Firewood quarantined

Hold the presses! I am in the North Carolina mountains and have 39 acres. I just noticed, a week ago, I have 8 dead black walnuts. I wonder if we have this Thousand Cankers disease around here?

black walnut
ash
oak
chestnut
elm
butternut
All toast.

cherry
mulberry
hackberry
maple
hickory
box elder
black locust
About all that's left around here.

The hills out back used to be called butternut ridge. The last one on the place just toppled this year, completely beat up with virus.

We are going to start to see a shift in the native tree species. Climate change and invasive species/diseases are wrecking many forests.

Sawset said:

black walnut
ash
oak
chestnut
elm
butternut
All toast.

cherry
mulberry
hackberry
maple
hickory
box elder
black locust
About all that's left around here.

The hills out back used to be called butternut ridge. The last one on the place just toppled this year, completely beat up with virus.

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What's going on with oak around here?

tadmaz said:

What's going on with oak around here?

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Oak wilt. It spreads in the air, by bugs, roots that touch, and equipment used to trim and cut.
It's been in western WI for a while, and slowly spreading to SE WI. 60% there have been taken out so far in western WI. Four years ago I could pick out a handful of trees dead or dying here, and thought that maybe brush and saplings were competing with the open grown oaks and smothering them. Then three years ago, I saw a dead white oak, and thought what's up with that. Previously it had been all red oaks. Two years ago I could count dozens of oaks of all types and ages dead and starting to toppling over, no undergrowth competing so it wasn't that. They are goners now. Dozens and dozens dead. Big old oaks. Some, I can tell by the rings that they were slowly dying back for 10yrs before they finally succumb. Didn't even know they were sick. Down in the kettle moraine state forest they are logging out some areas to clear oaks that are ready to go, and also cutting the underbrush to get back to the open oaks savanna like the way it use to be. Supposedly if they have space the disease can't spread as easy. What goes around comes around. I have a picture of my dad on a ridge there from the 50s. No forest to be seen - just open oaks.

SpaceBus said:

We are going to start to see a shift in the native tree species. Climate change and invasive species/diseases are wrecking many forests.

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I see mostly management changes and introduced diseases. There was a lakebed pollen study done in a cascade/Oregon area that showed 1000yrs ago the area was managed for native food production (hazel nut and other food shrubs and trees). Annual fires played a large part. Fire suppression changed all of that, and the abundant species have all changed over to over story trees and very little human food sources. Here it's similar, except the area was managed for farming/hunting/ease of travel - oak savanna and grasslands now have turned to misc. brush and saplings with diseases running rampant.

People have been rearranging the environment for a couple hundred years, now things are settling out as a lot of the land is not under cultivation anymore

rowerwet said:

People have been rearranging the environment for a couple hundred years, now things are settling out as a lot of the land is not under cultivation anymore

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The parts of the environment being changed have increased tremendously in the last 100 years. Humans have been impacting the planet for thousands of years, it's only recently the impact has been noticeable

We have been under quarantine for many years now, it also started with Walnut and thousand cankers, here. It’s enough to make me reconsider heating with wood, as most of the wood you can buy today is diseased or infested with one of these new pests. Not good for your own trees.

SpaceBus said:

The parts of the environment being changed have increased tremendously in the last 100 years. Humans have been impacting the planet for thousands of years, it's only recently the impact has been noticeable

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While I agree there is some scary chit going down, when we start looking at the acceleration in extinction rates, bee populations, and potentially stalling the Gulf Stream, your statement is not technically true. Industrial Age pollution was VERY noticeable, actually much more acutely so, on an urban level, than anything you can observe with your own eyes visiting any large city today. We have done a lot of good work to clean up our act in many ways.

But like that old adage, “friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate,” we keep adding new challenges to the pile. Begreen’s Churchill quote I read on another thread earlier today was appropriate. Maybe I should be ranting over there.

Here is one of my deceased black walnuts. I have hundreds of trees of this size, 18 inch diameter and
95 feet tall.
As the tree dies the bark turns white.
I noticed my first dead black walnut last year. This year I have 10 or 12. Looks ominous.

