Do ants make trees unsafe?

[a_lopa]

i suppose i should be there with a motorised cavity scraper

 

[Nathan Wreyford]

It is interesting to the the misconceptions "arborists" have.

http://www.antcolony.org/carpenter_antsmain.htm

Call ants bad and then charge to remove a tree that has ants.

Better yet, broadcast fertilize with high N fert that cause a tree to put out lots of tasty new growth, new growth attracts aphids, aphids attract carpenter ants.....charge to spray for ants or remove the tree Definite devil's circle.

Read up, study ants.

 

[TheTreeSpyder]

The link says that ants enhance the decay process of trees.

Could a case be made that they help limit decay like maggots?

 

[MasterBlaster]

Interesting concept, Kenny.

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Originally posted by TheTreeSpyder
Could a case be made that they help limit decay?

Yes, Shigo and others have made the case that by keeping galleries and passageways clean and open, ants make better air flow, less moisture and less rot.

Jason thanks for the pictures but as Mike notes they do not show ants making the tree unsafe. Fungus eats wood, ants do not. Erik, when you say stuff like "Ants don't start the demise. They sure can do a dandy job of finishing it, though.", you really aren't adding anything but unsubstantiated opinion.

Note that Option #1 said "because...". The idea was to encourage those who see ants as tree-damaging to give a REASON, not just opinion. Still waiting for reasons. Trunks bulge because of decay, not because of ants. Jason at least tried to furnish a reason for his vote; 5 others did not.

And Option #4 referred to a still-fictitious Aussie beast. It's on lopa to convince us that this Abominable Ant that makes trees unsafe actually exists. Until then it sounds like an urban myth that sells urban logging.

Thanks Nathan for the links and advice; I got a lot to learn about insects. As they say here in the South, when we shoot our mouths off we're more likely to hit the target if our brains are loaded.

 

[TheTreeSpyder]

Originally posted by netree
Since no matter what I say you're going to argue, why bother?

Awe heck now ya ruined it; i thought that was part of the fun, competition of dealing with mirrors of our own stubborn selves

 

[Guy Meilleur]

I'll only argue if you're wrong, Erik. You can guzzle a gallon of java and never prove that ants make trees unsafe. Or can you?

Stay tuned? The channel's open, but all I can hear is static, so far. :Monkey:

 

[MasterBlaster]

It's Sunday! Yur supposed to be having a bar-b-que!

 

[underwor]

I agree with the concept that ants are an indication that the tree tree has bigger problems. It would be intersting to see if they ever penetrate the CODIT walls and aid in the spread of fungus, as we did in the days when we tried to clean out cavities. I can not say that I have ever seen ants in sound wood. If they do not eat wood, as the ant colony site says, if they remove only the softest wood to make their galleries, if they use natural openings whenever possible and if they keep the tunnels clean and open to drying aeration, then it sounds much like the medical community using maggots to clean out certain wounds in people so that the amount of damage is limited, but the job completely accomplished. The only way i think they may aid spread of structural loss is if they create galleries outside of the CODIT area and thus allow fungal diseases to spread.

40 below and no humidity do wonders for limiting pest problems in the sunny Dakotas

Bob

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Originally posted by netree
You can quote all the crud you want, Again, ants can come into the picture after disease or injury open up the door as secondary problems... but ultimately it's the removal of even decayed/weakened wood that can cause failure. Weak wood is more structurally solid than air.

Maybe you just aren't understanding what I'm saying? A failure on my part to communicate what's in my head into written form?

Partly. Since ants can't digest cellulose in wood fiber (and only in rare cases of carpenter ants can they break boundaries by cutting into it), and since it's wood fiber that makes trees resist failing, therefore they can't make trees unsafe.

There you have a simple logical syllogism, instead of "crud" in the scientific literature that you don't want to hear.
Do you disagree with one of the premises or the conclusion?

MB's right; it's Sunday afternoon, time to plant trees for pay $ .

 

[Tom Dunlap]

Erik,

Have you found out how strong decayed wood is compared to healthy wood? I'll bet that when you do find that stat you'll see that air is only a smidgeon stronger than decayed wood.

Until I started reading books and info on webpages I had a really uneducated eye. What I saw was really not what was happening. Make flush cuts and the wound seals faster on the outside but is larger on the inside. A good friend of mine had completely grey hair by the time he was thirty. Does that make him "old"?

Your eyes are seeing two things that are related. It seems that you're tying the two observations together with bull rope instead of sewing thread. Decay, ants and weak wood are only weakly related.

Opening up to new ideas that are based on research is a way to learn. You don't have to accept all of the research but it seems pretty limiting to me if you deny it all.

Tom

 

[TheTreeSpyder]

Cuz to support the tape that is wrapped around the foam?

Why would Stumper's(?) model of a hollow line being stronger per # from less friction between inside and outside layers?

On one of my quasi-philosphical ventures may i fence stand (after all that is the hardest position, but i knw that is no defence) and say that perhaps both camps that write are right.

