Site Discussions

Great Article. Request permission to reprint and post to my Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) Surveyors. The EAB is the little green bug that is killing the ash trees across the United States. The best way to combat the EAB is to not move firewood. Buy your firewood and burn it where you buy it. Check out the folowing websites for more info concerning this threat.
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/newsroom/hot_issues/emerald_ash_borer/emerald_ash_borer.shtml or http://www.in.gov/dnr/ and click on the EAB in the right hand menu.
Thank you for a fine newsletter.

Does anyone know of a buyer for maple logs located in Western Washington (Olympic Peninsula)?

There are many issues to the biomass debate but some can never grasp the complete picture, which is very large. The demand for biomass allows good forestry to continue to be implemented by foresters.  Having a continued market for low grade wood that is produced in improvement harvests and thinnings is key to allowing the landowner to improve forest quality while covering the costs. For if this value of low grade wood was to disappear many landowners would fold and sell their parcel to the next developer. How would sequestration work if forest more rapidly went to pavement and buildings?  Land has a cost to owning and managing biomass helps offset these costs. 

Young forests have been shown to have greater carbon sequestration efficiency than older forests though some balance needs to be met.  It always seems left out that local power plants with local energy sources reduce the total carbon picture from the transportation side of things alone. This goes for all things, buy local should be the carbon mantra whether food, fiber or energy. Where did the last 2x4 you purchased at home depot come from, or do you even care?
Energy sources need to be diversified, managed in a way that reduces transportation and extraction and production of the energy source for every region of the country.  This will be the only way to move toward carbon neutrality.

In response to CJ’s note, this borer is specific to apple trees, so your other fruit trees should be safe. In my reading on it, I saw that it ate crabapples, too, and you would expect that to be the case. At my place, it has oddly enough let the crabs alone. I don’t know why.

Bee-line is not always straight from food source to hive. I lined a swarm in Central Maine in the 50’s. My set-up was near a patch of goldenrod in the middle of a 40 acre field in mid September.  I got compass bearing and time and set out to locate the hive.  Lo and behold the bearing and subsequent sightings led me to, and down, a woods road in a corner of the field.  There I lost the trail because I couldn’t see the bees against the trees. Eventually I found the hive, by hearing the buzzing, in a big old brown ash.  The flight path was roughly in the shape of a “J”.  The bees had flown about 300 hundred extra clear yards such that flight through the woods was reduced from 200 yards or so to less than 50 yards. Sure shook my confidence in the preconceived bee-line I had been reading about.

After 6 years of losing newly planted apple trees, now I know the reason!!  And more importantly, there is a method of killing the borer and saving the tree.  Does this borer only bother apple trees or will it or another borer attack my plum, peach, and pear trees?

I brushed up against stinging neddles while fishing. I had a very nasty reaction with large welts on my body. Very painful and itchy. It made me ill and I had to seek medical assistance I was allergic and it has taken 1 month to clearup somewhat. I have scaring and it left black and blue bruising.It is still very irritable and itchy.

As a company we deal with many Charity’s who reach out to those in need including charity’s who go out to help such places as Haiti. It is great to read articles like Dave’s who shed sides of disasters we do not think of. As carolyn said the focus is often always about people and money. Dave shows us another side to consider of what has happened in haiti.

Great read, congratulations on a strong article Dave, look forward to reading more.

Shortly after buying 100 acres of fields and forest in Northfield, Vermont in 1964, my father met with the Washington County Forester to get some insight into how to manage his new property. The forester’s advice was to plant Scotch Pine…lots of them…20,000 in fact. A few months later our family became involved in what was a five year project to fill our fields with seedlings that grew up to become mediocre Christmas trees, crooked saw logs and generally an eyesore. Now, close to fifty years later, my wife and I who now own the property are on the verge of cutting the last twenty trees that remain. After reading the article about Red Pine, I found myself wishing that even a third of our Scotch Pine trees had been Red Pine. At least Red Pine has some value. Thanks for the article.

I think I finally found what is in our young tulip poplar tree. Last year I noticed that it was covered in these scabs/scales/bumps. There were also wasps and ants and lady bugs all over it. I also noticed what looked like black bug honeydew on many of the leaves. However, there doesn’t seem to be any harm being done to the tree. It seems to be very healthy.

