Question

[HONDO74]

Base ball bats have multi uses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isVwqPyxLM8

[healey36]

Another possibility: the Gypsy Moth

Just got back from a trip Upstate myself and observed quite a bit of denuded tree zones as well. Back in midsummer there was quite a bit of the same up on Cape Anne, and that was definitely insects. Some sort of caterpillars, but they didn't look like those hairy gypsy moths.

Another problem is a blight that's hammering red oaks in the northeast. Red oaks are plentiful in the hardwood forests and they've been taking a beating for the last twenty years or so. The blight seems to go through cycles so we may be seeing an up year for it. I have a big red oak in my back yard that's infected...I was hoping it would outlive me but it's not looking so great these last few years. May need to come down soon. It's nearly a hundred years old...will be tough taking him down (if needed).

Healey

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Another problem is a blight that's hammering red oaks in the northeast. Red oaks are plentiful in the hardwood forests and they've been taking a beating for the last twenty years or so.

Had not known that - got a good sized one right behind the garage next to nice hickory, and there's a white oak beyond them that's at least double their combined size. All either too big or too close to houses for me to even contemplate, but there;s enough wood there for the fireplace for many years.

[healey36]

I got the diagnosis from the University of Maryland Extension Service probably close to twenty-five years ago. The tree seems to go through cycles with a couple years of branch die-offs followed by four or five years of robust growth. The year before it loses a bunch of branches it produces a mother-lode of acorns, much to the local squirrel population's delight. I've read this is common in stressed oaks. There's a bunch of dead wood in the tree now and I'll need to get someone in to cut all of it out...too damn old and unsteady to be climbing up forty-foot ladders and sawing with one arm.

I have a pin-oak and a willow oak on the property as well. I planted both of those and they are ~ twenty-five years or so old. Both are robust and show no signs of damage, although I did have a few unidentified caterpillars on the pin oak this year that chewed up a few branches. A sprayer of Sevin took care of them. I should have grabbed a few and taken them in to the extension agent.

The white oak is a great tree. I had a few acorns from the Wye Oak I picked up on a visit a few years before it came down. Planted them in yard and nurtured the tree 'til it got to be about three feet tall...then the paper boy ran over it with his bicycle. I planted another one and got that one to about the same height, then my wife snapped that one off running around in the yard with the dog. Gave up. If I tried again now I'd probably be dead before it got to be ten feet tall. Too many leaves in the gutters anyway...

[robert.]

"too damn old and unsteady to be climbing up forty-foot ladders and sawing with one arm" I fell off a ten footer 6 weeks ago. I'm still dinged up. 48 years old. I think if i was 2 years older i would have been in the hospital. If i was two years younger i would have felt nothing. I cut a vine and the damn thing whipped me the face. Right down i went ladder on top of me. I had a fat lip for a week.

[Roy]

I got the diagnosis from the University of Maryland Extension Service probably close to twenty-five years ago.

Any chance there might be newer treatments?

[healey36]

I got the diagnosis from the University of Maryland Extension Service probably close to twenty-five years ago.

Any chance there might be newer treatments?

A fair question...easy enough to swing by the office and ask.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

"too damn old and unsteady to be climbing up forty-foot ladders and sawing with one arm" I fell off a ten footer 6 weeks ago.

I avoid ladders now and I trim trees by converting them to stumps and firewood, or by having someone else do that for me. Once it's on the ground, I can deal with it.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Another possibility: the Gypsy Moth

Just got back from a trip Upstate myself and observed quite a bit of denuded tree zones as well. Back in midsummer there was quite a bit of the same up on Cape Anne, and that was definitely insects. Some sort of caterpillars, but they didn't look like those hairy gypsy moths....Healey

More evidence to me that the insects are dominating the planet. It's their planet, not ours. (Isn't the count 100s-of-millions per human?) And the trees seem defenseless.

[healey36]

Another possibility: the Gypsy Moth

Just got back from a trip Upstate myself and observed quite a bit of denuded tree zones as well. Back in midsummer there was quite a bit of the same up on Cape Anne, and that was definitely insects. Some sort of caterpillars, but they didn't look like those hairy gypsy moths....Healey

More evidence to me that the insects are dominating the planet. It's their planet, not ours. (Isn't the count 100s-of-millions per human?) And the trees seem defenseless.

It seems to run in cycles, Murph. Ten years ago Catoctin, South Mountain and some of the ridges further west were nearly leafless. After three years or so everything seemed to return to normal, with few if any permanent casualties. The state did do some nominal spraying which I presume helped turn the tide.

[webenda]

Trees are not defenseless...

The first few “talking tree” papers quickly were shot down as statistically flawed or too artificial, irrelevant to the real-world war between plants and bugs.

But the science of plant communication is now staging a comeback. Rigorous, carefully controlled experiments are overcoming those early criticisms with repeated testing in labs, forests and fields. It’s now well established that when bugs chew leaves, plants respond by releasing volatile organic compounds into the air. By Karban’s last count, 40 out of 48 studies of plant communication confirm that other plants detect these airborne signals and ramp up their production of chemical weapons or other defense mechanisms in response.

In comes man...

For millions of years the distribution of the world's biota has been restricted by oceans and other natural barriers. During the last 100 years, human activities, especially international travel and trade, have circumvented these barriers and species are invading new continents at an increasing rate. Biological invasions of insect, plants, and fungal pest species often cause substantial disturbance to forest ecosystems and as well as severe socioeconomic impacts. The natural defenses of our trees is often ineffective against insects, fungus and bacteria brought to the forest by man.

In comes global warming...

Global Warming Could Trigger Insect Population Boom
https://www.livescience.com/4296-global ... -boom.html
Not to mention migrations northward.

Al Gore is already working on, " An Inconvenient Truth III, Dead Trees Standing."

Speaking of Global Warming...

Is global warming a natural cycle of the Earth?

Many scientists understand that natural variations in climate are considerable and not well understood. The Earth has gone through warming periods before without human influence, they note. And not all of the evidence supports global warming. Air temperatures in the lower atmosphere have not increased appreciably, according to satellite data, and the sea ice around Antarctica has actually been growing for the last 20 years.

So that is why coastal cities are not underwater from all the arctic ice melting! The Arctic ice is melting and migrating to Antartica.

The poor suffering polar bears should be gathered up and taken to the South Pole.


Revelation 11:18New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)

18 The nations raged,
but your wrath has come,
and the time for judging the dead,
for rewarding your servants, the prophets
and saints and all who fear your name,
both small and great,
and for destroying those who destroy the earth.

[webenda]

Why do we care more about not contaminating another planet or its moons than about the Earth?

To avoid accidentally crashing into and contaminating a nearby moon that may harbor alien life, NASA destroyed the Cassini spacecraft by sending it to a fiery death in Saturns upper atmosphere.

http://www.businessinsider.com/cassini- ... son-2017-4

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Fascinating, Wayne, both replies. Speaking only for myself, Thank You.

P.S. I believe rising sea levels have been affecting Venice, to an ever-increasing, serious degree, and the sea wall they constructed isn't helping much, apparently.

[Roy]

Some seaside areas of Florida are having problems, as are some island nations.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Some seaside areas of Florida are having problems, as are some island nations.

Yes, I saw a short part of a piece on the news wherein an island woman was being interviewed, and she pointed out toward an imaginary point off shore where she indicated her home and neighborhood once existed, now underwater.