My entire yard is isolated stands of black walnut. Four here, six over there, another half dozen on each end of the house. If we start losing them, it is really going to kill my curb appeal and our yard and house shading.

The shame is I read there is no known preventative or curative measures. I already treat these trees with a systemic insecticide, to fight off the Spotted Lantern Fly that has been swarming into our area (we are very close to ground-zero), and that will kill the beetles that are carrying the Thousand Cankers disease. But that will do nothing to prevent the tree from contracting the disease, it will only help slow the spread of this pest.

If I understand what I’ve read correctly, the primary pest spreading this disease is a twig beetle that is has been known in this country for almost 100 years. Unlike most of the other tree plagues we have seen over the last 30 years, this one does not appear to be a case of some irresponsible company bringing a new pest to our shores. It may be a case of some irresponsible party doing the same over 100 years ago, but that is not known, at least in what I have read.

Ashful said:

While I agree there is some scary chit going down, when we start looking at the acceleration in extinction rates, bee populations, and potentially stalling the Gulf Stream, your statement is not technically true. Industrial Age pollution was VERY noticeable, actually much more acutely so, on an urban level, than anything you can observe with your own eyes visiting any large city today. We have done a lot of good work to clean up our act in many ways.

But like that old adage, “friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate,” we keep adding new challenges to the pile. Begreen’s Churchill quote I read on another thread earlier today was appropriate. Maybe I should be ranting over there.

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I'm talking about deforestation, changing deserts into crop land, creating islands, and the other monumental changes to the earth's surface. Human changes to the environment, regardless of your opinion on climate change, have increased in scale tremendously in the last 100 years. Humans just didn't have the ability to clear cut hundreds of square miles of land until recently.

SpaceBus said:

I'm talking about deforestation, changing deserts into crop land, creating islands, and the other monumental changes to the earth's surface. Human changes to the environment, regardless of your opinion on climate change, have increased in scale tremendously in the last 100 years. Humans just didn't have the ability to clear cut hundreds of square miles of land until recently.

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Again, I think you’re selling our forefathers short. Whether it’s the dust bowl of the depression years, or the complete deforestation of the eastern seaboard in the 18th into early 19th century, they had an ability to inflict damage beyond that for which you give them credit. Yes, we are touching parts of the globe that had been previously undisturbed, but our awareness has also increased.

Begreen, help me remember the average household firewood usage, that has been reported here many times. I think it was over 30 cords per household, ca.1800? Simultaneously, we were shipping massive amounts of useable timber to Europe the the rest of the world, and building nearly everything we used out of trees.

I’d bet that the global numbers on deforestation, and probably several other measurable factors, will support your argument. But I’d also bet it’s by much less than you would expect. The last 200 years were not exactly times of pristine preservation in this country, Europe, or much of Asia.

Ashful said:

Again, I think you’re selling our forefathers short. Whether it’s the dust bowl of the depression years, or the complete deforestation of the eastern seaboard in the 18th into early 19th century, they had an ability to inflict damage beyond that for which you give them credit. Yes, we are touching parts of the globe that had been previously undisturbed, but our awareness has also increased.

Begreen, help me remember the average household firewood usage, that has been reported here many times. I think it was over 30 cords per household, ca.1800? Simultaneously, we were shipping massive amounts of useable timber to Europe the the rest of the world, and building nearly everything we used out of trees.

I’d bet that the global numbers on deforestation, and probably several other measurable factors, will support your argument. But I’d also bet it’s by much less than you would expect. The last 200 years were not exactly times of pristine preservation in this country, Europe, or much of Asia.

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The deforestation of new England was nothing compared to the areas of rainforest that have been demolished. Timbers may have been shipped across the Atlantic, but that was an emissions free journey. 30 cords per household sounds like a ton of wood, but how many households? I bet there are more households today burning 30 cord per year in an OWB than in America period in 1800. The last 25 or so years has seen a huge decrease in emissions, but total impact seems to keep going up.

bholler said:

Back to the original topic it really surprises me the number of wood burners that have no idea they shouldn't be moving firewood very far. Even on this site a few times a year we have people comment about hauling wood 50+ miles and when they are told they shouldn't be doing it they had no idea at all.

