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Most of you have probably heard of the Emerald Ash Borer insect, either from direct experience or the news if they are a problem in your area, or will be. Here in Mi., we’ve lost most of our ash in the last decade to them, at least the Lower Peninsula. I had to write up a Near Miss report yesterday in which an employee of a co. our utility uses for right of way clearing, nearly didn’t make it home because of one of these. These trees are starting to fail, without warning, now that they’ve been dead several years, and typically it is a below ground root failure or a few feet up from the ground. Every dead tree is hazardous, but these are unique in my experience in that the buttress roots are just gonzo below ground (they like typically low, damp ground, but not always) and you’d never know it at a glance. Just sayin’ if you have any of these things hanging around dead in your yard or property, get them removed from the yard at the very least, and notice if there are any nearby if you set your treestand/blind among them. Goes without saying the fellow that had the close shave was a seasoned professional and would have stopped the job if an imminent failure was suspected. Please be careful if you live among the devastation this insect has caused.
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Paleo,
Thank you very much for this heads up. I am fortunate to still have my few ash trees alive. I appreciate knowing how they might suddenly behave once dead. All the best, dwc
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Indeed, as DWC indicated, kind of you to post the head’s up! PA has it’s state tree, the Hemlock– is in trouble from some blight… gets this whitish snot on the stems/’leaves’ and eventually kills the tree… and there is a LOT of hemlock in PA!
Nice to be in community where not only our beloved archery is a topic, but that folks share outdoor stuff that could be detrimental to our health!
Thanks!
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This is can be problem with Oaks also. We have had Oak Wilt go through our area and the roots also root off about 10 years after the tree has died. We have been working for the last 6 years at our cross country ski trails cutting anything standing dead that can fall and reach the trail. We have been cutting between 250 to 300 trees a year. There have been 2 near misses at the city bike trails because falling dead limbs it is always wise to look into the canopy before picking a tree to sit by or climb and hang a stand.
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Doc, that white stuff on hemlocks is called an adelgid, it’s a type of insect. And yes it’s wiping them out. Unfortunately it seems like all regions have their own form of invasive fungus or insect destroying a native tree. Here is Cali we are battling sudden oak death. I tremble to imagine what the landscape and wildlife would look like without our oaks.
A great, yet depressing, book is “The Dying of the Trees” by Charles Little. Worth reading if only to light a flame under your feet.
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Yes, the list of native trees that have died or are dying out is maybe longer than the list of trees that are left at this time.
And yet people go on about their business like it doesn’t matter to them. Humans have become more shrew like than the shrew.
But on the bright side, a group at the State University of New York has found a way to graft a wheat gene into the DNA of the American Chestnut to make it totally immune to the Chestnut Blight.
Normally, I am opposed to genetically modifying plants/animals as the work usually involves mixing genes from different kingdoms, i.e. plant and animal. This is messing with things we just aren’t educated or wise enough to mess with imo.
But in the case of the Chestnut, it is taking a gene from one plant and splicing it into another. Here the benefits outweigh the risks, again imo.
I donated to the cause, and those of us following the progress hope to see these trees planted in the wild soon. FDA and EPA approval are currently pending…
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PT,
I can’t pronounce what you listed, so I’ll never remember it or learn to spell what I can’t pronounce!
Indeed, we bring in all this crap from outside our country and then…walla, their ailments of the natural world find a new home they’d never have invaded otherwise…
Steve,
I’ve read about the chestnuts cross…one site, maybe the one you referenced, offered up chestnuts from their work to plant and create your own…or to eat… “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…
Now that I have a place, but not much time left on terra firma, it’s tempting but it’s not a big place…3/4 acre with a house…
I have some old furniture made from American Chestnut… antiques, actually. I was offered insane low price for a very old dry sink I washed dishes at with my Grandma, I told the dealers that I’ll use it till it falls apart then be willing to sell it for that price…! Reproductions in stores are stapled together with thin veneer on particle board and they want 2-3X more then the real deal? Nah…I’ll keep it and use it and when it falls apart, hold a bonfire and roast wieners over it and invite neighbors!
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You guys have some sappy jokes. We have a bunch of dead oak killed by too many years of Gypsy moth in a row coupled with dry summers. The heartwood is fine but they usually have a thick ring of punky sap wood. Dwc
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DWC,
Sappy? You talking trees now, right???
You know what they do with dead standing oak don’t cha???
Seriously, they make soft toilet paper out of hardwoods! Gypsy moths killed entire ridges over in Centre Co and one was on my friend’s property… Ole Toilet Paper company came in improved roads up to the top, took big grabber cutters and huge chippers and ran whole trees in head first and chipped then into 20 Ton tractor trailers and ran em down that mountain road they built… clear cut the whole place… grew up in terrible slash worthless for hunting… bears liked it…
They say that the rough TP comes from soft wood, the soft stuff comes from hardwood…Who knew?
