Ash Trees in Danger of Extinction in Europe

[MULTIZ321]

Ash Trees in Danger of Extinction in Europe - from Deutsche Welle (DW)/ Conservation/ dw.com

"Europe may be looking at the end of the economically and ecologically valuable ash tree, according to new reports. The prized tree is under attack from invasive insects and fungus.

Ash trees across Europe are facing massive dieback, according to a new report released on Saturday. According to German news agency DPA, researchers admitted that there was no way to stop the spread of disease.

Gertrude Nachtigall of the Julius Kuehn Institute in the German city of Braunschweig said that the deadly Hymenoscyphus pseudoalbidus fungus, an invasive species native to Asia, was spread by the wind and therefore impossible to contain.

Ash trees are also under another threat around the world - from the emerald ash borer beetle, another invasive species. Originally found only in parts of Russia, China, Japan and the Korean peninsula, the beetle has so far killed tens of millions of ash trees in North America and threatens to destroy the continent's entire population of the valuable trees...."

Richard

 

[Karenann]

Emerald ash borer

We cut down 24 trees on our half acre last year -- all killed by the Emerald Ash Borer. This has been happening all over the Chicago area. Even though we replanted, we will never see trees the size of what we cut down - many were taller than our house. Municipalities have large budgets to remove ash trees and the aborists are in high demand. If you want to try and save an ash, you have to treat it once every two years or it will most certainly die. I am sure this pest has killed ash tree all over the US.

 

[JudyS]

Where I live, Ann Arbor, MI, was "ground zero" in the Emerald Ash Borer invasion. It's believed that this insect entered North America on wooden pallets shipped from Asia to one of the auto plants near Ann Arbor and/or Plymouth, MI. Ann Arbor had a huge number of ash trees and to my knowledge, every one of them has died. Removing the dead trees was a major economic burden and the dead trees and stumps were very unsightly. Outside of urban areas, the death of ash trees is having harmful effects on the ecology.

The Emerald Ash Borer leaves characteristic holes in tree bark that are shaped like a capital "D." Under the bark are numerous winding tunnels, called galleries, that the insect digs. It is these tunnels that kill the tree.

To avoid spreading the insect, do NOT move firewood from infected areas to uninfected areas. If you don't know which areas are infected, don't move firewood long distances at all.

 

[bnoble]

Judy and I live in the same place; our ash trees have been gone for years now.

 

[DebBrown]

We lost all our ash trees too. Pretty much the whole area is ash free now.

 

[T-Dot-Traveller]

Going in Canada too-

IThe emerald ash borer jumped the border into Windsor Ontario more than 10 years ago .

It cost me over $ 3000 to have a single tree removed safely from my back yard
last summer .

More trees die every year - moving fire wood helped the spread happen .

 

[theo]

Emerald Ash Borer slowly marches onward...

There is an interesting article on this topic in the current issue of DownEast magazine, published here in Maine.
Blown up photos of the Emerald Ash Borer (and the ugly and inevitably fatal results of its' handiwork) accompany the article.

What I did not know prior to reading the article is that there is a cottage industry in Maine, notably among Passamaquoddy native Americans of the Wabanaki, that has for many years constructed and sold "ash baskets", some quite elaborate and selling for big bucks. Continuation of this traditional practice (and it's income generation) is of course seriously threatened if the emerald ash borer continues to migrate and prevail. I always just thought of ash in terms of Louisville Slugger baseball bats.

The theory expressed within in the article (without accompanying substantive backup or reference to any hard evidence), is that the invasive emerald ash borer initially got introduced into the U.S. via loaded ash pallets delivered into Michigan. Whether this theory has any factual merit, I certainly can't and don't claim to know.

 

[dioxide45]

Plenty of Ash trees lost here too. The one in our front yard as well as two of the neighbors had to be cut. Our in-laws had to cut three in their back yard last year.

Seems that that they will face the same fate as the Elm with Dutch Elm Disease. Yet another import from Asia. Though a few of those survived. We had one in our front yard growing up as a child. I think it finally had to be cut several years ago.

 

[csxjohn]

There are so many dead ash trees here in Ohio that I have a nice supply of firewood for the foreseeable future.

What I have right now heated me this winter and will do most of next winter and I have sources to get more.

Crazy officials thought they could stop the invasion in Toledo when I was there about 10 yrs ago but of course forcing peeps to cut down their ash before they died did no good. Those beetles fly for crying out loud.

 

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UC Irvine's Leafy Campus Is Now One Big Laboratory To Fight Tree-Killing Beetle - by Amina Khan/ Science/ Los Angeles Times/ latimes.com

"When the first few sycamores began dying in UC Irvine's Aldrich Park in late 2014, the victims numbered in the dozens. But over the next several months, hundreds of cottonwoods, native willows, goldenrain and coral trees met the same fate.

"We've seen infestations of pests, but nothing to this extent," said Richard Demerjian, director of UCI's Office of Environmental Planning and Sustainability. "It came as quite a shock."

It was the work of the polyphagous shot-hole borer, an invasive beetle that's been attacking and killing an astonishing range of trees throughout Southern California.

Plant pathologists are overmatched. The beetle isn't native to the area and has no natural predators here. When it strikes, the only thing to do is to try and contain it before it spreads. As the beetle has spread farther into six counties, even that has seemed like a losing strategy...."

Well,it's not just Ash Trees that are endangered.



Richard

 

[JudyS]

..
It was the work of the polyphagous shot-hole borer, an invasive beetle that's been attacking and killing an astonishing range of trees throughout Southern California.

Well,it's not just Ash Trees that are endangered.

I hadn't heard of the shot-hole borer before. But, it looks like UC-Irvine thinks they may be able to develop treatments. Also Wikipedia doesn't have much on this insect, but its short article implies that the shot-hole borer isn't usually fatal to adult trees. So, that's hopeful.

...
Seems that that they will face the same fate as the Elm with Dutch Elm Disease. Yet another import from Asia. Though a few of those survived. We had one in our front yard growing up as a child. I think it finally had to be cut several years ago.

There are still some American Elms in Ann Arbor, too. They require constant treatment to survive. They are some of the most beautiful trees I have ever seen. I hope they are around for a while. (I don't know if any young American Elms can withstand Dutch Elm disease, so I don't know if there will be any American Elms once the ones we have die of old age.)

There are even a few American Chestnuts left. But very few--their death from Chestnut Blight was an environmental disaster, causing the extinction of animals that ate chestnuts. But, that was before my time. I have never seen a mature American Chestnut tree, although I hear some are still alive a hundred miles or so west of where I live.