iDRY Vacuum Kilns

Sponsors:

Need help with a beetle problem

Started by Southside, January 12, 2015, 11:37:05 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Southside

I have a beetle problem in a block of mixed wood I am working in.  From best anybody can tell the land was pasture that was let go probably 40 or so years back, maybe a bit more but the history has been lost.  It has grown up into a mixture of pine and hardwood, bit of everything, some oak, some hickory, poplar, gum, sycamore, plenty of holly and some cedar, a nice looking tract, tons of turkey and deer.  Some of the pine has some good size to it, some has been stunted for sure.  It transitions to more pine the further south you go until its all pine, then breaks back into all hardwood and open fields. 

Last winter I opened up this area, mostly the stunted, co-dom, lower grade timber was taken out, some decent stuff if it was really tight to another leave tree.  The idea was to take a little value now, open things up as best can be done along the lines of a second thinning and give the tract 5 to 10 years to add value then come back for more. 

Along the very north of the block I found some beetle damage where a fire had gone through 4 or so years before.  None of the trees were dead and I cleared that area completely, cut around a 150' clean zone of any pine and figured it was good. That was 3 times the clean zone the forester recommended but for a variety of reasons it was the best way to go. 

Well a few weeks back I get a call to come look at some trees that appear to have bugs past the clean zone.  Sure enough, same sap on the bark and dust at the butt - dang.  So now I am back in there and hitting it hard, taking a lot of the trees we left last year, a couple had all green needles on them, but quite a lot of blue stain in the butt log. 

I have attached photos of the trees and of a beetle I spotted, then killed.  I am in disagreement with the forester over what this beetle is so hoping somebody who knows for sure can confirm what this bugger is. 

My questions are 1) what is the dastrardly bug that is attacking these trees? 2) how do I know for sure how far the beetles have advanced into the block 3) when I find the end of the present infestation how far of a clean zone do I cut out?

Thanks for any help.   

 

You can see a stump from last year in the middle of this photo



 

24" bar on the 372 in the photo, this tree had a full, green crown, heavy in cones, and blue stain in the butt log.



 
Franklin buncher and skidder
JD Processor
Woodmizer LT Super 70 and LT35 sawmill, KD250 kiln, BMS 250 sharpener and setter
Riehl Edger
Woodmaster 725 and 4000 planner and moulder
Enough cows to ensure there is no spare time.
White Oak Meadows

WDH

The beetle in the picture did not kill the tree.  It is just an opportunistic forager.  The sawdust was caused by ambrosia beetles that attacked the tree as it was weak and dying.  They did not kill the tree, either.  They just took advantage of the weakened state to attack and lay their eggs.  To me, what you have is a classic case of bark beetles the bored into the tree and girdled the tree with their egg galleries.  If you peel off a section of  bark, you will see the egg galleries as tunnels in the inner bark.  These tunnels effectively girdle the tree.  As the tree fights to deal with being girdled and starts to die, the ambrosia beetles can tell this and then they move in to take advantage of the situation.

From the shape of the egg galleries (tunnels) in the inner bark, you can ID which bark beetle is the culprit.  Take a pic if you get a chance.  Also, there should be pitch tubes on the tree stem.  They are little globs of pitch that the tree secretes to try and thwart the  bark beetle as the beetle begins to bore into the bark.  Sometimes the pitch tubes are low on the stem, and sometimes they are on the upper bole of the stem.  Depends on which bark beetle is at work.

http://www.clemson.edu/extfor/pest_management/forlf5.htm

Here is some info on Southern Pine Beetle.  You  can also Google Ips beetle and Black Turpentine Beetle.  They also attack yellow pines.
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

SliverPicker

Yooper by trade.

loggah

six spotted green tiger beetle, predator not wood eater.
Interests: Lombard Log Haulers,Tucker Sno-Cats, Circular Sawmills, Shingle Mills, Maple Syrup Making, Early Construction Equipment, Logging Memorabilia, and Antique Firearms

mad murdock

Get with your forestry entomologist, they will be able to help you formulate a plan of attack. In large bark beetle and pine shoot borer infestations in the western states, the company I work for has done extensive R&D on applying disrupter flakes that are laced with bug pheromones. They used 2 types of pheromones, one would make the bugs not eat, the other was an attractant, so that the bugs would seek the flakes rather than each other and stop the chain of propagation.  Both worked very well with excellent results. The problem is/was hat the land manager with the worst problem would never take the research and expand it into a large area strategy to solve the problem (USDA FS, and BLM). Hence the worsened fire seasons out in the west in the last several years due to higher than normal to historic fuels loading due to the large areas of beetle kill. Your state forestry entomologist should be in the loop so as to know how to deal with it, and make sure you aren't on the cusp of a large outbreak of bugs.
Turbosawmill M6 (now M8) Warrior Ultra liteweight, Granberg Alaskan III, lots of saws-gas powered and human powered :D

