Ash dieback and joe public with a saw

[davetaz]

Is it really worth leaving them all in the hope that some may be resistant and face the serious risk that 90% of uk ash trees (80 million in total) will end up with absolutely no value at all if you are not allowed to use them once infected?

 

I have a 21 acre woodland which is mostly beech planted 45 years ago with some ash and pine. The plan was to gradually remove the beech to promote the ash (which is the natural predominant tree for this site - limestone hillside north wales). I am now thinking about removing most of the young ash before they get infected so they have some value.

 

Surely the surviving resistant trees on the continent should be enough to propogate a resistant strain from for future re-stocking?

[codlasher]

My 2p's for all it's worth!

 

My dear old Dad spent quite a lot of time in the 1970's with cutting, milling and selling vast amounts of Elm (all from those enormous old hedgerow trees, now forgotten, except in pictures). Ercol's made many pieces of fine furniture from this timber having perfected the '3 ply' method of manufacture. There aren't many pubs within a 50 mile radius of High Wycombe without at least one Ercol piece.

The '87 & '90 gales kick started the timber industry again with masses of cheap hardwood available and much also came in from Europe complete with the pin hole beetle:thumbdown:

I am optimistic, although sad about the potential landscape changing loss this latest infection will have on us. Optimistic as it will make folk much more aware of the dangers of plant infection and also there will be a positive outcome as with all disasters, although it's too early to speculate yet. The spring bloom will perhaps be the most depressing time.

Looking round today at the Ash near to me I really can't tell yet if the infection is rife. This is mainly due to the majority of trees having lost their leaves some ten days ago....No sign of any die-back either, but I'm probably too early.

codlasher

[Arob]

Just wondering how the insurance rate will increase due to accidents from people using chain saws other than professionals. are accidents by non professional type have anything to do with your countries NHS?.

easy-lift guy

 

I know than in the US one of the biggest perks an employer can offer an employee is healthcare insurance, although tbh i'm not too sure how this works.

In the UK, people earning above a basic threshold pay National Insurance contributions, but this is to do with unemployment and sickness benefits and state pensions rather than healthcare.

In UK the NHS is state funded and provides free healthcare at the point of delivery, it is not associated with any kind of personal insurance policy, so any accidents would be covered by that state funding, stats may be recorded but there would be no further effect to the individual involved in terms of increased health insurance premiums. Frankly, given the amount of funding the NHS receives a few accidents here or there would make little difference to any current funding arrangements.

In terms of professional insurance it would be unlikely to have an effect assuming that these people were not taking out insurance on their tree work.

 

Perhaps you can explain how it works on the other side of the pond - i think we may forget just how lucky we are here and it's all pretty topical what with 'Obama-care' and all that. (Not looking to encourage a derail btw!)

[arbmark]

Is it really worth leaving them all in the hope that some may be resistant and face the serious risk that 90% of uk ash trees (80 million in total) will end up with absolutely no value at all if you are not allowed to use them once infected?

 

I have a 21 acre woodland which is mostly beech planted 45 years ago with some ash and pine. The plan was to gradually remove the beech to promote the ash (which is the natural predominant tree for this site - limestone hillside north wales). I am now thinking about removing most of the young ash before they get infected so they have some value.

 

Surely the surviving resistant trees on the continent should be enough to propogate a resistant strain from for future re-stocking?

 

surely the resistant trees might come from the uk?!?! I dont think full resistance has had a chance to be tested.

And its not the same as the elms as they sucker like mad and the juvenile trees are immune to DED, and can even propagate before becoming infected.

 

On the other hand, taking the long view (after all the loss of ash for a few centuries is a blip in time in planetary terms) perhaps it has had its day and we shouldnt be so sentimental.

 

But back to the present and our lifetimes, or the next few, there will be no resistant trees if every one is cut down, so therefore i think we should all gratefully accept the work if the trees are causing a hazard but we should be seeking to help ash recover by giving it every chance by helping the trees trying to fight.

