cut an ash a year or so ago that had a round hole following the heart starting at the stump going up a few feet. I will have to check the wood pile and see if I split it or not yet for a photo. Most of the EAB trees seem to go outside in with random brittle points and certain limbs. The scariest thing is that ones that have been dead a while are rotting just below the ground!!!! The unsuspecting saw operator and even worse someone climbing can get a nasty surprise!
