Ash dieback - Different perspective?

[green heart]

Last summer I was slack jawed to see the colossal impact of ADB, when out  driving through the Derbyshire dales, whilst on my hols.

These are/were natural self set Ash woodlands, growing on steep-ish limestone valleys, and hectares of ALL ages were showing 99+% mortality. 

It looks really dire...

I was depressed! 

 

In an attempt to say something a bit more positive, I did also find a healthy mature Wych elm, which was growing within 100m of it's dead younger neighbours!

 

[Stubby]

6 hours ago, AHPP said:

I don’t know. My kitchen window looks at the side of a shed. 

Is that an extended extrapolation of the shed ?

[slack ma girdle]

On 05/05/2025 at 18:37, AHPP said:

What do you think killed the 8?

Ash Dieback 😁

[Scuttlefish]

Re the Derbyshire Dales, I took a walk down Lathkill Dale, from Monyash , last summer, a lot of Ash had been felled but the mortality was very high , totally changed the look of the dale as I knew it . Far worse than my part of North Yorkshire.

[Stubby]

6 hours ago, slack ma girdle said:

Ash Dieback 😁

swat I thort 🙂

[Dan Maynard]

I'd still say the hedgerow ash is not that bad round here. In the absence of more science I put that down to East Anglia being dry, and part of the life cycle being in leaf mould - worst I've seen was working in central Ireland last year, obviously a lot more damp on the ground.

[MattyF]

2 hours ago, Dan Maynard said:

I'd still say the hedgerow ash is not that bad round here. In the absence of more science I put that down to East Anglia being dry, and part of the life cycle being in leaf mould - worst I've seen was working in central Ireland last year, obviously a lot more damp on the ground.

I’d go with that Dan … I was at my sisters at the weekend in east anglia , she has a large weeping ash that is not showing barely any signs at all of die back , I’ve not seen a live one in Northumberland, they seem particularly susceptible to it here.. looking down the valley yesterday I can just seen pockets of dead trees now that are all ash. 
 

[Sviatoslav Tulin]

4 years ago I did  pruning on ash with die back ,I just cut only branches badly affected and dead wood ,the tree still standing and look very well as I drive past it every second day ,so I can confirm some of the species can probably survive, sadly not many of them! But from now I will recommend to customers not to rush in to the removal, if tree looking more or less ok and they ready to have small financial risk to prune it correctly .

[danthemanwhocan]

Thanks for sharing a good read.

 

On my little patch, much of the older ash now has Inotus and woodpecker holes, which can be concerning when there are targets, though they have stood up well to some high winds. Removals tend to be when they get to stage 3 and 4, though I have ordered a few early 'repollarding' and reduction of large limbs in the hope of saving valuable trees and preventing harm. 

 

The article does not mention that the longer trees are in the ground, the more natural colinisation is possible, therefore a higher chance of resilant future stock.

 

There was also a study that showed trees with poor ventilation and higher humidity is affected more by ADB, which correlates with comments and the article.