[Rich2484]

Everyone I've spoken too about this has had the same opinion. I've spoken to a few tree hungers down the lifeboat and a few that have trees in there garden most are ash. They asked me what the signs where so I told them. They didn't seem to mind about it and the general consensuse was that if someone turned up saying there trees had chalala (however its spelt) they will get a rofessional in to survey the tree and ensure it or write the comments off before they had any work done. Sensible IMO.

 

Joe public can go and get a saw for all I care and when they get hurt its there own stupid fault.

 

I would like to think that an insurance company would be ale to tell the professional from the monkey.

[Big J]

I was at a timber grading course last Friday and the chap running it has been in the business for 50 years. He isn't excessively worried about Chalara Fraxinea as he's seen dozens of diseases hit the UK that have supposedly threatened to destroy a species. Only Dutch Elm was successful in that respect and apparently they knew it was going to devastate a long time before it hit.

 

Additionally, if it is as severe as is made out to be, control measures are bloody pointless anyway. If it can cross the English Channel on the wind, any human effort to control it's spread is like trying to put out a forest fire with a super soaker!

[Stereo]

I think we need to let it run. Maybe we need controls on ash saplings so that it spreads slowly but it will be all over in a few years. Those trees that die should be dealt with and any that survive can be actively bred from. It really wouldn't take that many decades with a concerted effort to get a few million resistant saplings in the ground.

 

It's a bit gutting for those specimens that we have nurtured over the years. I've got one at the bottom of my garden that has been spoilt since it was a sapling sticking out of the hedge when we moved in. Everything else has been cleared out of it's way and it's been carefully pruned. I was really looking forward to enjoying it when I'm an old duffer.

[Old Mill Tree Care]

Just interested on peoples thoughts on joe public jumping on the band wagon to earn some cash cutting the failing ash trees.

As my feeling is that the potential increased number of accidents by inexperienced operators it put chainsaw accidents up and then will it affect the insurance premiums?

Also its could do us guys out of our wages

 

Frankly, if people want to jump on the band wagon and have accidents, I couldn't care less.

What I do care about is all the idiots jumping on the band wagon and depriving all the Pro firms of work. It's bad enough already in a saturated market, further stressed by all the cowboys and gypos.

The '87 & '89 hurricanes got all the morons out with chainsaws, this won't be a great deal different, although on a smaller scale.

[HCR]

Uninsured amateurs having accidents won't have a huge impact on insurance costs - as far as I know there is no Motor Insurers' Bureau type of organisation funded by insurers.

 

If 90% of our trees end up infected, then there won't be much point in internal movement controls, will there? Pre-emptive felling is a mistake.

[Gnarlyoak]

Does all infected wood from the trees:

 

1) Have to be destroyed on site

2) Or can they be transported & used firewood like DED was/is

 

If 2) when it spreads everywhere (115 sites already in uk so its going to be everywhere i think?) surely many would want to cut down before the trees got infested then atleast you get firewood from them.

 

Which is bad if you want to try find resistant trees.

 

AAAAAgh..... I think we need to get this 115 sites confirmed report into some perspective before we all get whipped up into a frenzy created by the news media giving people doom laden headlines rather than factual information.

 

About 111/2 of these 115 sites are all nurseries or newly planted stands from nursery stock. Probably all of these nursery stocks were propagated on the continent before they were shipped over to the UK. Likely as not to have come from Holland. It is also worth noting that before this hysteria broke out in the last couple of weeks, the first confirmed case of chalara fraxinea in the UK was found in a nursery more than 6 mnths ago back in March!

 

The disease has only been found in the indigenous wild tree population in about 3/4 locations in the South East (Norfolk/Suffolk) so far. So I don't think there is any need for knee jerk panic over reactions just yet. (IMHO)

 

As for disposal. There are no restrictions moving any arisings from ash pruning or felling operations, unless they are definately infected with chalara. Trees confirmed or suspected of having the disease have to be left in situ, quarantined and reported to DEFRA/FC. They then will decide how the tree is to be disposed of.

 

As for Joe Public, there is no law preventing them from weilding a chainsaw, so yes a number of them will jump on the bandwagon and feed off the fear of the less enlightened and be out there felling good strong decent trees simply to make a fast buck.