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I wonder about that. Not disagreeing, and very much try to comply, but, I haul wood at home (Wisc) - Yet I'm in South Carolina right now - same vehicle - with a small wood crate of particle board, and a pile of cardboard packaged goods, in the same truck bed that the day before was a load of cord wood that I know was infested with oak wilt. Short of hosing down the truck with bleach, there is a fine line and progressing set of responsibilities that to me isn't real clear. Cord wood, bark, sawdust, dust, micro dust, crates, cardboard, misc packaging, empty, etc. Sweeping it out is about all I would expect to need the average guy to adhere to, yet I see that as hardly adequete. Viruses bacteria and fungi transmit far easier than that.

bholler said:

No in the 1800s many people were still heating and cooling with open fireplaces. That took massive ammounts of wood. The widespread use of coal cut down on the usage of wood allot but that came with it's own problems. The number of houses using 30 cords a year now is a tiny fraction of a percent. I agree with just about everything you have said just that your timeline is off.

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I'm saying that small percentage of the current US population is more than the number of households using 30 cords in an open fireplace. Households had a lot more people in them than they do today. The difference being that today the vast majority are heating with fossil fuels or fossils fuel derived electricity, but that wood use is still there. Regardless, waste and consumption have only increased with time.


I honestly didn't know about moving firewood until we moved here in November and started heating with wood. There are posters and signs all over town saying it's bad. I picked up an EAB pamphlet at the dump a few weeks ago.

SpaceBus said:

I'm saying that small percentage of the current US population is more than the number of households using 30 cords in an open fireplace. Households had a lot more people in them than they do today.

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You really need to study your history SpaceBus. Average household size has NOT changed substantially, unless you are looking solely at the last 40 years (more people staying single or not having kids). I can use the history of my own house as an example, each generation that lived here had two kids, from the mid-1700’s - 1900. Then there was one generation in the early 1900’s, not the 1800’s or 1700’s, with 9 kids. But by then, they had closed the open fireplaces, and were using wood stoves. This population trend is not unusual.

Furthermore, the populated portion of this country was no where near as sparse as you randomly guess. Get your facts straight. Population growth came with western expansion, population density in the mid-Atlantic corridor has not changed more than 3x - 4x in over 200 years, but the fraction of people burning open fireplaces for primary heat has changed 1000x. No matter how you slice it, bholler is right, by a factor of greater than 200x.

Ashful said:

You really need to study your history SpaceBus. Average household size has NOT changed substantially, unless you are looking solely at the last 40 years (more people staying single or not having kids). I can use the history of my own house as an example, each generation that lived here had two kids, from the mid-1700’s - 1900. Then there was one generation in the early 1900’s, not the 1800’s or 1700’s, with 9 kids. But by then, they had closed the open fireplaces, and were using wood stoves. This population trend is not unusual.

Furthermore, the populated portion of this country was no where near as sparse as you randomly guess. Get your facts straight. Population growth came with western expansion, population density in the mid-Atlantic corridor has not changed more than 3x - 4x in over 200 years, but the fraction of people burning open fireplaces for primary heat has changed 1000x. No matter how you slice it, bholler is right, by a factor of greater than 200x.

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I'm not saying the same amount of people still burn 30 cords per year in an open fireplac. Of all the people living in this county today the same amount of wood is being burned in high polluting wood burning appliances (non EPA stuff) as was burned in open fireplaces across the US in 1800. It might seem like EPA Wood burning appliances are the majority in this country, but the legacy of the 70's energy crisis lives on. I see countless houses in my county burning smoke dragons of all shapes and sizes. Most don't even split the firewood until it's time to put it in the stove. You guys are functioning under the assumption that all of today's wood burners are being responsible. No sector of this planet has responsible human beings on it.