There prolly(hey, it's in the JP dictionary!) is a point where the tree is so weak that any removal of substance is detrimental. i kinda think that would be on the extreme part of the scale, possibly of no return, sharp decline anyway.

In the "Maggot Model"; do not the maggots clean to health; but finally take everything? And in both ways to Nature are useful for what must be done?

i kinda do think that Guy would prevail on most of the curve of that graph of ant's effects; but it would be quite reasonable to possibly assume a reversal at some bend in the graph; as many other things.

Or, something like that!
:alien:

 

[arboromega]

can we be more specific here... what kind of ants? the posts are reading as if everyone is refering to carpenter ants. these ants make a home chewing away at decomposing wood. the choose homes here because the rotting wood is easier to chew. they dont eat wood. their food source is elsewhere such as the sugars left behind from aphids, or they eat other insects.
the only concern then is the ants removing this rotting wood from the cavity. and the answer to the detrement or betterment of that removal is still not fully understood. howeverthe decay of a central column in trees is also sped up by water accumulation and fungus and so i dont think we should place total blame upon the carpenter ant.

 

[Tom Dunlap]

Erik,

Is your question about polesaws the subject of a new thread or metaphorical?

If it's a new thread subject I believe the foam is there to keep contaminants from coating the inside of hotsticks. It also adds strength.

I'm assuming you're trying to make a jump from foam to decayed wood. That leap is a long one. The foam was engineered to have a uniform density and strength to fill the pole. There isn't a similarity to decayed wood in a tree. Bad metaphor it seems to me.

I'm sure that you could find information on the strength of sound and decayed wood on the Forest Prodcuts Lab website. Even without hard data I think all of us have a pretty good intuitive feel for the strength loss of decayed wood. Ants moving around the material would have little effect on the overall strength of the tree limb or trunk.

Tom

 

[glens]

Originally posted by netree
What's the purpose of adding a foam core to pruner poles?

keeping ants out so the cross-section doesn't collapse

 

[TheTreeSpyder]

i think in the pole's case; there is fiberglass tape wrapped around foam; not so much like a hollow pole filled.

:alien:

 

[a_lopa]

seeing as ants are a very important part of our ecosystem being a dry arid continent i guess i wouldnt know them pictures i pasted come from the csiro the aust goverment scientific dept,they were pictures of what ants can do,not fungal decay.

 

[MasterBlaster]

I imagine nature knows what the heck it's doing.

 

[Derek]

Where was I when this started, Must of been in the garage to...

Ok late but here!.....I got the feeling that the Attack (evil) ants option was aimed at ME...Not Aussie, But thanks for steppin up Jason...

It will be 12 hours from now but i ll post some picks of ant damage...


Termites (white ants) are an increadably serious problem in trees or houses...The stack or timber I have sitting around, or the Bench seat thats sits on a couple of imported stumps...

Bloody good thing we have good paint over here, so many places are held together by it, the termites have eaten everything eles..

They will even eat "CypressPine" said to be imune..Bull????...They will eat any thing...


In my firewood days I was ammazed by termites, This would be my longest post EVER if I Decribed the destructive power of them.

And the things ive seen them do...They dont die like I have been told by locals if you expose them to sunlight or seperate them from the soil...

I STILL have old hard blocks of wood with them in there, sitting on concreate for 2 years....THRIVING..

I USED TO HATE DELIVERING WOOD FULL OF TERMITES..
If you cut it and left it for a few days the black ants would clean it up nicley for you .You can see them going up the soft grain holes and dragging them out...(Not a crewl person att all but love to watch them get eaten!...Our house here when we bought it was full of them and had to vacume clean up th inside of some walls, That was all that was left of some!...

Try and eat the steel (we replaced it with) ya little bastards!

No i hate them, MORE than the evil ones..The tree i was in when it was pulled over, was badley termite infested, and can't beleive some of the pipes up trees once ive come down and droped it..

Took me a few weeks to get over being in a falling tree, I look a lot harder these days...In saying that The EVIL ants, the juvinille ones anyway will hunt in trees, They eat termites, its the adults that gaurd them and go for the vibrations of the saw...OUCH, when I got attacked(**** on my rope and couldent get down,) I was going to cut my line, Dident seem to matter that i was 20 meters in the air, landing badley might take the EXCRUCATING pain of the ant stings away!!...Thay can jump a metre as well, grab you with there Mantables and repeadivly sting you with their tail!

Going to remove some infested trees very shortly, in fact..

Tonight I will scan some pics of damage, then you tell me Are certian ants goog for trees....

Heres our EVIL ant again...
posted it heaps before, I should make it my avatar?

More tonight...Derek...ANTHATER!

 

[underwor]

I would guess that the foam in the pruner pole is similar to the core of 16 strand rope, there to keep it from deforming to the point of cracking, but adding minimal strength.

Do you have the link to the thread someone posted on the strength of a hollow tree? I think that if we compared those results to both hollow and well rotted trees, we would find very similar results.

Bob