[HN Gopher] The emerald ash borer is threatening a Native-Americ...
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The emerald ash borer is threatening a Native-American tradition
(2019)
Author : Tomte
Score : 52 points
Date : 2022-03-16 12:35 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| ben7799 wrote:
| This is affecting a bunch of other stuff too like musical
| instruments, furniture, and baseball bats.
|
| I have a few prized items made from Ash that are not going
| anywhere, because before long they will not be replaceable at any
| reasonable price. It is a very beautiful and durable wood so it's
| very sad what's happened.
| _qua wrote:
| There is a pretty effective pesticide treatment that's injected
| into the tree every few years to the tune of a few hundred
| dollars. Much cheaper than cutting a large one down with the
| added benefit of getting to keep a mature tree.
|
| It's really only viable for urban/suburban tree populations
| though, not a whole forest.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| We lost a bunch of ash out of a small playground park near my
| house (Kitchener). They did the injections for a few years, but
| it seemed even at the time like it was more just putting off
| the inevitable. Or like, it was a way to do them in batches so
| we didn't lose _all_ the shade in one fell swoop.
|
| In any case, the replacements have been a mix of slower-growing
| native species, so that's at least positive-- in 10-20 years
| there will be shade over the park again, and hopefully it being
| more diverse will make it a bit more robust to new species-
| specific bugs.
| sp332 wrote:
| Is it weird to contrast the indigenous things against the
| "western"? The natives in the Americas were the ones further to
| the west of the Europeans.
| zwieback wrote:
| Here are some of the baskets the guy mentioned in the article
| makes:
|
| https://www.abbemuseum.org/attending-artists-profiles/gabrie...
|
| Pretty cool looking. I've been trying to turn the shoots I get
| every winter from my apple tree into baskets since they look so
| nice and straight, shame to just toss. It's been a real struggle,
| just not an appropriate material for weaving.
|
| I have a lot of sympathy for someone losing the basic material
| needed for their craft although fighting tree pests often seems
| like a losing battle.
| AngryData wrote:
| Here in Michigan ive been cutting and burning 95% ash for the
| last 25-30 years because it is all dieing or now completely dead.
| Some woods are 50% ash trees and all dead.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I wonder what the actually net benefit analysis is of our fast
| international trade. How much money have we saved by buying cheap
| foreign stuff vs the massive damage from stuff like lanternflys,
| emerald ash borers, snake heads, and potentially giant hornets?
| marcinzm wrote:
| >saved
|
| You mean how much more stuff have we bought with the same
| amount of money.
|
| In term of pure environmental impact I suspect environmental
| protection is easier to push for domestically when you can move
| the high impact but environmentally damaging industries to
| other countries.
| dontlaugh wrote:
| Due to the vast difference in wages, astonishing amounts of
| profit have been made from the super-exploitation of workers in
| poor countries.
|
| Other arrangements are possible, but this is the tendency we
| see now with production motivated by profit.
| asdff wrote:
| On balance is your life really any better than it was in like
| 1950 in terms of economics? Probably not. Homes are no longer
| $5k for new construction. Cars are no longer $1k. Etc. We now
| pay exorbitant costs to achieve a standard of living that was
| once common for a factory worker with a high school diploma.
| Who really benefited here from globalization? Clearly it
| wasn't the average American but someone far higher up the
| food chain who was already living comfortably.
| watwut wrote:
| Well, 1950 was before civil rights era and during lynchyngs
| era, so quite a few Americans are in fact much better off.
| All of that had huge economic consequences.
|
| Women were not allowed to make contracts or wills, which
| included ability to open bank accounts. They were not
| allowed in top universities either.
|
| Internationally, it gets even more interesting. It was 5
| years after WWII and people were still dealing with
| destruction and consequences.
| jsnodlin wrote:
| rotten wrote:
| The ash trees are all gone around us. Some 30-40% of all of the
| trees in our area (central Ohio) were wiped out within just 2-3
| years. I'm not sure if we'll get saplings growing back now that
| the ash borer has wiped out its food source or not.
|
| Traditional wooden baseball bats are made from ash. I'm guessing
| those will disappear soon too.
| vrc wrote:
| I bought a house in the northeast last winter with 2 huge ash
| trees in the backyard. Come early spring I noticed a woodpecker
| would go to town on them every morning. Closer inspection showed
| tons of tiny little holes throughout from Emerald Ash Borers and
| the trees had to come down to the tune of $7k. Bonus costs
| because the woodpecker returned in the fall and decided the next
| best thing to the now-missing trees was my house's wood siding...
