What happens after EAB?

[SD51555]

I know this is probably quite different from place to place, but for you guys that have had EAB for 5+ years:

How has it transformed your woods?
What filled in after your ash died?
Is ash eradicated, or just the old ones?

I get ash coming up on my property like weeds. I just wonder if all the mature ash is gone, if the young ones that are just a half inch thick will be passed over by those bugs.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

A lot of the woods around our home area have lost many ash trees - not as many ash up around camp, so less noticeable there. Lots of former woods with no big trees in them now. The stuff growing up now around our home is mostly weedy, understory type stuff. Lots of honeysuckle, TOH, and some kind of shrubby plant that gets red berries all over it. Haven't seen any good hardwoods coming back - yet?? Maybe never.

It seems it's all the ash here, young, old, green, white, or black ash. I had just planted an ash in our home yard - and the following year, EAB moved in. I pulled that ash right away & replaced it with a seedless red maple. Foreign import, spotted lantern fly - loves the red maple. I have to treat for it every year now.

I have no idea whether new ash sprouts will outlast the EAB once it eats its way through. Great question for the universities.

 

[john volkman]

I know this is probably quite different from place to place, but for you guys that have had EAB for 5+ years:

How has it transformed your woods?
What filled in after your ash died?
Is ash eradicated, or just the old ones?

I get ash coming up on my property like weeds. I just wonder if all the mature ash is gone, if the young ones that are just a half inch thick will be passed over by those bugs.

they will pass it by until it becomes mature enough then they will kill it, there will always be enough EAB to continually kill any ash that resprout but they just will wait until its of size they can utilize. Plant what you can in its place and dont bet on the ash coming back to maturation. Where i live 20% of our trees were ash, the bad thing is most was in wetter soils so canary grass and phrag will fill in if you allow it. I planted and fenced off areas that were all ash with Swamp white oak , tamarack etc. Equip and CSP paid for the seedlings and deer fence that i leave up for 5 years.

 

[bigboreblr]

A lot of the woods around our home area have lost many ash trees - not as many ash up around camp, so less noticeable there. Lots of former woods with no big trees in them now. The stuff growing up now around our home is mostly weedy, understory type stuff. Lots of honeysuckle, TOH, and some kind of shrubby plant that gets red berries all over it. Haven't seen any good hardwoods coming back - yet?? Maybe never.

It seems it's all the ash here, young, old, green, white, or black ash. I had just planted an ash in our home yard - and the following year, EAB moved in. I pulled that ash right away & replaced it with a seedless red maple. Foreign import, spotted lantern fly - loves the red maple. I have to treat for it every year now.

I have no idea whether new ash sprouts will outlast the EAB once it eats its way through. Great question for the universities.

Might be bush honeysuckle.

I was going to wrtie a thread about the spotted lanternfly a few months ago. Have a switchyard closer to NYC that has them in it. Little suckers try to sneak in the truck beds. Haven't seen one there in awhile, winter die off maybe.

Wondered if they would mess with apple or other fruit trees.

Ash grew thick in some spots, but often is mixed in with other trees. Seeing more pure stands of maple past few years.

 

[gjs4]

FBH- Fugging Bush Honeysuckle

My ash are dangerous to be in. There's even a pucker factor when scooting through them shed hunting fast on a breezeless day.

 

[rocksnstumps]

They claim EAB will kill trees even down to 1-2 inches dia. Young enough to not have produced any seeds. Not a good story. Perhaps some from Michigan can comment. They had EAB over 20 yrs ago there. Kinda one of the first spots in Midwest.

At least with elm and DED the trees can reach an age where they are already producing seeds before croaking. Apparently vigorous enough while young to keep ahead.

But EAB is really a girdling problem and with elms it's a fungus so not as quick/acute an issue.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Wondered if they would mess with apple or other fruit trees.

Yes - they will.

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

One section of my woods is about 1/3 mature ash that is 90% dead. That section went from having very little sunlight on the ground to having a ton of sun - it will definitely improve the deer habitat. The prickly ash understory is taking off along with some stunted hickory and maple seedlings that are finally seeing some sunlight. I've ordered 200 walnut seedlings to add a little variety in these areas.

There's a lot of logging going on in our area since everyone is trying to make some money off the ash before they start to rot.

 

[rocksnstumps]

Good idea to plant some stuff you want in there now before invasives try to take over with all that new open canopy. I got some oaks planted in an area that was newly opened up and have been knocking back the bad stuff again this winter. If I had waited awhile to plant fairly certain the oaks would have been overwhelmed by now. About 15 years have passed since the initial planting

 

[Carbonspyder]

As a forester in WI I've seen quite a few places, especially in the SW part of the state being hit really hard by EAB. Black ash usually gets it the worst, with white ash following, green ash I was told in school is slightly more resistant but I do not know if that is true in reality. Most places where it is cut out of either has tons of ash saplings that are coming back or is reseeding to other hardwoods.
The DNR is pretty worried about black ash stands swamping out, or converting to grasses instead of staying in a forested cover type so they are recommending hand planting other tree species to keep an area forested.