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Ptaylor wrote: Doc, that white stuff on hemlocks is called an adelgid, it’s a type of insect. And yes it’s wiping them out. Unfortunately it seems like all regions have their own form of invasive fungus or insect destroying a native tree. Here is Cali we are battling sudden oak death. I tremble to imagine what the landscape and wildlife would look like without our oaks.
A great, yet depressing, book is “The Dying of the Trees” by Charles Little. Worth reading if only to light a flame under your feet.
It is horrible what’s happening,and knowing I’m a part of the problem makes me sick. One of our local biologists said, at a recent seminar, with the way it’s going, he could envision a savannah like shrub community being all that’s left in a few hundred years. I honestly don’t know what to think sometimes….on the one hand we have to learn to live with a smaller footprint and re-invent Native pathways (of all our ancestors, not just Native Americans, to be specific), on the other, we are all living on the razors edge of a rock orbiting a huge nuclear reaction out in infinite space and IMO it doesn’t give a damn! It really is crazy we can exist at all to even think about what faces us:roll:
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Ash makes for crooked arrows too! Why and how I got my nickname… worst run-out I’ve ever seen…made me a carbon fanatic!
I used to work for a boss who was an ash borer... but he got his, 2 yrs after he laid me and a bunch of other mid managers off, he got canned!
As the twig is bent, the trees inclined…
What goes around, comes around, like a circular saw
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dwcphoto wrote: You guys have some sappy jokes. We have a bunch of dead oak killed by too many years of Gypsy moth in a row coupled with dry summers. The heartwood is fine but they usually have a thick ring of punky sap wood. Dwc
dwc – Here’s a bad one that hit me in the truck this past week – What do you have when you can’t remember where Jakarta is? Indonesia:roll: They shot bows there to be st legal here…
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Paleo,
You posted while i was and my comment just didn’t synch till after yours… I was NOT making light of your rather ominous post…!:cry:
We have definitely fouled our own nest here on Mother Earth… natural selection has been replaced by international shipping and transmission of all sorts of ills, both human and our plant and animal kingdoms!
there are few times I’m actually a bit relieved to be beyond my mid 60’s…
BTW, Morning is not one of them…trying to get all the parts headed in the same direction when I arise…but other’n that…sometimes…
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Paleo, I love it. I gotta say you lost me with the “they shot bows there to be st legal here”. Wake me up. Keep em coming. Dwc
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paleoman wrote:
It is horrible what’s happening,and knowing I’m a part of the problem makes me sick. One of our local biologists said, at a recent seminar, with the way it’s going, he could envision a savannah like shrub community being all that’s left in a few hundred years. us:roll:
If those shrubs are over 5′ some of us wouldn’t know the difference…
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grumpy wrote:
If those shrubs are over 5′ some of us wouldn’t know the difference…
Now, Grumps…is that another of your Short Jokes??? What? You a leprechaun?
There be serious changes, but I lay it mostly at the doorstep of international commerce bringing in all these invasive type plants, animals, birds and diseases… No natural predators to control them…
Free For ALL!😥
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dwcphoto wrote: Paleo, I love it. I gotta say you lost me with the “they shot bows there to be st legal here”. Wake me up. Keep em coming. Dwc
I meant it like when colmike says “I shot my bow today” after saying, like we all do, something maybe a bit off topic…..street legal you know:lol:
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I should say my son is as bad as me with the dumb one liners. He fired off a burst of Polar Bear ones he heard somewhere and amused him….what do you call a Polar Bear that lives on the sun – a Solar Bear. A Polar Bear that goes to dental school – Molar Bear….a moody Polar Bear – Bi-Polar Bear, etc., etc. And my daughter is at the self check out at Christmas when she was a little kid and she says, ” Dad, if they took the S out of Self service they would have “elf service”.
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This’ll help y’all keep on topic. Doc, Scott. I’m sure Bernard is using ash arrows.
Me, I never do dat.
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paleoman wrote: I should say my son is as bad as me with the dumb one liners…
Sounds to me like you are both nuts. But at least you aren’t barking up the wrong tree 🙄 😀
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😆
To bring it back in line… I personally would like to again say I’m delighted that we have folks among us who are “out there” in our beloved woods and are willing to share knowledge that may not be “common” to us all which makes us more forewarned…
I also enjoy the light-hearted banter that can so easily ensure here… hopefully, without detracting from the great information and motivation by Plaeoman to bring the root rot that can result and trees coming down on us in the wild or at home.
I got a card from a buddy’s widow, that had an ape scratching it’s head on the front with verbiage that went on about taking years to learn my quirks, motivations, reasoning but… (and then inside the card it says ) YOU’RE NUTS! 😆
So being a bit “nutty” is a compliment at this stage in life. Thanks to all here for the great sharing of information and the periodic divergence into humor…
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