Trees Are Prematurly Dieing

We have been cutting dead Ash trees out of this woods for five years now. They get about 6to8" in diamiter and die. The Elms are all but extinct, Pine beatles are around to my north, and we lost all the leaves off the sugar maples in late summer a couple of years ago to catipillers. Between the bugs and the Chinese, our enviroment and economy will all be destroyed.
Heven forbid we take any action to stiffel these critters.
O well I guess us country boys can survive.

The Elms are not extinct. I've got over 30 of them around home here in Otsego County and many more up in Jefferson County. Dutch Elm disease did a number on the American Elm, but some were resistant and many don't get sick until they get to a certain size. Many of mine are at least 50 years old.

I think the Adirondack region and central New York is losing more hard maples permanently to acid then caterpillars. The caterpillars have always come in 2-3 year cycles and then disappeared. So far, the healthy trees have just about always recovered. Acid rain and acid from road salt is doing much worse things in the long run. I've got sugarbush in Jefferson, Hamilton, and Otsego Counties. Didn't see any caterpilars in Jefferson, and only a few in Hamilton County. Otsego got hit real hard. My hard maple woods lost all leaves for two summers, and last summer maybe half. This year should be the end of the cycle. The flys the kill the caterpillars showed up last summer.

Beech have been sick now for 40 years with a bug and rarely reaches maturity. Same with elm. The new problems are the emerald ash borer that supposedly came to New York from Michigan. Also the Asian longhorn beetle from China. Thanks to the ash borer and longhorn I can no longer legally bring firewood from my Hamilton County land to Otsego County. In fact the entire state has a mile-limit on trucking firewood unless it's been certified to be kiln-dried.

on the bright side, ash makes great fire wood. I know you would rather have live, green trees though
Oh, nice looking tractor!!

Beech probably has beech bark disease, which will eventually kill all the mature beech trees. But beech will still persist in the understory and eventually probably reach to the overstory again.

There are a few causes of ash decline, one is anthracnose (a fungal disease), another is emerald ash borer, and another is a simple cyclical decline in ash populations.

Emerald Ash borer ? Easily identified by the perfectly D shaped bore in the trunk.

I"ve been getting tons of dead ash here in Mich. But, in a yr or two most of the dead ones will be too punky or junk. So the best bet is to mill em or burn em quick.

I know my Ash trees, died because of the Ash bores

msb knows of what he speaking about. The adult is active out side of the tree in June and July. Pull back the bark of the dead Ash trees and see the larvae feeding trails. Get go center was Detroit windsor from ships dunnage of course another fine pest from China. Excellent flier can move 5 to 10 miles per year on its own. Now infested wood in a pickup and go hundreds of miles in a few hours. Easier to say where it not rather where it is established for ever.

Just like the American Elm, some beech trees are immune. They beech have been sick here in NY for at least 40 years. Same with northern Michigan. Generally speaking, the rot happens just as you stated. But I have some beautiful mature trees that are pefect with no rot, just as I do with some big elm trees.

The "resistant" elm trees they sell now were created from native and naturally resistant strains like I assume I've got here.

The American Chestnut, not so good. I've planted many of the new "semi-resistant" strains and all did lousy.

JD, I think the tree you speak of was developed by the Elm Research Institute and is called the Liberty Elm. I'm not 100% sure but I think the Liberty Elm's canopy is different from the American Elm, which in my opinion is one of the most beautiful trees a person can look at, once mature. In appearance, the Liberty Elm seems to be shorter, not so towering with a grand and elegant canopy.

I injected an old one on our property with the Elm Research Institute's D.E.D. fungicide, but after it flagged, so it did not work, the tree was in a prominent location, had hoped to save it. It asorbed 50+ gallons of the solution, the process is relatively easy, but it's most effective in prevention, so once the tree gets sick, odds are in D.E.D.'s favor.

Yes, the new elm is a bit different. I read once how it was developed but can't recall all the details. I know they searched for naturally resistant elm trees, and in part used DNA along with components from other variants. The newly concocted elm tree is a bit different, just as the new American chestnuts are.

I've got many elm trees here and I'm going to assume they are orignal. All look like the old vase-top variety. And my land was a family farm dating back to the 1930s and no new trees were planted during that time. We seem to get one that dies every year, and it happens fast - but they are pretty big trees. Either we have resistant trees, or are in some sort of isolated pocket with no disease, which I doubt. When our elms die, it happens so fast, it seems it IS caused by some sort of blight. Unlike my hard maples often take 10 years to die after the first signs.

We drive back and forth to the Adirondacks often, from Otsego County up to Hamilton County. There are many huge roadside elm trees along the way and some still look fine. Especially in Montgomery County. Also, seems every year there is a new dead one.

If you scroll up to the top of the forum postings, I just threw in a few photos of some elms near my house.

In Western New York, I have been cutting dying Ash 8 to 12 inch ash for 40 years.

Like your tractor and trailer ... trailer must of been around when you painted the tractor .. same color w/rims matching ...

Have you thought of sending me a picture{s} , for the next calendar

Just wondering .... Mark

Yes, I've seen what you describe, seems common, though there are many still around, it's kind of sad to see them destroyed by D.E.D. We have lost quite a few. There were some very old ones here as I recall when I was a kid, corners or hedgerows between fields etc.

I believe that although D.E.D., takes quite a few of them, it cannot wipe them out because they do reseed and grow rapidly compared to other species. The one I tried to save left a sibling almost under it's former canopy, and genetically it resembles the parent.

There used to be many great examples of these trees along the NYS thruway, from exit 23 and south, along the side of the road, I used to travel that road twice a week, and like you said, you would spot one after another, year after year with D.E.D.

I can think of a few that are just outstanding examples of their beauty, one is right across the road from Curtis Lumber in Bal l ston Spa, ( potty filter don't like the name of our town apparently so I hyphenated it) this tree is just absolutely captures a perfect image of an American Elm, sad to think how many we used to have, lining the streets and so on.

When I was a little kid in New Jersey around 60 years ago, we had huge elms dying all over the place. They were the favorite to put a rope and tire swing on. As a teen I went to work for Aslpundh Tree Expert Company, and the local story was that all elms by then were dead. I believed it until I moved to New York and now see elms all over the place. Same in northern Michigan.

A think a bigger tragedy is what happened to the American Chestnut. It was a beautiful tree and had beautiful wood for furniture.

Up in Queesnsland Australia couple of years ago they were frantically looking for fire ant nests,imported from USA, not heard of anything since, presume they got them all. This modern world, what's yours is mine.

Emerald ash borer?

(quoted from post at 09:56:38 04/12/10) Emerald ash borer?

Click to expand...

Google it. In a nut shell a bug from China that borers into the cambium (inner bark) of ash trees and eventually cuts off nutrient flow from the roots to the leaves.