Ash die back

[westphalian]

No confirmed up top of North Yorkshire but over 70% of our roadside tree stock are big mature ash, if they all suffer it'll be a nightmare dealing with them or getting Landowners to safely do the work to prevent failure onto the roads.

We could end up very busy but the countryside will be a very different place without them all.

I’m near Catterick!

I’m in between two infected squares

[westphalian]

How quick does this develop in mature trees? I seem to remember some advice somewhere that matures trees could survive for quite a few years with it, before they have to go.
 
We're just starting to see it in saplings up here.

Exactly what I am interested in

[WesD]

Gary has touched on it but what’s worrying is the saplings have it (I’m north west) so sadly Ash will soon be a thing of the past and we may need to think about giving sycamores a better rep as they’ll have to be looked after better to keep a good tree stock once Ash are a tree of the past. 

[Gray git]

I’m near Catterick!
I’m in between two infected squares

In the case of that map I'm in the left hand square but apart from a new planting that had to be pulled and destroyed as could have been infected yet unconfirmed I didn't know of any and definitely not in mature stock although we have a lot of very poorly looking ash covered in felted polipore loocaly.

[Gary Prentice]

I’m inclined to take the F.C. maps with a pinch of salt. I think I heard that the current theory is that it was here well before it’s first recording and it either isn’t being reported or the F.C. haven’t been able to keep up with confirming reports. 

 

I was told last summer by our TO of a few areas locally, where he’d seen it and after that started to notice it everywhere. I’ve been between Warrington, Macclesfield and Bolton, surveying development sites, and seen it at all of them and travelling between them.

[westphalian]

Gary has touched on it but what’s worrying is the saplings have it (I’m north west) so sadly Ash will soon be a thing of the past and we may need to think about giving sycamores a better rep as they’ll have to be looked after better to keep a good tree stock once Ash are a tree of the past. 

I think I will increase the price of my ash logs[emoji6]

[Stubby]

14 hours ago, Gary Prentice said:

........... and seen it at all of them and travelling between them.

So your the one spreading it then Gary

[Billhook]

On 17/05/2018 at 09:10, Gary Prentice said:

It will be, but nature evolves. In a few hundred years there will probably be mature ash around that are resistant or tolerant to the fungus and life goes on. Maybe we just think about things in our time, not tree time.

 

It does show the importance in the urban situation of the need for a rich species diversity. The planting palette used by landscape architects and town planners is far to narrow generally.

Yes, the huge Elms were everywhere here in Lincolnshire lining the road sides and dominating the tops of hills until the disease struck in the seventies.  Now they have all gone............ or have they?  The hedges and copses are full of saplings which live until about 15 years when the bark splits and the beetles introduce the fungus.  But they come again and are just waiting for the time, perhaps in our Great Great Grandchildren's lifetime when either the beetle, the fungus disappear or the trees become immune.

We have two mature Elms on the farm here in the middle of fields on their own .  They seem to have a touch of the disease in the crown every year but no dieback and each year starts with a complete canopy.

I have written to the Elm trust people in the hope that they may take some cuttings.

Anyone have a suggestion as to the best way/ timing to do this?

I am confident that the Ash will survive in a similar way,

Nature mutates, which is how things survive, including ourselves.

[Gary Prentice]

12 hours ago, Stubby said:

So your the one spreading it then Gary

Do you want ash logs or not? 

[Stubby]

Just now, Gary Prentice said:

Do you want ash logs or not? 

Oops  Soz Gaz !