Cutting down thousands of ash trees,

[egclassic]

And none of it can be used for fire wood!
One of the townships here is having "thousands" of trees cut down because of the ALB. The contractors hired to cut them down is only allowed to grind it into chips and "sell" it as mulch.
I am sure this is happening elsewhere too, just a shame that with all that wood, none of it can be used for heat.

 

[Gary_602z]

Such a waste of money and wood just to try to beat Mother Nature which will not happen! :-/

Gary

 

[Backwoods Savage]

A terrible waste if there every was one but perhaps you mean the EAB rather than the ALB?

 

[egclassic]

No, the Asian Long-Horn Beetle.(ALB)

http://www.wlwt.com/video/29768405/detail.html

I wonder if the contractors are paying to repair the peoples yards they are tearing up with their trucks!

 

[Gasifier]

That really hurts. What a waste. I heat with Ash every year. The bugs are going to do what the bugs are going to do. Mother nature will have to find the answer, and she always does.

 

[bpirger]

EAB has reached Western NY I know, and suposedly isn't yet in my neck of the woods, just a bit east of Ithaca, but it is just a matter of a couple of years. I understand folks are selling all the ash they have....I have a few that might be ready for harvest, albeit on the small side, but not enough to make it worthwhile I think for a logger. So, I suspect I will be falling and burning ash myself considerably in the near future. A huge waste....I can understand not moving it far, but to grind it all up....that seems dumb. Then again, I suspect we all know people who move wood much farther than they should, perhaps helping the spread, so again, it seems like common sense failures by the few leads to blanket results for the many.

 

[The Beagler]

Seen it on the news tonight. It is the Asian long horned beetle. I believe it is in Clermont County of SW Ohio.

 

[HardWoodW]

looks like the ALB prefers some non-ash trees-
http://www.uvm.edu/albeetle/hosts.htm

 

[egclassic]

Seen it on the news tonight. It is the Asian long horned beetle. I believe it is in Clermont County of SW Ohio.

Tate Township to be exact. That area is part of the East Fork Lake region, lots of trees there. It would be terrible if they cut all those down as well.
I wonder if they are even checking these trees for infestation before cutting them down? If they are not infected, then they are just speeding up the process of what the ALB is supposedly doing anyway, causing the extinction of Ash trees.
Aimlessly cutting trees down because the ALB "might" infect it someday is rediculous, might as well burn your house down now because it "might" catch fire someday!

 

[chinkapin_oak]

This is good news, that action is being taken on the ALB. The Asian Longhorn Beetle poses an extremely serious threat to the timber industry here in the US. Introduced from China, it is spreading rapidly in various places in the US. The favorite tree is maple, but also preys on various other tree species. If left uncontrolled and if no predator is found, it could severely hurt the timber industry.

So yes, it stinks having the forced removal of your yard trees, but you have to look at the big picture on this one.

 

[babzog]

EAB has reached Western NY I know

It's reached Eastern Ontario, Ottawa area and south too. I've lost a few ash trees this year to the little bugger. Watched them die over the summer.. very sad to see. It's firewood to me now, but I would have left them if I could.

Hmmm .. I thought it was EAB. When I've peeled back the bark, I'm not seeing the zigzag trails, rather, I'm seeing what looks like a radiating explosion pattern... a central hole (where the eggs obviously hatched) with "rays" emanating from it. What the heck is doing that?

 

[Gasifier]

This is good news, that action is being taken on the ALB. The Asian Longhorn Beetle poses an extremely serious threat to the timber industry here in the US. Introduced from China, it is spreading rapidly in various places in the US. The favorite tree is maple, but also preys on various other tree species. If left uncontrolled and if no predator is found, it could severely hurt the timber industry.
So yes, it stinks having the forced removal of your yard trees, but you have to look at the big picture on this one.

The only problem I see with what they are doing is this. You cut the trees down they like and they move somewhere else and find more trees they like. I don't believe cutting a whole bunch of Ash trees down is going to solve the problem. Or even mitigate it. I think mother nature is the only one who will mitigate their damage. Humans are the ones who caused the problem. Seems to me this attempt is another mistake we are making.

 

[LIfirewoodreview]

Cutting down trees because it will hurt the timber industry...human greed and stupidity never ceases to amaze me.

I agree they should let nature handle this. Natural selection eventually fixes these problems. Once a predator that likes to eat the ALB shows up, that will change everything. Also, there may be a few Ash trees with a slight genetic variation that makes them more resistant to the ALB..these will be the only ones left and will eventually multiply, with a stronger, more insect-resistant tree as the result. If you kill all of the Ash trees before this natural selection takes place, you're actually making the situation worse and preventing this, perpetuating the weak genetic variants. It may not happen along the timeline we humans want it to (could take a couple of decades), but this is how nature has handled similar problems long before we got here (and will be long after we're gone). I could agree with cutting down infested/dying trees, because these are the weak ones...but not the trees that aren't infested, doesn't make sense.

Just my opinion...

 

[richg]

Dang...You'd think that if they had a tub grinder, they'd be able to grind those things up and turn them into wood pellets. No bug is going to survive going through a dryer and pellet die.

 

[Ehouse]

I agree with firestarter above. Mom nature will provide a solution. Cutting all the trees ahead of time and grinding them is a waste. Harvest them for timber and firewood as they become infected. Towns could reap huge savings in heating public buildings by putting in efficient boilers in anticipation of the windfall.

Ehouse

 

[peakbagger]

The natural response to ALB is going to be the extinction of the majority of the hardwoods in North America. Sure some eventually will develop resistance, but it will be a long time before that happens. In the mean time, millions of acres of dead trees will be on the stump to rot. ALB is a slow traveler and as long as it not hauled a distance by someone in some firewood, the approach of cutting down all the trees in the vicinity of the infestation does eventually stop the infestation.

