Ash borer

We have confirmed reports of Ash borers in Waterloo, IA. I guess it is a long slow bye, bye to Ash trees. It is happening all over the mid west.
They are most often transported to uninfected areas in firewood. As far as I know there is no insecticide to kill them.

I heard second hand the cold winter has set back the bores 5 years. Anybody else heard this?

Wish the U.S. Forest Service or USDA could find something to kill them.

I have a good selection of Ash that has been bored, some of it bored a lot. I use it for special projects for people that think "worm wood" looks good.

From what I've read - the cold weather doesn't affect the Emerald Ash Borer unless there are sustained below zero temps. Some Michigan state biologists (tree-ologists?) recently claimed that this year's colder then normal winter has not been cold enough to slow them down. We've had a few nights at 20-22 F below but nothing steady much below zero F.

If you have the emerald ash bore you might as well fire up the chainsaw. Here in Mi they have run rampant and killed all the ash I've seen. I have more trees then I can keep up with for firewood.

nice try dick,..but the ash borer does not get into the wood it only lives between the bark and the wood and kills by girdling the tree, and yes they have a insecticide for the little buggers, if you use it before they get into the tree, you pour it on the ground around the tree and it is taken into the layer they live off of,i believe it's called the cambium layer..so if it's coming your way and you're not infested you can still save your trees,...but you have to use it before they arrive

i have alot of them dying here in east central ohio on my farm i assume it is the beatle,i have also heard there is a blite that also is killing them though i dont know if that is true or not.
RICK

I've got a timber transplanted good ash in the yard and have treated the ground around it the last three years. Pretty isolated, so perhaps the treatment is just a waste. Tornado destroyed the soft maples but the ash remains. Many ash at the farm but isn't economically feasible to treat them. If the borers come then they will die along with the already dead elm and some dying red oaks. Cedar and black walnuts seem to flourish along with the junk such as honey suckle etc.

I have one in the yard that was my wifes favorite tree, so I am treating it, All the rest have died, this had a few holes in it but its doing good, I treat it in the spring as soon as it warms up.

What I don't understand is no one is suppose to haul any firewood any distance but there are logging trucks loaded and traveling on major highways and no sawmills closeby.

I've heard the cold should kill a few as well.

Not that it will do much but slow things down a bit perhaps.

Same with corn insects, the cold should help knock them down some.

We were the center of elm trees here, more than any other tree.

With thrm mostly gone, and now the ash bore waiting both north and south of us, going to be nothing left but all maple trees as far as one can see.

When something comes and gets those, its going to be pretty bare around here.

Ground is pretty wet and clay and high ph for most evergreens.

Paul

Our forestry service in KY puts these purple boxes on the ash trees. I have seen several driving down the interstate.

I have just shy of 20 acres of hardwood on the place that is my personal refuge. I have a few trails cut thru it and I walk back in there and just hang out. Most of the really big trees in there are ash and hickory with some maples and oaks. I should say WERE not ARE because that little bug can kill an ash tree PDQ. The bark just slides right off onto the ground. Lots of little swirly trails cut in the living layer under the bark. Ash is brittle and it snaps off in pretty much any wind. If the wind doesn"t do it the shallow roots heave out of the ground and it leans over. Get out your saws because when they fall they take out anything in their way. I have so many down I probably never get them all cut up. Pretty sad, but the woods is still one of the prettiest places on the farm.

They tried that in Mich. Warning folks to not move fire/camp wood, posting numerous pics of the borer. Non of the "experts" ever thought to post pics of ash wood so the city folk/unfamiliar could avoid moving it! If you got borer coming cut/log all you can now and get some firewood/sawlogs/$, because they will die soon.

I have one in my back yard I want to attempt to save. I think when it warms up I am gonna spray up as far as I can with Chlordane. May have enough DDT to give it one treatment as well.

Gene

From what I've read if you're i a city or campus setting treating trees is cheaper than having them cut down later by an arborist. Seems I saw somewhere the folks running the Edsel B Ford home/museum said it cost them about $20 to treat each tree. It is also my understanding that moving any wood with bark on it can transport the little green booger. Which explains why the MI DNR has the forbidden firewood pile on the NORTH side of Big Mac (easier to infect the UP that way, the DNR doesn't much care for Yoopers). Not entirely up on it, yes I'm a native troll but I last lived in Michigan 25 years ago (and even at that I was Air Force, I lived there but not really) been in exile over the Cheddar Fence for the last 14 years. Michigan State University Forestry was the folks that discovered the EAB and have done some work on containment but it is still spreading. What trees are we going to have left? Chestnuts are gone from the Chestnut Blight, Elms from the Dutch Elm Disease, Maple are getting hit hard with Verticillium wilt (at least urban trees under high stress) what other species have we lost? Some of it is caused by the trees we plant and unsustainable forestry practices. When I was with the county I had to select some new trees for the courthouse lawn. We had a Yellow Buckeye that had grown to big and was messing with the courthouse foundation and was showing signs of stress (no nuts and would start turning colors in August) Also had a Stitka Spruce that was making it known it wasn't happy and 5 or 6 Maples with wilt. Of course the sugar maple is the State tree of Wisconsin and many wanted me to plant sugar maples. My forestry friends told me it wasn't a good idea most urban sugar maples are dealing with a lot of stress. In a nod to our county's heritage I planted two white pines on the west side of the courthouse, they get enough shade to keep the weevil from taking root and the White Pine was the tree that sustained the forestry industry of Northern Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota for years. Where I didn't want evergreens I used a maple hybrid called a Freeman Maple, they where thriving when I left that job.

Here in southern NY all counties under quarantine can't move wood or logs out of the area. I cut and sold our logs two years ago before quarantine as I figured only a matter of time. Still none right in our area though hope they stay away.

Talked to a couple of ash bore pros. today and they don"t know for sure how much damage to the ash bore has been done with the very cold days we have had. She said to watch for woodpeckers, with binoculars in the month of March, for the branches that are 4inches or larger. Damage starts at the top of tree and works down and takes about three years to reach the bottom. There is a wasp they are using with good results. We had ours treated a few years ago and need to do it again this year, they drill 8 small holes at the base and inject a solution. So if you see an ash dying from the top it is to late.

The U of Minnesota is researching what to do when all the ash trees are gone. They are expecting near total loss.