[Greenbuilding] Tree inoculation against Emerald Ash Borer

[RT]

On Fri, 20 Apr 2012 15:26:53 -0400, Corwyn <corwyn at midcoast.com> wrote:

> On 4/20/2012 2:02 PM, RT wrote:
>
>> Lighter than oak (beneficial when flopping the timbers around when doing
>> the joinery and even more appreciated when raising the bents), just as
>> strong and arguably more attractive in a Vivaldi vs Bach way.
>
> It burns great too.  Amazing that they can't get rid of it.
>
> I would take it if they delivered...


When I think of Corwyn's postings, I don't think "Okay, here come some  
snickers" but this one made me take a trip to the washroom for fear of  
undesirable consequences from laughing too hard with a pot-ful of tea in  
me.

There are no doubt, plenty of woodburners locally who would be delighted  
to have a limitless supply of Ash delivered to them for free for firewood  
but the thing that is preventing their dream from coming true is the fear  
of EAB-infected logs infecting healthy Ash trees along the travel route  
and on the property to which they are being delivered (ie no one cutting  
down the trees is going to take the time to peel away the bark and  
infected sapwood before trucking away the good heartwood.

Ideally I suppose, they would have one of those gizmos that grabs whole  
trees and clamps a pair of jaws around the base of the trunk and in one  
swift upwards motion, peels off the bark/sapwood/limbs  dropping all the  
emoved debris into a tub grinder before flipping the remainder of the tree  
into a pile and then the output from the tub grinder directed to a  
sealable shipping container which could be transported to a protectable  
site (say an old quarry ?)  where the eggs/larvae-infected  material could  
be composted a temperatures exceeding 140 degF.

The logs would have $$ value as saw logs (ie too good to be wasted as  
firewood) and the disease-free compost would have $$ value as soil  
amendment material.

But that's a lot of futzing-about IMO.

I think it'd be simpler just to inoculate the trees and avoid having to  
cut them down at all.

And just in case anyone is wondering why I'm asking about sourcing Neem  
oil when there are proprietary products "out there" the proprietary  
products want only "licensed pesticide" personel doing the applications.  
The enviro-friendly proprietary products are derived from Neem oil.

For those who are unfamiliar with Neem oil, its often recommended as a  
"natural" means of flea and tick control for domestic pets and livestock  
and is readily available over the counter to gardeners for pest control so  
I doubt that it poses any health  or environmental risks when used by "non  
professionals".

To have *a* tree treated using one of the proprietary products, the cost  
would be $800-$900 per year, every year until the threat of the EAB goes  
away. For a property owner with a number of Ash trees, that cost weould  
likely be a disincentive to treatment.

As far as I can tell from a few preliminary Googles, it looks like vendors  
are selling Neem oil for around $240 per jug (don't know what  
concentration) but from the video (link provided in my first post to this  
thread) it looks like one jug-ful would suffice for many trees.

(And if you're wondering why I seem to be trolling about this List today,  
I'm sitting in front of three computers trying to figure out how to have  
MS Office display what I type in a Chinese character font and while I'm  
failing at that, this computer "DING!"s every time a new message arrives  
and when I glance over at the dinger ...)

Back to trying to solve the mysteries of MS, MS Office, MS Word, MS  
IEMs,MS MUIs etc.

-- 
=== * ===
Rob Tom
Kanata, Ontario, Canada

< A r c h i L o g i c  at  Y a h o o  dot  c a  >
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