Ash Apocalypse
There are plenty of ash saplings coming up on the farm, but all the ash trees of any size are dead, felled by the emerald ash borer. This small Asian invader has caused catastrophic damage to the ashes in this region, and according to the Emerald Ash Borer Information Network has killed hundreds of millions of ash trees across North America.
Here on the farm there are visible areas where the trees have fallen, but most of our ashes were relatively small, so there are no huge gaps in the canopy. Black cherries and maples dominate in the young forest, and will no doubt take advantage of the gaps left by the ashes. I'm looking forward to the next stage of forest succession, in which oaks, beeches, and hickories will move in, and perhaps the loss of the ash trees will jump start this phase. Only time will tell.
Meanwhile, the dead trees are rotting as they stand and coming down in high winds. Unfortunately they are doing a lot of damage as they fall. They've crushed fences and a chicken enclosure, and even taken out a power line pole, causing a brief outage.
According to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, EAB affects all native ash species in Ohio, which together number 3.8 billion individual trees, or did before the arrival of the EAB. Adults are harmless; the larvae do the damage, tunneling just under the bark and restricting the trees ability to move water and nutrients. Most trees succumb within 3 to 5 years.
As always, death brings life in another form. Turkey tails are busy turning dead wood into dinner. Other, unseen fungi and invertebrates are undoubtedly chowing down, enriching the soil of the woods as they do so.
The death of the ashes has a silver lining: lots of firewood lying around that just needs to be cut to size. It can go straight into the wood burners since the trees have been drying in place, just waiting for wind to bring them down.
The long-term fate of the ash tree remains to be seen. Large specimens that are seemingly unaffected by EAB offer hope that resistant individuals can be developed. Also, the fact that young trees can survive long enough to produce seed, thereby allowing the perpetuation of the species, is encouraging. Further reading on plans to save the ash trees can be found here.