Southside

@WDH   Take a look at these photos please and tell me what you think about the bark beetle type.  I can get more photos if needed.  The log that is lying down is a good example of the sap you are speaking of, most of the impacted trees I see have this in the first 10' from the ground. 

All of these photos were taken on the same log, basically within 3 to 5 ft of the ground.  The bark had fallen off quite a bit more than normally when grabbing them with the grapple, thus making the photos easier.   This tree had a full crown, no wilting or brown needles, the only sign to me of stress was the fact it had a lot of cones on it.  These look like healthy trees.

Is is possible to figure out how far these bark beetles have advanced already?  How long from infection to killing the tree is normal? 



  

  

 

@SilverPicker not sure what you mean about gallery photos - bear with me please, I consider it to be a win that I can get photos to post at all, technology and I are not friends.

@mad murdock yea, the state was about as helpful as one would expect.  I expressed my concern to them and told them we moved here from eastern Oregon a while back, I have been to and flown over the 300,000 acre "Red Dead", basically I was told that could not happen here as things are different...

Thanks for the help so far, just want to try and do this block right if its possible and not wipe it out. 
Franklin buncher and skidder
JD Processor
Woodmizer LT Super 70 and LT35 sawmill, KD250 kiln, BMS 250 sharpener and setter
Riehl Edger
Woodmaster 725 and 4000 planner and moulder
Enough cows to ensure there is no spare time.
White Oak Meadows

CCC4


CCC4

That green beetle looks like what we call DanGit bugs...when they bite it feels like a jolt of electricity.

mad murdock

silly me, I just assumed that the state dept of forestry would be more concerened.  unless the overall health of the stand was stressed by some other underlying cause, inviting the bugs in, i would say you could have a bug problem.  Any help with an extension forester?
Turbosawmill M6 (now M8) Warrior Ultra liteweight, Granberg Alaskan III, lots of saws-gas powered and human powered :D

WDH

Almost positive that what you have are Dendroctonus frontalis, southern pine beetle.  Google it, there is a wealth of info about it. 

http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/foltz/eny3541/pbb/PBB_ID.htm



Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

Southside

Thanks WDH.  Guess I have some research to do.  Today I noticed a crew moved into a block about 1.5 miles to the north - young pine, adjacent to a harvest that was done this summer.  They cleared it over the past two days, most of it was barely pulp size, somewhere between 1st and 2nd thinning to give you an idea.  It was not chipped on site but hauled tree length, not a money maker by any stretch.  I am going to stop in tomorrow and see if there was a bug issue there they discovered. 

My wife reminded me that last spring as I was finishing up on this block we could hear bugs munching in the evenings, it was pretty loud - any chance that was related?
Franklin buncher and skidder
JD Processor
Woodmizer LT Super 70 and LT35 sawmill, KD250 kiln, BMS 250 sharpener and setter
Riehl Edger
Woodmaster 725 and 4000 planner and moulder
Enough cows to ensure there is no spare time.
White Oak Meadows

curdog

Pine sawyer makes a loud chewing sound . The photos look like spb.  I think I remember reading that it was predicted that parts of Virginia would have some spb outbreaks this year. I'm surprised that vdof wasn't interested in a spb outbreak.  Some pine beetles kill a tree or two and fizzle out, but southern pine beetle can have pretty significant economic affects. I'm not a 100% sure on southern pine beetle, but that's what it looks like. There should be " popcorn" looking sap accumulations around their entrance holes.

Southside

curdog - yes the popcorn is there, you can see some it that has run down on the log that is horizonal, but what you describe is exactly what it looks like on the tree. 
Franklin buncher and skidder
JD Processor
Woodmizer LT Super 70 and LT35 sawmill, KD250 kiln, BMS 250 sharpener and setter
Riehl Edger
Woodmaster 725 and 4000 planner and moulder
Enough cows to ensure there is no spare time.
White Oak Meadows

Thank You Sponsors!