The Acorns are Back!

By now it has become abundantly clear that last year's distressing lack of acorns is not going to be repeated.

If you are not from the Boston area you may not have heard what happened last fall. As the summer came to a close I started to notice that there were no acorns falling in the back yard. Walking in the woods near my house I made an effort to look for them...and nothing! I soon learned that it wasn't just a local phenomenon - people all over the Boston area were noticing the same thing. Various articles and blogs were discussing the unsettling situation. Various forestry types explained that oak trees do go through cycles of acorn production, and last year they just fell into synch.

Sure enough, I am seeing a good crop of them this year. So here's to the acorn - my favorite symbol of potential and hope for the coming year!

Update: Mother Earth News has some good information on gathering and preparing all sorts of wild nuts:http://www.motherearthnews.com/Nature-Community/1988-09-01/A-Fall-Field-Guide-to-Nuts.aspx

The Beetle Invasion

A friend of mine lives in Worcester MA, and at work the other day he was describing how the city was cutting down trees like mad, even on people's private property, in an attempt to halt an outbreak of the Asian Longhorn Beetle.

It sounded like a pretty dire situation, so I asked another friend in the DEP in New York. And yeah, it is pretty dire, but the ALB is just one of a trio of nasties coming to a forest near you*:

Asian Longhorn Beetle: Arrived in the US from China about 20 years ago, likely in some shipping crates. The larvae eat the cambium of many different hardwood trees, including maple, birch, horsechestnut, poplar, willow, elm, ash, and black locust. It has the capacity to devastate the populations of these trees, because it currently has no natural predators in North America.

Worcester is attempting to eradicate the outbreak by cutting down, chipping, and incinerating all infected and nearby trees. I hear that after protests the city has stopped cutting trees on private property but this may allow the infestation to leak out. Outbreaks have been seen in New York, New Jersey, and Chicago.
City of Worcester: http://www.ci.worcester.ma.us/cmo/beetles.htm
General Information: http://www.uvm.edu/albeetle/

Emerald Ash Borer: Also attacks hardwood trees, this time Ash. Found in 2002, this native of Asia also likely arrived in wooden packing materials and could wipe out ash populations in North America, killing trees in only a couple of years. Its growth is highly dependent on temperature and is a likely factor in the outbreak. Thanks, global climate change.
http://www.emeraldashborer.info/files/MacFarlaneashpdf.pdf
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/plant_health/plant_pest_info/emerald_ash_b/index.shtml




Mountain Pine Beetle: Saved the best for last. This beastie kills mainly lodgepole pine, which is an extremely valuable tree for lumber. In British Columbia, the Ministry of Forests reports that about half of their pine trees have been killed by this pest, as of 2008 that was 14.5 million hectares. The current continuing outbreak is in large part due to climate change; historically the frigid winters there killed of most of the larvae, but the recent stretch of mild winters has allowed the beetle to proliferate. http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfp/mountain_pine_beetle/



I for one am a bit freaked out. Here I was all worried about the Wooly Adelgids on my one Eastern Hemlock. This phenomenon is something to take note of though - increasing global temperature don't just mean milder winters, it also means the spread of things normally restricted to warmer zones. And if some dying trees don't worry you, I have two words: tropical diseases.

* Images from Wikipedia.