Drew explained the BTG and Milky Spore very well and beneficial nematodes eat and lay eggs inside the grubs.
We need to teach the birds how delicious the japanese beetles and emerald ash borers are supposedly in japan they get hit by birds hard!
The Japanese beetle must taste horrible to birds. We had the worst year for Japanese beetles last year. Normally I use only about 6 bags in a season. Last year it was 14 bags completely FULL of Japanese beetles. There are plenty of birds on my property. The Japanese beetles were so thick you could grab a handful of them just by grabbing the tree leaves.
Birds need to see other birds eat things before they start eating them usually and then there is large amounts of learned behavior on there adaption to food. If you save young birds you use your finger to peck where the food is to teach them what is food.
has about 200mi. to go before it gets here. hopefully our cold keeps them away but i doubt it!
I used that stuff to treat for termites around the house. It’s supposed to be effective for 5 years. since then I kind if cringe when I see flowers next to the house and especially anything eatable.
1 Like
Are you using the pheromone traps and bags? If so, I’d encourage you to stop. I thought that was the way to beat Japanese beetles when they first came out but I learned all they did was attract more and more. The “best” way to use those pheromone traps/bags is to give them to “friends” and neighbors you don’t like that much.
Once I stopped using them, I had many fewer beetles around.
Oh man…sad to see such fine wood burned up in a fireplace! That could have made some excellent furniture/tables/floors/etc…
I think @alan 's point was more from the side of demand driving production, which in an of itself requires large resource inputs. Even if you are recycling, you’re still expending lots of resources: energy, man-hours, chemicals, water, etc…
I’m unfamiliar with this specific plastic, but I’m not sure this is as big of a breakthrough as it’s made out to be. From a real-world implementation standpoint, the biggest challenge for recycling (in the US), is the logistical requirements to collect, sort, and clean. It’s not the cost to melt it down or reform it which is what this new plastic basically was created for (ease of production). We live in large swathes of open land, and even in most of cities (LA), we have less density than cities like Tokyo. This makes transportation costs a nightmare.
Styrofoam recycling is almost completely nonexistant, even though from a process standpoint it’s straightforward. It’s low volume density means that an entire truckload translates into a small yield. Lightweight plastics aren’t much better. This is why most towns and cities have completely abandoned styrofoam recycling and often recycling completely (recently like Philadelphia) and resort to burning now that China isn’t taking bulk recycling shipments anymore.
2 Likes
Perhaps that is the answer. However, when I did not use them the fruit tree leaves, especially my peach trees, were covered with the Japanese beetles. I spayed them and the leaves with Sevin and they seemed to come back anyway. Not sure what the answer is. I have my orchard on about three acres so I do not see a way to control them unless I use something on the ground YET if my neighbors do not I get their beetles.
sad. last summer, the EAB was discovered in Maine for the 1st. time here in my town. year before they were discovered across the border in Edmunston, NB Canada. we have a lot of ash here in wet areas. used for traditional canoe gunnels and snow shoes. also makes fine hardwood veneer for furniture. big trees like that are very valuable if sold to the right place. state just issued a ban on moving ash in state as well as out.
Yes, but I must confess the tree would have never made it to the marketplace. It’s on an island that has no cars. You have to lease a car ferry to go there. The expense of harvesting the tree is too overwhelming to even consider. It was destined for firewood EAB or not. Our biggest trees get to about 120 feet tall. Mostly oaks and maples. Also not tall but very wide are willows. I left a base of a fallen oak to rot because it was too much work to cut up. My biggest saw died, so only have small chain saws right now. I’m not buying another. I’m getting too old to handle them.
2 Likes
I know what you mean. When my very long barred and powerful Sachs Dolmer lost the function of its chain break, I sold it to a stronger and more reckless man than myself. I couldn’t kill that lumber-jack saw- it always started right up and still does so, even after sitting for many months. That’s common for newer equipment but this saw is from the '80’s.
