Well I'll be an ash borers uncle!

[square1]

Last summer, while finishing up the dead ash in the south woods I trekked through the north woods marking ash trees with no leaves in a circular route that I would clear first as a logging trail. I remember there being a handful of ash trees that looked very healthy, somehow the borer had missed them.

16 hours blazing trail in the woods over the long holiday weekend got me to the far reaches of the property I hadn't seen since last summer. Many trees I marked are even deader than last year (if that's possible) but strange things are happening. Other trees, that last summer had bark splits, gallereis, loose bark, and no (none, zip, zilch, zero, bubkis, nadda) leaves, are leafed out! Their canopies are sad looking, but they have definitely survived attack by the borer and returned to life!

I had commented to a neighbor a small tree up by the road (I'm pretty sure was leafless the last three seasons) had some leaves on it this spring / summer. That tree was left because it was well positioned for a no trespassing sign so I passed off it having leaves as my never having really paid attention to it for harvesting. After seeing the trees in the woods making a comeback, I'm now certain the No Trespass tree didn't have leaves in previous seasons either.

Think there's hope for my sorry ash?

 

[Deleted member 135597]

There's hope as long as an ash hole doesn't cut them down if their not dead

 

[Rockjock]

In a word no. They tree can still have a canopy but be infected.

" What EAB does

Emerald Ash Borers normally have a one-year life cycle, but some can take up to two years to mature. EAB lays eggs on tree bark and in bark crevices starting in late May.

In its larva form, which resembles a caterpillar, Emerald Ash Borer feeds just under the bark of ash trees. This feeding disrupts the tree’s circulation of water and nutrients. The presence of even a few insects in a tree can kill it.

Top branches of ash trees usually die off first. Trees can lose half its branches in a single year. Once larvae finish feeding under the bark, they mature into adult beetles that chew their way out of the tree.
S-shaped grooves and D-shaped exit holes 3.5 – 4 mm wide caused by adult beetles
look for loss of leaves and dead branches in the upper part of ash trees
unusually thin tree crowns
branch and leaf growth in the lower part of the stem where growth was not present before
unusually high woodpecker activity
look for bark splitting, S-shaped grooves beneath the bark caused by larval feeding, and D-shaped
exit holes 3.5 – 4 mm wide caused by adult beetles

Infested ash trees in North America generally die after two to three years, but heavily infested trees have been observed to die after one year. "

From a email I was send by the ministry.

 

[Iska3]

Like some of the Oaks, we had infected Ash trees show some new leaves for several years and then the bark soon falls off or the tree starts to rot from the inside out. I'd keep an eye on those trees and take them when the wood is good enough to use for firewood.

 

[square1]

Like some of the Oaks, we had infected Ash trees show some new leaves for several years and then the bark soon falls off or the tree starts to rot from the inside out. I'd keep an eye on those trees and take them when the wood is good enough to use for firewood.

Iska3, were these trees that were leafless in past seasons?

Michigan as you probably know was ground zero for EAB and I watched the ash canopy decline over several years, each year having fewer leaves than the last until there were no leaves. This will be the sixth year of taking ~15 cord a year of mostly standing dead and some blowdown ash out. I can't take them fast enough. Sadly every year I leave more and more of each tree in the woods due to it not being solid enough to sell as firewood Used to be it was mostly top down that was no good, now seeing a lot more from the bottom up rot. The first 12' of an 18" DBH I took this weekend wouldn't be sell-able wood by my standard. That's a lot of work for no money.

I'll keep an eye on them as suggested, the trees that are making a comeback may at least slow down how fast they go soft.

 

[skindaddy]

im worried about my cherry trees now, ive got a handful that are dying , dead spots and bark on them, i swear there is something attcking them now, also some pine trees in my area look awful.
young sasaphras i guess you call them bark looks good tops look good just huge wood pecker holes in them .
somethings up

 

[haveawoody]

I spent the entire day yesterday dropping 12 ash trees on my property.(long day)
All dead or semi dead and all borer infested.
A couple of the trees were dangerous cracking beasts long before the fell cut got near the hinge.
The pattern seems to be a 4 year death march, year 1 decent looking tree, year 2 sparse canopy ,year 3 near dead with massive new low tree branches, year 4 dead.
About 4 years and healthy ash trees are dead.
Not much hope for an ash tree once the borer has started.

 

[Iska3]

square1, This section was full of Ash and you can see now that over a period of five years 90% are infected, dead or like you wrote, came back with a few leaves here and there. Like haveawoody wrote, we also cut out about 100 trees last winter and hope to take out more this winter once the ground freezes. This area of woods are about 2 miles from our property but our Ash look just like this. We noticed more of those bug traps are being set out on our other areas where the Ash were still looking ok two year ago but these traps are attached to the Maple trees..

 

[haveawoody]

Iska3,

I'm glad I'm not you, 12 big ash trees were more than enough fun for a day with 2 of them in the dangerous class.
Looks like you have about 30X my 12, watch for the hinge break on the older dead.
Your sure to have a few brittle beasts in that bunch.
Sad to see the forest look as it does, almost nice when you have cut them to allow other species to get going and clear the canopy of dead.

I have 100s of small ash tree saplings but just 7 years on and those saplings were part of the ash removal I did, right around the trees first seed production they were bad infested.
Guess about 7 years from now we will both be playing the same removal game on many smaller trees but might be the last time for ash.