Yeah i guess my arborists peripheral vision (im sure you can relate) only catches them when the leaves are missing and in groves. Healthy grove of them not likely to be spotted.
This is a screenshot of Connecticut from the iNaturalist app I use. All the red dots are places where it's been reported by app users. No doubt it's more widespread than what's actually been reported so far. Across the country, reported sightings (on iNaturalist anyway) look like this:
Yeah I'm a member, mostly to document all the surviving American chestnuts I find. That site/app is for documenting everything from fungi, to animals, trees, plants, fish, insects, parasites, plant pathogens etc. I did upload one observation of beech leaf disease from Middletown.
This is about a one minute drive up the road from me, today. There's not a lot of beech in that area, but what little is there looks diseased. What a tragedy. There's an absolutely massive European copper beech down the road from me that will be a shame to see gone. I'll bet it's been there for at least 100 years. This picture really doesn't do it justice. From Google maps:
I wonder if the copper beech will get it too- I would have to assume so. There’s some real monsters in the area and they’ll have to get cut down soon bc they’re in parks. Sad to think about.
Fair point, which is why I take the little bit of news I do consume with a massive grain of salt sometimes.
I’ve got a bunch behind the in-laws place here in Michigan and will remove them if they become infected and process into firewood. There’s some biguns back there!
There ya go, it makes good fuel if you can split it. The last batch I scored had to be noodled. It was either that or deal with gnarled and twisted chunks that wouldn't stack worth a _____.
We’re starting to get some beech mortality here. Some trees with no leaves at all, other trees with a few sparse leaves which are already deformed from the disease.
Three weeks ago, I was in Maine visiting my nephew. He was finishing up his seasonal ski patrol work at Sunday River Resort and we checked out a few parks in the area. I noticed in Grafton Notch State Park many beech trees had held onto their leaves over the winter. I knew this wasn't a good sign but was unaware of how bad it actually was. I really hate to see this.
I noticed a couple small beeches in the woods at my oak cut yesterday and they looked sad. I also noticed this one next to my landlords house when I came home yesterday. Rest of the trees in full bloom. Have to see in my woods.
This is terrible! This is bigtime on my mind due to my 100% loss of all sassafras trees on my land recently. Just got out more out as firewood today. Interesting... a logger friend who came and looked over my land with me said they lost their sassafras six to seven years ago. And they're only 15 miles from me! Anyway, was thinking of oak blight and the oak killers... what if an oak bad guy morphs into something and it wipes out all oak trees. Talk about disaster! I really have my doubts about the future. We are losing species at such an alarming rate, plant and animal. I have hardwoods, thankfully, but this is pine plantation country. Pine beetles are ramping up again. My friend said it's getting bad again.
Personally I think that in the long term it might be possible. Short term I think we’re looking at close to a total loss for most wild trees.
I checked the lone beech at storage and very healthy. Leafing out with no signs of disease. The ones just into my woods at home not so good. Few leaves and sickly.