Unfortunately EAB colonizes rapidly so the cut and quarantine approach doesnt work.

If there was a viable biomass power industry in the area, they could burn the chips as the supply chain could be controlled, but the ban on firewood was put in as its too easy to loose control of just a couple of pieces of firewood. After the worcester mass infestation, the federal government went to the extreme of going to every campground in New England and reviewing their registration books to identify if any guest had come from the infested area. If there were, they would search the campground for any trace of infestation.

 

[woodchip]

If ash is being ground into chips for mulch, would it not be possible to be ground into chips for woodburners that are adapted to burn chips, ie, something like pellet boilers?

I would prefer to incinerate the wood complete with any bug eggs, than mulch my garden with it.

I'm sure I'm not alone there ;-)

 

[blades]

EAB= bane of ash trees, ALB= bane of any thing is not species selective- far worse bug

 

[Hiram Maxim]

Well that is terrible!

On a good note, We (Michigan) were one of the first regions decimated by the EAB in early 2000's and the White Ash are regenerating now.

I have a 4ft White Ash tree growing in my front yard from where a majestic giant once stood.

So When its all said and done hopefully.....Mother Nature will regrow all the trees?

 

[Ehouse]

"The natural response to ALB is going to be the extinction of the majority of the hardwoods in North America. "

That's quite a sweeping statement, and I don't buy it. Back it up.

"In the mean time, millions of acres of dead trees will be on the stump to rot."

Or on the ground to rot if you cut 'em all. The difference is a huge public expenditure.

"the approach of cutting down all the trees in the vicinity of the infestation does eventually stop the infestation."

Well, Duh, but if you mean stops the spread, I don't buy that either. Maybe slows it some.

I'm not trying to attack you, but this type of rhetoric surfaces whenever there's an environmental issue. It's a Chicken Little approach with a lot of wing flapping and squawking but no real solutions. Its usual purpose is to shake some grant money from the public coffers or create employment. mainly desk jobs for "administrators".

Our lakes are full of zebra mussels, Eurasian milfoil, Asian carp etc., in spite of all the monies poured into their eradication. We continue to do irreparable harm to our environment and seem capable of only sham solutions, designed to exploit a given situation. Cutting down all the trees will not save the trees.

Ehouse

 

[onion]

I live about 3 miles from where this little monster was first identified in Tate Twp. and about 1 mile from the nearest known infested tree. I know more about the ALB than I care to.

It's favorite food is maple trees but it also attacks ash, buckeye, sycamore and I think beech. They are currently cutting trees that are infested with the beast (5,000 or so) then they hope to move on and cut down every potential host tree within 1/4 mile of each infested tree. This could amount to 50,000+ trees being cut and chipped with about 45,000 of them just being for preventative measures.

I've been to some of the meetings and listened to the entomologists talk about it as well as their controls in other infestations. This area is rather different because it is out in the country as opposed to the industrial wastelands (USDAs words) in New Jersey and Staten Island and in Chicago. The infestation is only a few miles from East Fork State Park, which is a rather large woodland. In addition there are vast tracts of woodland around the infestation that would be decimated by this critter if it gets out of control.

I am very torn on this issue because I do not want this thing to get out of control, it will cause massive deforestation. On the other hand I have several thousand maple trees on my property that will be sacrificed if they find an infested tree nearby. Chances are they will not be surveying near my property for several months. In that time I plan to cut quite a bit of firewood. I just need somewhere to store it all.

 

[onion]

"The natural response to ALB is going to be the extinction of the majority of the hardwoods in North America. "

That's quite a sweeping statement, and I don't buy it. Back it up.

"In the mean time, millions of acres of dead trees will be on the stump to rot."

Or on the ground to rot if you cut 'em all. The difference is a huge public expenditure.

"the approach of cutting down all the trees in the vicinity of the infestation does eventually stop the infestation."

Well, Duh, but if you mean stops the spread, I don't buy that either. Maybe slows it some.

I'm not trying to attack you, but this type of rhetoric surfaces whenever there's an environmental issue. It's a Chicken Little approach with a lot of wing flapping and squawking but no real solutions. Its usual purpose is to shake some grant money from the public coffers or create employment. mainly desk jobs for "administrators".

Our lakes are full of zebra mussels, Eurasian milfoil, Asian carp etc., in spite of all the monies poured into their eradication. We continue to do irreparable harm to our environment and seem capable of only sham solutions, designed to exploit a given situation. Cutting down all the trees will not save the trees.

Ehouse

Here is a list of trees documented as hosts. Imagine all of the trees represented by the top three categories gone:

http://www.uvm.edu/albeetle/hosts.htm

The trees cut are chipped into mulch not greater than 1" on two sides, this chops up the beetle and larvae which are rather large.

The USDA has effectively eliminated the infestation in NJ, NY and Chicago using this approach. Worcester, MA is a little different as they are chemically treating host trees instead of clearcutting which has proven effective so far.

 

[EJL923]

There must be people in the area who do kiln dried firewood? I dont see how to only solution is chipping.

 

[blades]

Kiln dry firewood fine for that purpose; does not resolve issue of spread of the voracious little beast. If this succer gets out of control you will be burning cowpies or compressed cellulose products because of very scarce wood resources. Effectively making a cord or portion there of un-obtainum $ wise. ALB is fairly adaptable according to some sources - scary senario.

 

[Gasifier]

A question for you. Will the bugs attack wood from the trees that they like if the trees are already cut down, bucked up, split and stacked for firewood?