Morning spin

[tmkr]

Went on a mc ride this morning to feed my dad's chickens,he is 83 and will probably outlive me.I was amazed at the amount of dead ash trees in the woods I passed.I have a small woods and planted around 200 ash and 1000 black locust trees 25 yrs.ago and all the ash trees have borers.I think there are 3 types of ash trees in Indiana,dead ones,dying ones and ones that will be dead in a couple of years.
Emerald ash borers are a non-native species that came from Asia around 2002 and are believed to have to have hitchhiked on a wooden skid on a container ship.There is not a whole lot that can be done to prevent the spread of them.
Thanks China,anything we can do to decimate your woods,forests,tree lawns?

 

[shibumiseeker]

Once the infestation has killed the majority of ash trees you will see the ash make a slow comeback because the borer will run out of food and die off and the trees that remain (and a good number will) will reseed, and younger ash trees in the forest will sprout as suckers.

This is one of the hazards of planting a monoculture, especially trees. When the borer started heading to our area I started logging more ash trees from my woods to reduce the attractiveness, and thus far I've not yet seen signs of them. I'm down to about 1-2 mature ash per acre now.

 

[tmkr]

Once the infestation has killed the majority of ash trees you will see the ash make a slow comeback because the borer will run out of food and die off and the trees that remain (and a good number will) will reseed, and younger ash trees in the forest will sprout as suckers.

This is one of the hazards of planting a monoculture, especially trees. When the borer started heading to our area I started logging more ash trees from my woods to reduce the attractiveness, and thus far I've not yet seen signs of them. I'm down to about 1-2 mature ash per acre now.

I'm in the northern third of Indiana.I hope the little bastards don't get down to you.

 

[shibumiseeker]

I'm in the northern third of Indiana.I hope the little bastards don't get down to you.

Oh, they are already here.

DNR: Indiana Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) Quarantine Map


But they also need a continuous source of trees to "hop" as their normal range is somewhat small, around a mile, so they will thrive in areas with high ash densities, but isolated ash will probably survive and in a century or so we'll probably still see it as a lesser forest species here, unlike chestnut.

 

[tmkr]

Oh, they are already here.

DNR: Indiana Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) Quarantine Map


But they also need a continuous source of trees to "hop" as their normal range is somewhat small, around a mile, so they will thrive in areas with high ash densities, but isolated ash will probably survive and in a century or so we'll probably still see it as a lesser forest species here, unlike chestnut.

I hope you are right.Seems to me a mulberry borer would have been preferable.

 

[shibumiseeker]

I hope you are right.Seems to me a mulberry borer would have been preferable.

I hear ya, or a sycamore pest.

 

[jbell_64]

I'm all for a beech/maple borer.... I'm tired of seeing them take over oak-hickory forests.

 

[shibumiseeker]

I'm all for a beech/maple borer.... I'm tired of seeing them take over oak-hickory forests.

They take over oak-hickory forests because very few people manage their forests. They just get a come-on from a timber company to harvest their timber and don't put any management or thought into it, so every 20-30 years the forest gets high-graded and the beech is left because it's one of the lowest value species in our woods. 2-3 cycles of that and it's no wonder the species mix is changing. Add to that the wonderful deer everyone is excited about consider young red oak to be candy, the turkey scratch for acorns and hickory nuts, and you have a recipe for that beech-maple predominance. It's not because beech and maple are dominant species, they aren't.