Another apparently severe threat to hardwood trees- beech leaf disease

Like I said the hickory thing is just the big ones .The eab got about everything over about 4-5 inches .The little ones didn't have enough inner bark to support the larva evidently . Kind of odd if you dropped them with just a few branches still alive they resprouted from the roots .When the big grave yard dead ones were removed about a zillion little saplings sprang up because the sunlight could get to them . Fact I've got several fat ones in the bordering woods I should drop because eventually the roots fail and the wind gets them .Those I'll have to drag out with the dozer because the old Ferguson won't even budge them unless I cut them into 10-12 foot logs .
 
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  • #28
Al Smith said:
The eab got about everything over about 4-5 inches .The little ones didn't have enough inner bark to support the larva evidently .
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Wow, interesting reasoning, I was wondering about that.
 
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  • #29
This beech bark disease it rather mind blowing.

I didn't previously realize it but I now see that beech often grow as an entire beech forest of many, many acres in size. And so I am now seeing entire forests on the verge of death in less than one year.

Driving by a healthy beech forest, one can see maybe 15% into it. But now with the forest heavily defoliated, you can probably see 90% through it.

So weird.

In my hood, I estimate there are 8-10x more beech trees than ash trees (before EAB), so the devastation and resulting treework and land clearing necessary will be 8-10x more than that of the EAB crisis. And that work is going to start going hard in about a year I'm guessing.
 
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  • #32
Well, right now there's plenty of oaks and maples. there's locust and hickory, birches, etc etc.

And of course new plant life will fill in.

But it looks like it's going to be a fairly massive change. And the treework is going to be outta control. I mean say you have 1 acre of land and the back half is all beech, you're going to need a logger to come in and clear cut your back yard.

Only saving grace could be if Ma Nature surprises us and the trees only get a bit stymied or slowed but take the hit and recover.

Sorta like oaks and gypsy moths- total defoliation for a year or two but then mostly back to normal.
 
Speaking of gypsy moths a few years back I had some in these 100 foot oaks either covered with them or tent caterpillars .I wondered how to get rid of them .Then one day there must have been 500 crackles converge on those trees .After they gorged themselves not one insect remained .The insects got some leaves but not too many before they got gobbled up by the birds .
 
My experience with EAB is very, very few survived. Have a couple, that are stunted, 10" dbh that are still alive. The rest are gone....but there is a large ammount of new growth trees in the woods.
Seedlings from the last effort of the dieing trees are now 6' tall and doing fine. Not big enough to support the bug yet.
Hopefully the damned insect ate itself out of house and home and is long gone from here.
How many decades in are we from dutch elm disease? Yet still some live and new ones grow. I have 2 large ones left, 16 and 20" dbh. A close eye is kept on them as they will be the last ones I will ever be able to mill.

We complain about mother nature, but she is a persistant 'ol bitch that does not give up her species easily.

Ed
 
Well I have a few elms left but they seldom get more than a foot DBH .If I find a nice stout dead drop at least 5 - 6" I save it for side hauling logs .That stuff will bend like a noodle before it breaks .I'm old enough I remember those fat old elm trees lining city streets .
 
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  • #38
Crazy.

We still have elms here, and a few are monsters.
 
Ed L said:
My experience with EAB is very, very few survived. Have a couple, that are stunted, 10" dbh that are still alive. The rest are gone....but there is a large ammount of new growth trees in the woods.
Seedlings from the last effort of the dieing trees are now 6' tall and doing fine. Not big enough to support the bug yet.
Hopefully the damned insect ate itself out of house and home and is long gone from here.
How many decades in are we from dutch elm disease? Yet still some live and new ones grow. I have 2 large ones left, 16 and 20" dbh. A close eye is kept on them as they will be the last ones I will ever be able to mill.

We complain about mother nature, but she is a persistant 'ol bitch that does not give up her species easily.

Ed
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I'd GUESS if you want an opportunity for a healthy forest, thinning saplings might be needed.

If overcrowded, the saplings will be stressed.





Collecting and germinating seed in containers from the living 2 might be smart.
 
I've got 4 elms, isolated from others. I don't know where the closest elms are. Could easily be a mile or 5 away.

My aunt/ uncle/ fam lived on Elmwood Av, with big spreading elms in Chicago. They went out when I was a kid.
 
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