The woods by me are about 50% ash trees. Emerald ash borers have infested them badly, most are dead or will be soon. Woodpeckers are doing their best to eat them but they just cannot keep up.

Consequences of the global economy. It’s not just ash trees, Asian longhorned beetle, (maple trees)wooly adelgid, (hemlocks) spotted lantern fly, and the list goes on.

Yep, we lost all the ash trees here in eastern WI. They rot and fall over fast also. Tree crews will be busy for the next few years just cutting problem ash trees.

Not good.To bad

I'm sorry to hear you're losing your ash trees too. I lost around 350 large ash trees on my farm. Ash were my most common tree. I have 6 large white ash that are still alive. They've outlasted the others by 2 years. I'm starting to wonder if they might not die. I have many hundreds of young ash trees growing. When the old ash trees started dying, they put out tremendous amounts of seeds. The young trees are popping up where I took the old trees down and everywhere i don't mow. I expect the emerald ash borer will come back through my area once the young trees become big enough for them to predate on.

Keith

I hope not...they need a immunity shot...or ash borer predator.

I was told that in Ohio alone, we lost 4 billion ash trees. I lost a really nice one about 10 years ago. And my neighbor just to the north of me spent hundreds of dollars trying to save one but to no avail.

I have a boiler I use a lot of the elm and ash lots of dead trees here among the few we have in places.

When I saw the EAB getting close to Sussex County (where Eric is....,) I had a timber sale on my place on Hamburg Mtn. I was able to sell most of my large white ash before they became infested and before the market price crashed. We finished logging in March 2016.

Turned out to be a pretty wise decision. I have hardly any live mature ash now. And once they fall, they rot real quick. Don't have long to salvage for sound firewood.

Pete

Another thing to thank CHINA for!

loosing them fast here also.

been heating almost entirely on ash this year so far

cut them before the bark falls off if you can , get them out while they still are usefull


my dad had 2 big ones sawn for lumber it is decent wood working wood if you have a nice trunk with strait grain and no knots

Ash was always my favorite firewood when I had my wood boiler.

What a shame!
Wish there was a WRS corporation for you to call.... woodpecker relocation service.

Our ash are all toast here in my part of the northern Lower Peninsula. They were dying by the thousands right when the EAB was first on the state's radar. It has led me to believe it was here for a bit longer than was preveously thought. I never had much ash on my land, but what little I had is long dead. There are areas of low swampy ground in my township, thousands of acres actually, where Black Ash was the dominant specie of tree. Those areas are now a wateland of dead timber. As stated above, ash tends to rot quickly, at least near the ground where moisture is heaviest. They are now toppling by the zillion. It sicken me to see the ash all dead/dying, but it is salt in my wounds to have all that wonderful firewood rotting away so fast. If the state would open some of these areas to a harvest of dead trees for firewood I could cut the things for the rest of my life and not make a dent. Alas, they will rot long before that, and the state allows no standing timber (dead or otherwise) to be cut on a fuelwood permit. Our county has little-to-no Federal ground. The Feds, even here, allow dead standing timber to be cut. There are also access restrictions that prevent you from using anything other than a wheelbarrow or shanksmare to carry wood to your truck. It is illegal to pull off the road/two-track and get closer to the tree your cutting on. Most of our DNR officers are common sense guys and don't bother folks unless they are tearing stuff up when getting firewood. Some of the new guys are a bit more intolerant of things, regardless of intent.