Emerald Ash borer

If your trees are healthy, do not bring infected wood home. Nice firewood, but too much risk. Check your trees carefully for the D shaped holes in the bark. If you see them, you have the borer. A C

Also maybe check into the cost of treating your trees with a systemic insecticide, you may have the only Ash trees left if you can keep them healthy.

Agree with AC, if your ash trees are healthy. My BIL who is a horticulturist told me no matter what kind of treatments you give to your trees, they will eventually be infected by the ash borer.

I notice you are in Philly, have you seen many dead ash in your area?

He also said there are scientists working to find a predatory insect such as wasps to attack and kill the ash borer. So far no luck.

If you want to save your trees start getting them injections. The bug will kill them sooner or later, I haven't seen one it's missed yet! It's a nasty little sucker!

If they still are bug free I wouldn't bring the infected wood home.

I don't think dead, split, dried ash would attract Emerald Ash Borers. The bugs are looking for live trees to lay eggs on. That said, I probably wouldn't risk stacking ash next to an uninfected Ash tree. Is there somewhere else you can stack the Ash for a year or so? If you can stack it somewhere else, then move it home and burn it during cold weather (when the EABs probably can't move due to the cold) then the risk should be minimal.

Look the wood over really well for 1/8" to 1/4" "D" shapes holes in the bark.......that's the EAB. If it is infected, you will find them. If no EAB holes, it would be a shame not to get the wood, its one of the better woods to burn. That being said, you are only slightly stalling the inevitable, the bug will run its course whether you help it or not.......there's nothing that will stop it short of a massive insecticide program (which is what we need to control the out-of-control invasive bug population).

They advise you to loosely double wrap the wood in plastic sheeting without any escape route for two years at its source before you transport it that will kill the bug. Since no one goes through that effort the next best thing to minimize its spread to its normal level is to let it season at its source and transport it while the bug is in dormancy with the caveat that you entirely burn the wood by a certain date depending upon where you live or let it season at its source for two years without the burn it all stipulation.

If you want to stand any chance at saving your trees, I would start treating them this spring. You will need to continue to treat them every year. This will be expensive but has shwon that it can be effective if you start before the borer has invaded. If the borer is 15 miles from you, you don't have long, I'm afraid.

In northern Illinois, where I'm at, I hear the ads on the radio all the time...................."don't move firewood"!!

However; the county guys and the township guys where I live, do it all the time!! Is this about controlling the EAB or about "controlling" citizens and their activities???? IMHO, it's real hypocritical for gov. officials to tell you what not to do, when they're doing it themselves

dorkweed said:

In northern Illinois, where I'm at, I hear the ads on the radio all the time...................."don't move firewood"!!

However; the county guys and the township guys where I live, do it all the time!! Is this about controlling the EAB or about "controlling" citizens and their activities???? IMHO, it's real hypocritical for gov. officials to tell you what not to do, when they're doing it themselves

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Hypocritical or not, don't get caught. The penalty probably isn't worth the wood. That being said, we had an Ash quarantine here for several years, but the bugs didn't really seem to obey county or state lines very well. They have no natural enemies here, nor do our trees have any natural immunity. If you wanna blame somebody, it's US Customs for not inspecting wooden shipping containers. The bug simply does it's thing in one area, reproduces & moves on, the adults fly, & blow in the wind to the next live tree. Once the damage is done, the tree may live in decline for a few years before failing to leaf out at all, but it's already too late. A C

Oh yeah, & when was the last time you noticed any gov't body following it's own rules?

I hope they stop this EAB , as I have stated in other post I am out of my teritory for awhile and it is awful to see the Ash fall to an Asian critter, I live in Va but am working for a short time in Ohio, and it is very sad to see all these dead Ash trees. Only thing we can do is not tote firewood x amout of miles.and hope for someone to come up with something to stop this.

At home we have a stink bug from Asia that are ruining the apples, seems the the stink bug made it across the ocian but not it's preditor, so now the plan is to introduse the preditor.

(Don't Mess With Mother Nature)

Joful said:

Thanks, Andy. As I learn more about this, I see and hear of more ash trees in our area that are in decline. Still, our local gub'ment sites all say we're clear of the bug, at least as of Oct.2011. Two coworkers swear their entire lots of ash have been in decline for 4 years, and the symptoms are very much in line with the descriptions of EAB. Might be worth a call to the local Ag dept. office to have them check it out, but I hate to upset anyone by "reporting" their trees.

Worth repeating:

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I'm not so much concerned about the "regular" guy hauling stuff, as he usually only goes around scrounging close to home. Even many of the tree services that haul stuff off to split and sell...................they normally sell split wood close to where the trees were felled etc.

What about the tree services; and there are more and more of these type appearing all the time, that chipper shread every bit of wood they cut. Where's all that mulch going???? Is it going to places that dye it, bag it, and ship it over the country???

I go back to the hypocritical from my prior post

I have burned ash over the past few years, but hadn't seen any signs of the EAB in any oof it. It comes from our woods on the back 40. So far all the ash trees look ok out there. I find that Ash is nice to work with and burn and since it is available to meI use it.

But... we do have EAB in the area and...

We noticed this summer that the EAB had infected an Ash shade tree in our yard. Bark was being knocked off by woodpeckers, canopy was weak/thin in places, some suckers started growing low on the trunk (below EAB infection points) and a couple of smaller limbs died. After some online research and having a local arborist out, we decided to treat the tree. There were two main chemicals/products used, but one was better than the other - can't recall the names right now. It requires a treatment (injection) at least every other year, at a cost of about $250 for a 20" DBH tree. The arborist says he's treated over a hundred trees and has not lost a single one. But the treatment has to continue indefinitely. We figured $125-$150 per year was better than losing a nice shade tree close to the house, and having tio remove excavate and replant with a tree which would take years to shade us.

A few weeks back we were on a road trip into the thumb area of Michigan, and saw woods/tracts with acres of ash trees totally or nearly dead. Kinda scary for some of the areas of my woods, though it's only a few acres...

AJ, I noticed that when the trees start to grow those suckers, they are on their last leg. Usually that is the last year or next to last year for any leaf on those trees. Sad to see. I'm amazed every time I go somewhere looking at all the dead trees. Never seen anything like this before and that includes the big dutch elm problem back in the 50's.

Backwoods Savage said:

AJ, I noticed that when the trees start to grow those suckers, they are on their last leg. Usually that is the last year or next to last year for any leaf on those trees. Sad to see. I'm amazed every time I go somewhere looking at all the dead trees. Never seen anything like this before and that includes the big dutch elm problem back in the 50's.

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Boy Dennis, I've gotta agree completely. DED was one thing, but this is unreal, every Ash tree I've seen in 3 counties is dead or in serious decline. I never realized just how prevalent they are/where around here till they all started dying. It's really a sad thing to see. A C

I was glad not to have any ash on our upper MI property, which is now quarantined. Since Alger county is surrounded by non-quarantined counties, it was most likely from trolls (those who live below the bridge, for you non-Michiganders) bringing firewood north. Anyway, now beech bark disease is moving through the UP and they are starting to all die off. They make up a large number of my bigger trees, thankfully not near the house. It's a bad time to be a tree...

Do EABs only feed on ash and move on to a new area or do they stick around and hit other species? I've noticed a lot of ash saplings in my wood lot. It got me thinking that an area could maybe recover down the road if EAB moves on to greener pastures and the saplings mature.

Here is a pic of one of two ashes in my yard, in similar shape. It came out this spring full of leaves, but the EAB is slowly doing it's work.