Emerald Ash Borer in Wisconsin

Extension University of Wisconsin-Madison ^ | (May 2024) | Extension University of Wisconsin-Madison

[kawhill]

Trees can decline for a number of reasons: insects, disease, soil compaction, winter injury, drought stress, and many other factors.

[kawhill]

Was looking for some white ash baseball bats. Can't find them. Was wondering if anyone knew of an American baseball manufacturer who could still produce these bats. Seems everything now is rock maple or beech or birch.

[Governor Dinwiddie]

Emerald Ash Borer got all my ash trees. Pisses me off. Another invasive species. The foreigners killed all our elm trees, they killed all our chestnut trees, and now the foreigners are killing the last of our ash trees.

Deadly imports: In one U.S. forest, 25% of tree loss caused by foreign pests and disease From a deadly fungus that showed its face in 1904 on an American chestnut in the Bronx to a nematode recently found to kill American beeches in Ohio, forests in the United States have faced more than 100 years' worth of attacks from introduced pests and pathogens. But how much of a chunk are these invaders actually taking out of the woods? A new study suggests the impact is severe, accounting for one-quarter of all tree deaths in eastern U.S. forests over the past 3 decades. Full story at www.science.org

[Chad C. Mulligan]

Emerald Ash Borer got all my ash trees. Pisses me off. Another invasive species.

Thank you the Chinese. I watched all the ashes in Michigan die in the middle '00s. The biologist sleuths traced it back to contaminated crate wood that arrived in Detroit from China. "Certified pest-free", of course, but that means nothing to the Chinese.

There was a short time when kiln-dried ash could be had for next to nothing, but soon the sawmills wouldn't buy ash at all, because they couldn't sell it at a profit, so it was simply burned in tremendous bonfires.

[campaignPete R-CT]

Mature ashes are all dead in the woods here

Same with hemlock, elms
And I kill the Norway maples

Younger elm and Ash doing fine. Takes a number of years before they’re infested

[metmom]

I have heard that when there are no ash trees around, the borers go after other hardwoods.

We have friends in NY who are losing their ash trees to that vermin. I don’t know about us yet here in NH. We have ash on our property. We’ll see how long they last. I sure hope someone is working on a way to stop them.

[metmom]

What’s going on with hemlocks?

[Does so]

Beavers tried to kill a huge ash adjacent to my NH property. It’s coming back; that is, HALF of it is coming back.

Seedlings are everywhere: they’ve become a weed...!

[Does so]

Eastern Hemlocks develop a partial die-off of their branches. Those branches don’t recover.

We used to fear the Wooly Algedid, but those pale now.

Eastern Hemlocks aren’t really good for much. One needle in a coffee mug makes that cup undrinkable. They do get large, but shade out other forest trees—even their own kind.

It’s better to have White Pine, oak, cedar, queen pine, maple, hickory, blueberries, pink lady’s slipper, and other wildflowers.

NH used to advertise that “NH was 90 percent TREES and the rest was WATER”.

Treeless storage units (which is ALL of them) have sprung up everywhere, so newcomers can store their treasures that they’ll never retrieve.

Eastern Hemlock makes for cheap lumber, but there’s a reason that it’s cheap...!

[metmom]

So we learned about hemlocks. And yes, we do have a lot of trees and water.

Last winter (2023) we had one come down and take out the power line up to our house. And it was a good distance from the driveway, but HUGE. We have lots of hemlocks on our property.

We’ve been thinning out the pines and hemlocks that are small enough to manage. They quickly take over and shade out the hardwoods, which I prefer, so we’re getting rid of what we can and letting in more light and air for the deciduous trees to flourish.

The NH State Forest Nursery sells seedlings for many native plants at $1.50 each. A great deal compared to nurseries and catalogs. They are small, but that also means less transplant shock.

NH State Forest Nursery Store
https://buynhseedlings.com/

The sale is in December and you can either have them shipped to your house for a fee or go to Boscawen to pick them up.
They sell out FAST!!!!!

[PIF]

There now is a fungus that infects Blue Spruce in Wisconsin - it thins the needles on branches. If you have one of those trees, and the tree seems less dense, your tree is infected. A slow killer so the tree will last for years before it succumbs.

[moovova]

[campaignPete R-CT]

In the east, hemlocks are bring wiped out by the woolly Adelaide. A Bug

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemlock_woolly_adelgid

[Old Yeller]

Should this thread be caucus locked for just Emerald Ash Borers?

[Does so]

Blue Spruce is native to Colorado.

There are plenty of trees that shouldn’t be planted outside of their native territory. Ash should be happy in NH.

I’m in NH, but shouldn’t plant boreal Black Spruce, which thrives quite well in next-door Maine...!

[PIF]

These are all imported pests - where the tree is planted has noting to do with it. The Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) will eventually make its way to your state and kill off ash trees.