Pine Bark Beetle

[HS Climber]

Im am still in high school and in our forestry class for the state forestry competition we have a land management event and its in the centeral part of oregon and half of the land we are managing is invaided with pine bark beetles there is some dead trees but not alot. Just wondering what is some ways to control this, we watched some videos on thinning. and juniper trees are starting to take over too.

 

[spencerhenry]

if the bugs are already in the trees, those trees are done. the only way i know of to manage this is to remove all trees that have bugs in them, and to debark them and grind the slash. typically they say that the beetles leave the trees looking for new ones around the 1st of july. there are pheromones that persuade the beetles to leave the unaffected trees alone. a local forester should be able to guide you there. the pheromones can be applied by air, or by workers on the ground, and for small areas are not cost prohibitive.
if you wait until august, the trees that had the bugs in them, and the ones that now have bugs in them are all dead. they wont look dead for a while, but they are already gone.

 

[rdbrumfield]

I am amazed at how bad the beetle kill is. I have been hunting the Wyoming continental divide for 8yrs and it was so nice. Now it is just a brownout. If they ever have a lightning strike medicine bow national forest is going up in one mushroom of smoke.

 

[M.R.]

Im am still in high school and in our forestry class for the state forestry competition we have a land management event and its in the centeral part of oregon and half of the land we are managing is invaided with pine bark beetles there is some dead trees but not alot. Just wondering what is some ways to control this, we watched some videos on thinning. and juniper trees are starting to take over too.

Short answer: As the take over of the juniper is already stated.

I would thin to give a good crown release and dispose of the slash [IPS]. If the resource's were available -Fertilize.

 

[WidowMaker]

Ddt

 

[slowp]

Here is the latest. Now, the guy at the end is a naysayer on pretty much everything, so take his comments with a grain of salt.

Study: Herbal tea may save West's pines
By JEFF BARNARD Associated Press



GRANTS PASS, Ore. - Would a dose of herbal tea slow the march of beetles killing millions of acres of pine trees across the West?

Sort of.

But instead of brewing up a cup, U.S. Forest Service scientists found that sprinkling tiny flakes containing the pheromone verbenone over lodgepole pine forests cut the number of trees attacked by bark beetles by about two-thirds.


Verbenone is found in rosemary and walnut husks and approved for use in herbal teas.

It also resembles a pheromone the beetles give off to tell one another that their tree is getting crowded, and it would be better to pick another one.

Forest Service entomologist Nancy Gillette, lead author on the study, said scientists have known for a decade that when bark beetles smell verbenone they tend to disperse.

The problem has been to find a cheap and effective way of distributing it, and Gillette says sprinkling flakes from helicopters is the best way yet.

It costs about $110 an acre, compared with $1,000 an acre or more for thinning. Insecticides are also expensive, and kill lots of beneficial insects.

Gillette said she could foresee the technique being used around campgrounds, visitor centers and ski resorts, where it would be desirable to save trees.

Andy Stahl, director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, said it would be fruitless to use across large areas, because the beetles infest only mature trees weakened by factors such as drought, and the infestations are part of a natural cycle that replaces lodgepole pine forests every 100 years.

“All you are doing is saving (commercially) worthless trees in order that they burn next year,” he said.

The beetles have killed millions of acres of pine forests, touching every state in the West.

Warming temperatures have meant winters no longer get cold enough to routinely kill the insects, so more of them survive to bore into trees, which fight them off by oozing sap.

In Colorado alone, a survey found nearly 2 million acres of forests killed by beetles. The biggest outbreak in North America is in British Columbia, where 23 million acres have been killed.

As for commercially worthless trees, that depends on the size, where they are located, and what the house log market is.

 

[ShoerFast]

Just my $0.03 cents worth...

Drought effected areas, thinning (culling) effected and undesirable trees increases the resistance of the remaining trees by not sharing the water with as many trees. Healthier trees just fair better.

Being a natural skeptic, wouldn't hormone treatment just drive the beetle to a more pleasant environment?

It is hard for me to believe that your going to trick the beetle for more then a few acres, there going to catch on to this and land of a tree sooner or later.

My money is on thinning, proven, and you get a healthier forest with better fire prevention/control.

 

[rdbrumfield]

what's to thin, whole forests are dead.

 

[clearance]

what's to thin, whole forests are dead.

Yep. Nothing works. Sad,but true.

 

[Jacob J.]

Yep. Nothing works. Sad,but true.

That's when it's time for a little fire....or a big one.

 

[Brmorgan]

what's to thin, whole forests are dead.

That's what it's like out west of where I live. Hundreds of square miles of uninterrupted red (and many now gray) trees. This has presented another problem regarding water, though opposite of what has been already pointed out. Since most of the trees are dead in many areas, there is nothing to suck up the water from the soil. Vast areas west of here are fairly flat and are turning into swampland for months at a time. Breakup season used to last a couple to three months, now we're looking at almost twice that in some areas.

