Ash species Identification help

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!

 

I agree with sms4life

 

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!!

 

Welcome absentx Great to have another Wisconsinite here.

 

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!