My grandfather used to run an orchard that he inherited when he bought a dairy farm. He said that urinating (my word, not his) on the base of a peach tree kept the Peach Tree Borers away. I don’t know if the same would work for apple rees or not. You might need to take up beer-drinking to get enough “spray coverage” for large numbers of trees.

Also, you mention that most of the borer-infested trees were on old pasture sites. I don’t know how true it is, but a lot of the old timber cutters around here used to say that the only place they found Oak Grubs were in pasture trees or downhill from pastures. Take it for what it’s worth to you.

Great information! 

All too often we find sawdust near our trees and this is great advice on dealing with it.  I’ve cleaned sink drains with a wire. Why not a bore tunnel? Thanks!

“It goes without saying that some of the $2,400,000,000 in aid that the world has pledged to Haiti will have to subsidize fuel sources that aren’t charcoal, will have to go towards landscape reclamation projects that can bring nature back into alignment”

This is something that people really overlook.

As birders who have visited in Central America and Caribbean; my husband and I were witness to devastated former forests, sacrificed for short term gains. (Think banana and pineapple plantations) Many of those areas have become deserts. Islands seem to suffer more intensely. Some even have to import water. I hope the agencies involved with assisting Haiti will consider reforestation
as an imortant part of their goals.

Great article—I have had an interest in bee hunting since I was a teenager.  Unfortunately, there are a lot fewer feral bee colonies than there used to be.  However, it is still an exciting sport.  In the past, I have referred to “The Bee Hunter” by George Harold Edgell and “Hunting Wild Bees” by Robert Donovan.  Enjoyed the article!

Babington style waste oil heater pumps

The cam gear pump works fine for filtered WVO or used motor oil Babington heaters and I have installed it on my Babington style heaters. Ldu Company’s stock number is 450516 , The only thing about the cam gear pump is that the fire kind of pulses as the cam gear rotates. If you use the spur gear pump that is LDU’s stock number 450512 then you get a steady non-pulsing fire. The WVO pump website is http://www.liangdianup.com/subpages/oilpump_1.htm or you can click through to the tools section from the home page at http://www.lducompany.com

LDU Company also has other parts that I use for building my waste oil burners, like gear reduction motors. I find it best to turn the pump slower because you really don’t need a whole lot of oil dripping on the atomizer ball.

Reminds me of my dad who often lined wild bees.  We found one huge hive a couple miles out in the woods in a huge tree on a sidehill with no way to even drive to it and decided it was too much work to save.  I remember particularly that he always used anice to attract the bees but I don’t know exactly how he did that.  I also remember that he generally would mark the bee that was working the box with, I believe a drop of liquid white shoe polish.  He would time the bee and determine the distance, then move to another field and try to get another bee from the same hive to give him multiple lines.  This was back about 1960 or so before GPS but we had topo maps and compass and a lot of ambition.  Good article.
ldb

Thank you for a wonderful article.  I found this while searching for dye information on autumn olive.  Do you know anything about this?

Nice thoughts for our bumbled friends. I would have likes to see pictures of these bees and a bit on differential of these. Other than experts could help a bit in maybe spotting some of these out and around. We constantly imbalance our ecology by growing American bees in Europe, for instance. I want my butterflies back too.

Seems like excess cutting (Especially areas in Mass) would open avenues for exotic plant species to gain a foothold in areas they had never been in.  Little by little that creeps in.  Once it’s producing seeds and we have a high Avian population scavaging on them the exotics root in sporadically in areas we may not be able to MAINTAIN!  There Just doesn’t seem to be ENOUGH biomass in some areas.  Transportaion of Beetlewood and fungus could become an issue.  Invasive seeds too.  Small scale Biomass generators could be the ticket for certain Counties.  I suppose a current inventory and forecasted inventory Should be of a certain volume for “LOCAL Sustainability.”  Diversify power generators.  Use wind when the topography allows.  Perhaps wind and Solar or Solar and Biomass. 
Some wood is better left to rot!  I find rotten punky wood makes a good blend between Lawn and forest.  I’ll mix rotten wood and chopped leaf litter.  Using it in areas to capture surface runoff from grassy or exposed areas before entering a wet zone.  Mabey we should be looking more twords using our VALUABLE and overlooked “biomass” as water filters, soil enhancers,  sheltered areas for habitat.