EAB and woodpeckers

[zogger]

I always am paying attention to the status of the woodlots here, and today saw something I just haven't noted before, a woodpecker hitting an apparently healthy ash tree. Now I have gone and looked at the maps, and although it has been found in Tennessee, it is pretty far from my area.

So you guys who have had it heavy, how soon do the woodpeckers start nailing infested trees? Well before any sign of canopy damage, or is it just too random to tell? This was high up in the tree so I can't look where the woodpecker was hammering away, just want to stay on top of things. I have not noted any insect that looks like the pictures of EAB.

Yes, I am aware it could be any number of insects, just was something I didn't notice ever before. We have so many standing dead of various species, I am surprised to see woodpeckers feeding in any healthy trees, it is that rare. Not totally absent, just rare. Now sapsuckers are different of course.

Thanks in advance for any anecdotal information you might have!

 

[stumpy75]

http://www.emeraldashborer.info/files/E-2938.pdf

Check the bottom of this page for a good pic of woodpecker activity with EAB on ash trees. Most of the trees around here show this type of woodpecker damage... Maybe use some binocs for a closer look? Also, do you see any D shaped holes on the trunk of the trees?

We have a lot of woodpeckers around here, and almost no sapsuckers, so I'm not sure what to say about that one. We HAVE had a large population shot of pilliated woodpeckers since the EAB...

 

[zogger]

http://www.emeraldashborer.info/files/E-2938.pdf

Check the bottom of this page for a good pic of woodpecker activity with EAB on ash trees. Most of the trees around here show this type of woodpecker damage... Maybe use some binocs for a closer look? Also, do you see any D shaped holes on the trunk of the trees?

We have a lot of woodpeckers around here, and almost no sapsuckers, so I'm not sure what to say about that one. We HAVE had a large population shot of pilliated woodpeckers since the EAB...

Thanks, I'll watch for all those symptoms. I was thinking more woodpeckers and activity in the ash trees might be a giveaway.

Technically, I don't think there is any reason to believe it won't eventually spread to any region that supports ash trees.

If the government was smart, they would institute a nationwide just wipe out the ash trees, get them burnt so as to profit from it, wood heat or electricity generating, save seed stock, wait five years, ash borer moth is now all killed off gone, then replant seedlings all over. That's the sort of thing only governments could do. Put a quarter million dudes (a million, just sayin') to work right now with saws and trucks and just get r done. Go all over, every nook and hollow. Heck, do a few other species that need to go while they are at it, like japanese privet and multiflora rose. The real "clean up america" project, public works that make sense. Better than chunking truckloads of cash to bankers to cover their derivatives bets.....

Instead, they'll fart around with joke quarantine areas for the next 20 years, making it harder and harder and harder and harder to deal in wood products, when the ash borer moth can't read the regulations to begin with and doesn't understand it isn't to travel....

 

[KsWoodsMan]

If the government was smart, they would institute a nationwide just wipe out the ash trees, get them burnt so as to profit from it, wood heat or electricity generating, save seed stock, wait five years, ash borer moth is now all killed off gone, then replant seedlings all over. That's the sort of thing only governments could do. Put a quarter million dudes (a million, just sayin') to work right now with saws and trucks and just get r done. Go all over, every nook and hollow. Heck, do a few other species that need to go while they are at it, like japanese privet and multiflora rose. The real "clean up america" project, public works that make sense. Better than chunking truckloads of cash to bankers to cover their derivatives bets.....

Instead, they'll fart around with joke quarantine areas for the next 20 years, making it harder and harder and harder and harder to deal in wood products, when the ash borer moth can't read the regulations to begin with and doesn't understand it isn't to travel....

That makes sense to probably 99% of us but the other 1% gets to make those decisions. Since they don't benefit from erradicating a bug in our firewood they couldn't care less. Meaning there is no money in it for them or their peers so why bother ? They don't care about our firewood or lawn trees.

 

[Steve NW WI]

Zog, I don't have any EAB experience, but between Dutch Elm Disease and Oak Wilt, I've seen my share of trees killed. I like your idea to a point, but it WAS tried, at least in more urban areas, with DED, and didn't help and in the long run probably hurt. You being a "greener than average American" should know that Ma Nature provides, and takes away. I have on my land, Elms that survived the first, second, and now 3rd wave of DED, and are seeding down (hopefully) resistant offspring. I hunt about 40 miles north of here, in heavy Oak Wilt areas, red oaks that should be dead with the rest of them are thriving, and hopefully carrying on those genes.

This is the other side of the "Roundup Ready" resistant weeds, trees that are immune to what's being dished out by the bugs. Let the battle rage, don't do anything to encourage the spread meanwhile, and our forests will be healthier in 50 or 100 years for it.

As far as I know, the only tree species wiped out by an invasive species in modern times is the American Chestnut, and they're not totally extinct either. While a comeback in our time is a Loooong shot, in 500 years, we could have forests dominated by them again. It is also thought that heavy cutting of the chestnuts killed resistant trees...

On the woodpeckers, they'll go after any bugs in the tree, whether they are EAB beetles or something else. I've had friends wanting to shoot the 'peckers, saying they're killing their yard trees. I pulled back some bark to show them their trees were already dying, they just weren't dead yet.

 

[apattie]

For a long time, they said that EAB hadn't crossed the Hudson, but all our Ash trees are dying and now I see where they've put up traps in the tops of trees. My town has this stupid law that you can't cut trees over 5"'s. Some people are just unbelievable.

 

[stumpy75]

Destroying all of the ash trees just isn't going to work. Just too many of them. You'd never get all of them, and they do sprout from the stump too...

They tried to stop it around here by cutting a circle around the original infestations. Half the woods in some areas around here were ash! They were bound to miss some, and they did. Millions of dollars spent and they just moved around the corridor through the missed trees. Amazing how many ash trees have been killed in my area. ALL of them... I have not seen a live ash tree around here in at least 3 years. Most still standing are now starting to falling over.

We still have a lot more woodpeckers than we had before, but, of course, that won't last either.

 

[zogger]

Just have to live with it....

..I guess. You see all these invasive species of plants and insects, etc and it makes ya wonder how the heck does anything survive "over yonder" where they all came from....

Thanks for all the replies, guys. I'll just take it if it happens and concentrate on taking ash, if and when.

 

[1project2many]

As far as I know, the only tree species wiped out by an invasive species in modern times is the American Chestnut, and they're not totally extinct either.

The Chestnut is far from extinct. Not only are there large areas where the roots have continued to sprout for 40+ years, but there are areas west of the Mississippi where the where Chestnut Blight hasn't emerged, and there are a few areas east of the river where large diameter trees have been found and are apparently very healthy. But there are very few American Chestnut trees with natural blight resistance and there's a good chance it's because so many trees were cut down in so short a time that resistance didn't have a chance to develop through natural selection.