 

[SD51555]

If I lose mine, the only thing that will likely fill in behind it is tag alder. I'll plant it back to balsam fir and black spruce if that day comes. It's really strange at my place. The elevation changes by 12 inches in an otherwise completely flat square, and the tree arrangement completely changes. A foot higher it's bur oak, paper birch, aspen, maple, basswood, and very few yellow birch. A foot lower, and it's ash, balsam fir, black spruce, tag alder, and cedar. There aren't many cedars though.

 

[Mortenson]

There are ongoing projects where they're searching for resistant trees. Seems blue ash has the tendency to be most resistant. Encouraging folks to keep a look out for survivors and enter them into a database.

 

[buckdeer1]

Unless you plant those walnuts in brush piles or tube{which they don't like much] the deer will rub the snot out of them

 

[Swampwalker]

The EAB came through our part of Michigan about 20 years ago. When we bought this place 12 years ago most of the ash was already dead. Our swampy creek bottom, which occasionally gets flooded, was probably 60% black ash.
The remaining trees in the swamp are mostly red maple with some sycamore and bur oak mixed in along with swamp grass (RCG?) multi flora rose and some willow. Due to the high deer density any preferred browse doesn’t get a chance to regenerate so the swamp grass and scattered MFR is what mostly filled in.
In the upland woods ash were scattered here and there. The openings from the dead ash filled in with blackberries, multi flora rose, beech and hickory seedlings.
Any tree species that are a preferred browse would need to be caged to get a chance to thrive.

 

[rocksnstumps]

As a forester in WI I've seen quite a few places, especially in the SW part of the state being hit really hard by EAB. Black ash usually gets it the worst, with white ash following, green ash I was told in school is slightly more resistant but I do not know if that is true in reality. Most places where it is cut out of either has tons of ash saplings that are coming back or is reseeding to other hardwoods.
The DNR is pretty worried about black ash stands swamping out, or converting to grasses instead of staying in a forested cover type so they are recommending hand planting other tree species to keep an area forested.

Along the Wolf river corridor in more central part of state there is a lot of green ash and silver maple. The ash are starting to croak now the last couple years. Just taking a bit longer to catch up to the EAB invasion as it swept to WI from around lake Michigan on the north and south. As mentioned the state of Michigan was kind of an initial hot spot

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

Unless you plant those walnuts in brush piles or tube{which they don't like much] the deer will rub the snot out of them

yes, I'm hoping to use brush piles as much as possible. I think the added sunlight will result in a flush of gooseberry and blackcap/black berry plants and that might get thick enough to keep the bucks away from the walnuts for a while. We will find out this fall how well my planting plan works.

 

[Spike_Horn_Shooter]

One section of my woods is about 1/3 mature ash that is 90% dead. That section went from having very little sunlight on the ground to having a ton of sun - it will definitely improve the deer habitat. The prickly ash understory is taking off along with some stunted hickory and maple seedlings that are finally seeing some sunlight. I've ordered 200 walnut seedlings to add a little variety in these areas.

There's a lot of logging going on in our area since everyone is trying to make some money off the ash before they start to rot.

Ben, I see something similar in NY, in areas where the Elm has died the prickly ash will takeover without constant mowing.

 

[farmlegend]

Up until the EAB hit(early 2000's), ash (white, red, and a few blacks) was the most abundant tree species in my woods. In some areas they comprised 2/3 of standing timber.

It only took a few years before any ash bigger than about 4" in diameter was dead. They've pretty much all hit the ground by now.

Very young ash can sprout up from seed, but they all succumb at whatever age it is where the bark roughens up.

EAB causes lots of wonderful firewood to become available. Just don't transport it, as it just spreads the borers.

Navigation through my woods is more challenging, since there are literally thousands of ash trunks all over my forest floor.

And ditto on the prickly ash (not an ash) taking over.

Trees sprouting up include young ash, red elm, bitternut hickory, black walnut, silver maple, ironwood, bur/swamp white/northern red oak, sugar maple, basswood.

 

[SD51555]

Up until the EAB hit(early 2000's), ash (white, red, and a few blacks) was the most abundant tree species in my woods. In some areas they comprised 2/3 of standing timber.

It only took a few years before any ash bigger than about 4" in diameter was dead. They've pretty much all hit the ground by now.

Very young ash can sprout up from seed, but they all succumb at whatever age it is where the bark roughens up.

EAB causes lots of wonderful firewood to become available. Just don't transport it, as it just spreads the borers.

Navigation through my woods is more challenging, since there are literally thousands of ash trunks all over my forest floor.

And ditto on the prickly ash (not an ash) taking over.

Trees sprouting up include young ash, red elm, bitternut hickory, black walnut, silver maple, ironwood, bur/swamp white/northern red oak, sugar maple, basswood.

I wouldn't mind having a small patch of basswood regen to manage. I just started seeing some basswood regen on my place this past year.

 

[farmlegend]

I wouldn't mind having a small patch of basswood regen to manage. I just started seeing some basswood regen on my place this past year.

To be real, most of the basswood regen has taken place within fallen tops, brambles/rose, prickly ash, and other debris. Basswood sprouts not so "protected" tend to get gobbled up by deer.