
Ash Trees Could Disappear - Red_Tarsius
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/09/man-who-made-things-out-of-trees-ash-rob-penn/
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secstate
I love ash trees. They are also a "bailout" tree up where people still burn
wood in stoves for warmth, as they can pretty much be burnt the day they're
cut, they're so dry. I spent at least one winter burning quite a bit of ash
because I did not plan ahead.

That said, as a stoic, this line in the article causes me to chuckle a little
to myself: "So, if we want the landscape to look the same in the future, we
need to value our trees more."

As though valuing something provides a promise that the future will never
change. I don't mean to be cruel, but this is the same sort of
misunderstanding of the Earth and Universe as we know it that will only ever
end in pain and suffering.

Do what you can to stop the emerald bore beetle. My town has managed to keep
Dutch elm disease's progress very slow in our town, and now some of our trees
are being used to grow disease resistant trees to replant elsewhere. If you
are pragmatic and unemotional about things, you can help preserve the things
you love for some time, but nothing lasts forever. We would all do well to
remember that.

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lbenes
The cool, beautiful canopy of my hometown street was destroyed by Dutch elm
disease. In the woods behind my house, my grandfather planted a row of hemlock
trees before I was born. Now his legacy is being destroyed by another invasive
from Asia, the woolly adelgid. With the elm and hemlock gone, we have mostly
sugar maples, white pine, and ash tree remaining. The maples ares sickened
from air pollution and just last year I noticed our pines turning brown from
needlecast. And now I hear the ash borer is coming.

Between the stress of pollution/climate change and allowing these invasive
pests on our soil, the US government has totally failed us. Trees are
majestic, vital to the ecosystem, and the lungs of our planet. Why are our
policies so backwards that we can spend $5 Trillion on war based on lies of
WMD? Yet we lack the millions necessary to improve border controls and
research curing diseases that slipped through already.

~~~
chr1
Unfortunately border control is not very effective, but hopefully it will be
possible to use
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_drive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_drive)
to eliminate pests same way as mosquitos

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eggy
I really like the ash tree too. I remember seeing a bow made of it, but I
think the person told me it wasn't the best wood for a longbow; he said yew
was.

I remember the hemlocks were in trouble in the late 90s during a gypsy moth
breakout in the NE US. Neighbors were spending a fortune trying to protect
their trees. I didn't have the money to put into it, and I was lucky.

I had about eight of them on my property, and I didn't do anything, and in the
end, I only lost one. Two of the others looked beyond recovery, but I left
them, and today they are good again. Some of my neighbors lose that number, or
more and they had spent a couple of thousand of dollars over two years trying
to protect them. I don't knock their efforts, since I am a tree lover.

Let's hope this invasive beetle meets some obstacle like the cold where it can
get cold, or a domestic predator finds them tasty!

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sghi
What I've seen and (briefly) read from this article seem to agree - as soon as
the Emerald Ash Borer appears in the UK, it's game over for us. We've (UK)
been suffering from ash dieback in a very large way, and although we seem to
have got it under containment via selective killing/leaving to rot of certain
trees we're very aware that a large proportion of our remaining Ash's could go
very quickly. I know of a few people that have worked with trying to work with
different lichen species that favour Ash trees and transplant them onto others
with varying success - the same was tried with species that favoured Elm trees
before they died back. It just seems a shame that there's not too much we can
see to do about it. (This all comes from a UG perspective, albiet one with
extensive lichen experience and some experience of conserving some of the
oldest woodland in the UK, so other opinions very much welcomed!!)

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mabbo
It's likely this will all follow the same path as Dutch Elm Disease- when was
the last time you saw a big old elm tree in front of a house?

Still, the solution may be the same: slowly begin to develop trees resistant
to the thing killing it. Perhaps some GMO or crossbreeding with whatever genes
allow Asian ash to survive the beetles.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_elm_disease](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_elm_disease)

~~~
douche
Interesting, I've never seen one of these borer beetles. Ash trees are
everywhere here in New England.

~~~
Spooky23
The beetle just crossed the Hudson River two years ago.

Look for little purple boxes hanging from trees off of the highway on forests.
Those are monitoring traps.

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acomjean
The ash borer is now considered "established" in the US which means that
eradication efforts have stopped. They're onto the "Control" phase where they
try to find the invaders natural control in its native country.

So essentially the Ash tree is in real trouble (we have a very large city ash
behind my building..I'm hoping its isolation protects it, but I"m not supper
hopeful)

[http://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/disturbance/invasive_species/eab/co...](http://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/disturbance/invasive_species/eab/control_management/biological_control/)

My brother works on the asian longhorn beetle eradication efforts. That beetle
moves slowly so its (somewhat) easier to control. It likes maple trees.

[https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/resources/pests-
diseases/as...](https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/resources/pests-
diseases/asian-longhorned-beetle/About-ALB)

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blakesterz
I'm dealing with this here, it's so sad to watch. Entire huge stands of dead
trees all around. I have a bunch of HUGE ash in the back yard that I'm hoping
will survive after several hundred dollars of treatments. With Sudden Oak
Death out west and this here in the east, it's worrying to see what's
happening to some common trees.

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beilabs
It's going to have a huge knock on effect on Irish Gaelic sports, Hurling is
played with ash sticks....

[http://www.gaa.ie/hurling/news/video-ash-dieback-and-the-
fin...](http://www.gaa.ie/hurling/news/video-ash-dieback-and-the-fine-art-
hurley-making/)

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anexprogrammer
Many of Europe's broad leaf deciduous trees are at risk from imported pests
and diseases. Dutch Elm disease (acutally asian) saw off most elms.

Most at risk seem to be ash, plane, larch, oak and horse chestnut.

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icc97
Quite interesting that Morgan cars are made out of ash frames.