1 Like
Around here most use Husqvarna saws, expensive! Nice saws though. I have a couple saws people didn’t need anymore and gave me. One is a STIHL and the other is a Sears model. Both work, I have parts to a lot of saws. I have three chains that will fit the STIHL. I hand sharpen the chains about 3-5 times, then I have them sharpened on a machine. One tends to sharpen the sides unevenly, and so the saw drifts to the right or left, so I get them balanced when machine sharpened. One of my best friends has a machine, I take them over there. Usually I wait till all chains need machine sharpening. One chain is rather worn, I should probably pitch it.
I have a couple extra bars too, I keep them from old saws as once in awhile a bar is bent. I bent one when the tree shifted.
This year is the first year in some time I don’t have a tree down on the property, it’s early yet though 
1 Like
Yeah…its very tough dealing with big trees. Most city trees end up getting turned into firewood, even though i bet a lot of it would make excellent end products. There is a Youtube guy by the name of Matt Cremona that harvests a lot of trees in Minneapolis area and turns them into beautiful creations. The guy is an amazing woodworker…but he has a trailer, chainsaws, and a huge electric bandsaw mill that he can cut the wood up into huge boards.
Still seeing huge ash trees around my neighborhood that need a chainsaw. Completely dead.
I’m hoping some seedlings grow the trees back in a hundred years or so!
We did use some of the wood for art instead of firewood.
6 Likes
If I had to pick a species of native, large forest tree that was to be exterminated, the ash might be my choice. It is not very attractive, lacking beautiful fall color, spring flowers, edible nuts, or sweet sap that can be boiled down to delicious syrup. Its wood produces tool handles and baseball bats. Tool handles were better when they were made with hickory and I don’t play baseball.
Now the loss of the native chestnut- there was a disaster.
Of course, I’m half kidding. Who am I to say what species deserves to exist? We humans move the killer organisms around the globe too quickly for tree species to adapt- they are collateral damage of the expansion of human population and technology.
Wow greatest game ever, you missed out.
I used to- one year I played in organized little league, but I so sucked at it I never did after the 5th grade, except during phys ed game time. I did enjoy it then and didn’t suck so much as I got older. However, after 9th grade I left public school for good and any organized sports. Surfing only- and that’s the world’s greatest sport, IMO. But a midwesterner probably wouldn’t understand- although there is a bit of surfing on the great lakes.
Sounds like me and hockey! Everybody plays hockey here. I shot well, just not that good of a skater!
I wanted to play in school but my long hair was a problem. Once in college I played IM sports. Nobody cared about my hair there. By then I cut it anyway. In Lansing MI, the city has it’s own softball league, I played IM or city softball for 11 years. I miss that area. It’s at a slower pace than Detroit. Five minutes out of Lansing and your in the corn fields.
Ha! We kite surf here. Well I never did but my 20-30 something friends do. I like to sail, that’s my thing. But I have not gone out in a long time. Lake Huron is not small and you better respect it. Second largest Great lake at over 23,000 square miles. Lake MI is deeper. I see both yearly, almost weekly this time of year. busy there at my cottage this year. It’s kicking my butt!
2 Likes
Just a plug for ash (anyone knows when you take a hard stance for/against anything on this forum) your going to get a push back for exceptions.
That’s what this is.
Our cabinets are made of ash. Beautiful cabinet wood for our house. When I reworked some of the cabinets, ash was hard to find, but a beautiful wood.
Here’s a joke about ash which many may object. I try not to take anything seriously, as I grow older, even jokes about myself. It may be flagged as inappropriate, but I’d laugh if the joke was about me. We all take life too seriously.
Two tall trees, a birch and a beech, were growing in the woods. A small sapling begins to grow between them. The beech says to the birch. Is that a son of a beech, or a son of a birch?
The birch says, “I cannot tell”. Just then a woodpecker lands on the sapling. The birch says, “Woodpecker, is that a son of a beech, or a son of a birch”?
He replies, "It’s neither a son of a beech, nor a son of birch, but the best piece of ash I ever put my pecker into.
OK, that’s crass but I did laugh, when I first read it. Again, most of us take life, and those private things, too seriously.
I don’t take anything, even death very seriously anymore.
7 Likes