Massachusetts Wild Elm?! Immediate Opinions Please

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They have those bug bags shaped like an hour glass and they also have bark beetle traps online I was thinking about putting one right at the base and hopefully the beetle will go for the bag and not the bark.

Think that through again Pink.

The traps are a sex scent that draws bark beetles in. You're not trying to increase the population right where your tree is, are ya?
 
TreeMD- I am interested, but I certainly can not afford to treat trees out of my pocket that are not on my property. Who knows there MIGHT be the chance the land owner will take interest if I present it correctly and provide funding's.

ddhlakebound-You bring up a valid point. BUT if the scent is stronger than the tree itself it will over power their flight path and maybe they will go for the bag? Check them out they have a description but you have a very good point. http://www.greatlakesipm.com/ebbtraps.html

Moss-About the whole living conditions improvement, I see 1 thing here that bothers me tremendously and that is a tree growing way too close. If anyone can recall back to my gigantic Red Maple restoration I discovered a tree of a different species growing right up against my Red Maple girdling the root flares (see below)
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Now look at the wild Elm, that tree growing up against it is NOT an elm it's a maple I already checked. There for the roots will not graft and they will girdle? I want to pull this guy out or at least cut it what do yall think? (see below)
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Maybe they are not AS rare as I thought but they are all declining rapidly. I found one hanging over a road one town over and behind it appears to possibly be several more wild Elms:

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This is a leaf off it, is it definitely an American Elm? I'll use this for future reference if this is for sure:

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Your desire to help trees is very admirable. But, if you go around doing "Stuff" to a tree just because, you might be doing more harm than good. Others are right, do not put traps around the tree. The tree looks as healthy as it can be, or ever will be. If you put traps out they will draw beatles. If you try to remove girdling roots and so much as nick a root on the elm it will weep sap. The weeping sap is a major attractant to beatles. We removed most of the DED infected street Elms in Washington DC. We tried injectalbles and gave up on them. It seemed the fungacide would travel in the sap system untill it hit the dead wood where the tree was flagging. It might kill some fungi at the point of contact, but since the wood an inch pasted that spot was dead, the fungacide didn't go any farther.

I thought I saw some signs of "slime flux runs" on the bark also. This is a bacterial infection and there is no cure or preventative measure to take. Don't try to fix it.

The absolute best thing to maintain the health this tree has is to do no harm to it. If you beat its roots up like you did your Maple you will be harming it. If you were to cut branches off this time of year you will be causing more sap to flow, and harming it. You've found a nice, big, tree, enjoy it. But leave it alone. It's doing as good as it ever will, Joe.
 
Looks like that's what I shall do than, but if I cut that tree that is a few inches from the trunk and left the stump it would not disturb the Elm but if it grows then in 10 years it could choke some Elm roots right?

When would the best time be to do pruning? If infected limbs are removed at the right time wouldn't it help stop the spread across the tree? Just wondering

Thanks!
 
My son is in the Boy Scouts, actually he just got his Eagle Scout, turned 18, and is now out of the Scouts. Anyway, our Troop has a 40 acre wood lot the local Iisac Walton league gave us a 99 year lease on. It's called Winding Trails. We have several big old Elms just like yours. The Forester we had when we joined the Troop would not let any one touch the Elms. He said that pruning and cutting would only cause more damage, with little or no health benefits. When he passed away our new Forester is a surveyor by trade and has a deree in Forestry. He's taken the same policy. I was a licensed MD Tree Expert, and after seeing what happedned to the Elms in our area I concure, leave it alone. It's in the woods, so there is no direct risk to people. The broken limbs are injuries, but they are already dead and in the process of healing. They will rot and fall off. A pruning cut would be better as far as healing goes, but it would be a fresh wound that the healing process would have to start over on. The tree is in it's natural habitat and is probably in it's best health to fight off invaders.

We often do a lot of work on trees in yards to slow the inevetable. An example would be a big Oak we worked on when I was a kid. It had lots of dead wood and die back in the top. It also had seeping wounds from borers. We pruned it, deep root fed it, and treated it with a chemical I believe was called Borer-Go. The tree percked up and looked good for five or six years. It started to have more die off and had more borer holes in the bark. We pruned it again and used a liquid ground injected fertilizer. By then I think we were using Cygon, a systemic insectide, for the borers. We repeated the process once more about 10years later. By then my Dad was gettng old, the customers were very old, and the tree was on its way out. A year or two later the customers were moving to a retirement home and had us take it down, because their beloved Oak, had become an eye sore. We kept it around probably an extra 25 years.

Your tree looks to be in general good health. Municpalities have put tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars into trying to save noteworthy big old Elms, and the best they have done is to add 30 or 40 years to the tree. You can't put that kind of money in a woods tree, and it may live that long any way.

I don't think it would be any big deal to cut the close Maple down, just dont go digging. Also, remember you are on someone elses property. Enjoy your big old Elm, Joe.
 