|
| Turns out lots of new home buyers and realtors are bringing
| arborists along for home inspections because this is so common
| here (especially for winter purchase where you can't tell if the
| tree has leaves). Will definitely do that next time!
| snarf21 wrote:
| Yeah, it is sad and an unintended consequence of a global
| economy. My girlfriend has 17 acres in upstate NY with 300+
| ash. They are all slowly dying, losing their bark and blowing
| down in storms. Most are standing dead and don't even have much
| value as timber.
| hinkley wrote:
| The sad thing too is that in many forests it's hemlock that
| grows over fallen trees, paving the way for apex trees to
| follow behind them, and the hemlock is also under threat by
| the hemlock woolly adelgid. With elm and chestnut also gone,
| our list of allies grows thin.
|
| I don't know if tulip poplar is native to your area but that
| also used to be part of the apex canopy and we hardly even
| talk about them. Ridiculously massive trees. Normal trees
| don't come up to the lowest branch on a mature tulip poplar.
| evandev wrote:
| I live in southern Vermont and have a lot of dead ash trees.
| Interesting enough, while there is emerald ash borer 5 miles
| away from me, it hasn't made it to my property. I had a state
| forester who specializes in EAB come and take a look and
| found no evidence of it. Apparently around 2017 there was a
| drought that affected a lot of the ash trees near me and most
| have died from that. None of the trees had signs of flecking
| which is key and he took a look at the firewood and found no
| evidence. He said that if one ash tree has EAB, all ash trees
| around it will also be affected. And there are a few very
| healthy ash trees.
| nkurz wrote:
| > I live in southern Vermont and have a lot of dead ash
| trees.
|
| I'm also in Southern Vermont (Readsboro) and have mostly
| healthy ash trees. Emerald ash borer is presumed to be in
| the area, but no observed evidence yet right where I am.
| The foresters we spoke to told us that since it takes
| several years for trees to show symptoms, we should
| probably assume that our trees are already infested. We do
| have some trees that seem to be suffering from another ash
| disease which is present here:
| https://www.vtinvasives.org/invasive/ash-yellows.
|
| It's probably worth noting that there are effective
| treatments if you have individual trees that you want to
| save. I've been doing a preventative treatment on the trees
| near with house for the last couple year with Dinotefuran
| (Safari). It can be applied on the bark (basal trunk spray)
| in late spring, after the leaves start coming out. It costs
| about $10 per medium sized tree per year if you do it
| yourself. It won't save a tree that has already been too
| damaged, but is believed effective if applied before major
| signs appear.
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| Maybe those genetics have an immunity? That's the case with
| beech trees where I live, they have a tough time but a few
| survived the plague that swept through them. I wonder how
| one could test if it's something special about the trees.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| Try putting lime around them and maybe you'll get morels.
| bokohut wrote:
| I live in North Eastern Maryland USA and two years ago I
| noticed bark laying symmetrically encircled around a tree. I
| asked around and an arborist informed me of our unfortunate
| situation to come which the State of Maryland had been trying
| to get in front of for years. After my property was visited by
| an State of Maryland arborist per their request I was informed
| I had to rectify this issue by felling my trees as soon as
| possible to prevent more spreading however my efforts were
| pointless since there are hundreds of infected Ash trees in and
| around me of which my neighbors have no idea nor any interest
| in their trees. Now in present time there are many hundreds of
| dead Ash trees around my area and the recent bomb cyclone wind
| we had caused those dead Ash trees branches to fall and some
| were widow makers for sure. I have proactively contacted my
| Home Owners Association, Town, County and State as it relates
| to these dead trees as the human threat impact is extremely
| high since some of these large trees are over property, yes
| homes, and those residents have zero knowledge about the threat
| these "fast dying" trees bring to them with each passing day.
| The invasive species are getting worse year over year as the
| price of globalization comes into clearer focus as years ago it
| was the brown marmorated stink bug yet in more recent years it
| has been the spotted lantern fly and now it is the emerald ash
| worm.
| drewzero1 wrote:
| Our yard has about a dozen trees and shortly after we moved in
| we hired an arborist to inspect them and advise us on how to
| keep them healthy. We ended up having to take down a dying ash
| that was leaning over our house and our neighbor's house. They
| also told us that one of our neighbors' ash trees is also on
| the way out, so we can plan ahead for shade for when they
| eventually take that down. The tree removal was relatively
| inexpensive compared to worrying about falling deadwood.
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