Didn't answer your question about pruning. "IF" those limbs "ARE" infected with DED it would be better to remove them. But, at what cost? You can't aford to have a pro come out and prune and treat the tree. Even if you remove the dead wood, and the tree is infected, the infection is allready in the sap flow. So, you'll be fighting the inevitable, just like my big old Oak, and the treatment for the Elm is much more expensive, Joe.
 
Maybe they are not AS rare as I thought but they are all declining rapidly....

DED hit my parents' farm over 30 years ago and it took out the prized monster American elm next to the house. Every spring, the tree was filled with goldfinches. We still talk about that wonderful tree.

American elm trees aren't rare at all here. There are still plenty of them on the property, and they pop up like weeds (I just pulled one from an old mulch bed). The only problem is that they don't get bigger than 10-18" DBH before they show signs of DED.
 
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Your desire to help trees is very admirable. But, if you go around doing "Stuff" to a tree just because, you might be doing more harm than good. Others are right, do not put traps around the tree. The tree looks as healthy as it can be, or ever will be. If you put traps out they will draw beatles. If you try to remove girdling roots and so much as nick a root on the elm it will weep sap. The weeping sap is a major attractant to beatles. We removed most of the DED infected street Elms in Washington DC. We tried injectalbles and gave up on them. It seemed the fungacide would travel in the sap system untill it hit the dead wood where the tree was flagging. It might kill some fungi at the point of contact, but since the wood an inch pasted that spot was dead, the fungacide didn't go any farther.

I thought I saw some signs of "slime flux runs" on the bark also. This is a bacterial infection and there is no cure or preventative measure to take. Don't try to fix it.

The absolute best thing to maintain the health this tree has is to do no harm to it. If you beat its roots up like you did your Maple you will be harming it. If you were to cut branches off this time of year you will be causing more sap to flow, and harming it. You've found a nice, big, tree, enjoy it. But leave it alone. It's doing as good as it ever will, Joe.

:agree2: 'First...do no harm...'

Wild trees in their natural undisturbed environment are amazing things, this tree got to the size it did on its own, its found a balance somehow...
 
Rarefish-Wow that was a great way to explain this to me I really got it now. I'm not going to touch anything, Hopefully the disease docent spread I don't know. I am going to cut that small maple, so I shouldn't even rake the leaves up around it so the ground gets more oxygen just leave them as fertilizer? What about compost/manure?

DED hit my parents' farm over 30 years ago and it took out the prized monster American elm next to the house. Every spring, the tree was filled with goldfinches. We still talk about that wonderful tree.

American elm trees aren't rare at all here. There are still plenty of them on the property, and they pop up like weeds (I just pulled one from an old mulch bed). The only problem is that they don't get bigger than 10-18" DBH before they show signs of DED.

Exactly they don't make it that far, I want to dig up a tiny one and keep it indoors as an Archive but am afraid it will just already be infected when I dig it up.
 
Oh and I asked the guy about the beetle traps and louring them to the tree and this is what he responded with:

"If you hang it on an Elm tree it will attract them to it. We don't recommend placing them on the Elm trees directly. You can hang them on other trees away from your Elm. These traps are not going to control the beetle, it does let you know when they are flying so you can take measures to control them."
 
I am going to cut that small maple, so I shouldn't even rake the leaves up around it so the ground gets more oxygen just leave them as fertilizer? What about compost/manure?

What about making sure you can actually cut that maple. Is it state land, private property, railroad land, etc? Before you go all gung-ho, make sure you can actually do it legally.
 
What about making sure you can actually cut that maple. Is it state land, private property, railroad land, etc? Before you go all gung-ho, make sure you can actually do it legally.

I'm in the process, the railroad company told me it's not their property.
 
Update

Aside from the property owner hunt I returned, takes 1 1/2 hours on foot to get to it from my house. It stands out, almost glows in the light because of it's canopy height and bark color.
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Here is a new bark shot:
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Once again hard to get a leaf shot but I think I got it, the edges appear to be rippled or spiky like the American Elm. Also to the left you can see much higher up in the canopy the leaves look thin and long, dominant American Elm appearance. You can also see the criss-crossed bark:
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More pictures

I went photo crazy while I was there I hope knone minds the flood of pictures. They are a cool thing to study and just archive. Here is a better leaf shot the edges are a bit more clear, definitely jagged.
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Here are the wavy gravy limbs:
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Overall the canopy seems to be a bit more healthy than I first thought, not many snapped or dead limbs. Here is a bit of a better feeling for its surroundings:
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I would assume this pretty much explains how it survived so long, it never has a drought to battle through (that is IF it is diseased) it has a perfect mini stream running adjacent to the flare just small enough not to rot the roots out.

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I just can not stay away from the thing. Here my latest footage and worries, more trees just too darn close. There's 3 somewhat small ones that have to be girdling the #### out of this tree or will soon to be.

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