The sad thing is that I remember 20 years ago when really nobody knew about the pine beetle, and it was limited to a very small stand of Pines out west of here, near the coast in Tweedsmuir Park. But since it was a park, the government at the time was unwilling to step in and work on the problem, and instead let nature take its course. We've had some incredibly warm winters in the years between - whether a cycle or climate change or whatever - and now here we are. They did the same thing in 2003 with a forest fire in almost exactly the same area. The estimated cost to fight the original fire was about a quarter of a million dollars, but they decided to let it burn itself out because it was a park. But because of the beetle-killed trees and some unfortunate wind, instead it grew into one of the largest fires in BC history and cost many millions to put out, after destroying massive amounts of forest and property. I agree with letting some fires go, especially in light of the beetle problem, but uncontrolled, unprepared fires in beetle-kill is unwise at best.

 

[slowp]

I worked in an area where there was a good market for dead and dying lodgepole. The prescription was cut all the lodgepole and leave the non-lodgepole. There was a good market for houselogs--so good that they hauled them 9 hours to Missoula. Then 9 hours back empty. What we ended up with on the ground were good sized safety zones to go to when the unlogged parts of the area went up in flames.

Yes, the water table rises without those trees to suck it up. There were problems with the roads. The loggers made a few corduroy sections out of their lodgepole logs, improvised drainage with irrigation pipes and actually plowed up the road to speed up drying. Most of the area was logged during the winter, when there was lots of snow on the ground. That area has not burned up, yet. All this took place in the early 1990s.

Now the mill that took the non-house logs no longer exists. Maybe biomass burning plants will eventually be a market for it. The lodgepole sprouted right up to reforest the area because the sun was hot enough to open the cones.
I believe the area was also broadcast burned. There is no Juniper around that area.

 

[HS Climber]

There is no market anymore for lodgepole pines. no one will take anything. There is biomass though. they will take pine and juniper. the thing we would probably do is thin out the bigger pines becuase of the beetles and thin the juniper trees maybe sell some for biomass and the rest maybe go for firewood.

 

[spencerhenry]

there may not be a market for lodgepole in some places, but here there is. we have only one production mill in the western half of the state, and its production is probably not that high compared to mill in the pnw, but they buy almost everything, ponderosa, lodgepole, spruce, doug-fir etc... on any given day there are log trucks hauling the stuff up to 5 hours to the mill, i only rarely see a truck with anything but lodgepole on it. alot of the logs are coming from private property where the owner PAYS to have the trees taken out. since alot of the logs are dry, the trucks are loaded to the gills by volume not weight. over the last few years the mills around here pay about $230 to $250/ mbf for most species.

 

[Brmorgan]

No market for lodgepole? As long as there's any market for studs & framing lumber, there's a market for lodgepole - it's about the best framing lumber you can find. Spruce isn't as strong, and Douglas Fir is too hard and is more difficult to work with. Around here the lodgepoles in the bush have been dead for too long, and are getting so dry that they're almost un-millable. They explode in the debarkers, and if they're lucky enough to make it through the mill intact, the kiln-drying process overdries them, producing shakes and splits to the point that they blow up in the planer or fall apart on the chains.

Biomass is a good idea though - here where I live we have the largest wood biomass energy plant in Canada, and I think possibly North America, but I'm not sure. Since all the mills here are pretty much shut down, they've been hurting for fuel. A couple local logging operations have switched over to grinding up slash piles and pulp-grade wood that would otherwise be burnt in the field just to feed the power plant. Another is building a shavings mill and will separate pulp chips to go to a pulp mill they have money in, shavings and fines to the local wood pellet plant, and the bark/hog to the power plant. They're good operations, it's just too bad that they don't employ anywhere near as many people as the mills can.

 

[forestryworks]

if they would clearcut alot of those lodgepole and help a variety of trees get established, then the next time around it won't be so bad.

 

[arbadacarba]

That's what it's like out west of where I live. Hundreds of square miles of uninterrupted red (and many now gray) trees. This has presented another problem regarding water, though opposite of what has been already pointed out. Since most of the trees are dead in many areas, there is nothing to suck up the water from the soil. Vast areas west of here are fairly flat and are turning into swampland for months at a time. Breakup season used to last a couple to three months, now we're looking at almost twice that in some areas.

The sad thing is that I remember 20 years ago when really nobody knew about the pine beetle, and it was limited to a very small stand of Pines out west of here, near the coast in Tweedsmuir Park. But since it was a park, the government at the time was unwilling to step in and work on the problem, and instead let nature take its course. We've had some incredibly warm winters in the years between - whether a cycle or climate change or whatever - and now here we are. They did the same thing in 2003 with a forest fire in almost exactly the same area. The estimated cost to fight the original fire was about a quarter of a million dollars, but they decided to let it burn itself out because it was a park. But because of the beetle-killed trees and some unfortunate wind, instead it grew into one of the largest fires in BC history and cost many millions to put out, after destroying massive amounts of forest and property. I agree with letting some fires go, especially in light of the beetle problem, but uncontrolled, unprepared fires in beetle-kill is unwise at best.

The whole story is even sadder. The government was willing to step in, had taken the initial steps, but was demonstrated against in Victoria and threatened with lawsuits by some of the environmentalists. I have no beefs with a lot of environmentalists, but ones such as this cause a huge amount of damage in the future while giving themselves pats on the back for some questionable acts in the present. Some of these idiots move from cause to cause without once taking responsibility for their actions. This is not environmentalism, it is self aggrandizement! ( C'mon D.S. stand up and take another bow.)

 

[clearance]

The whole story is even sadder. The government was willing to step in, had taken the initial steps, but was demonstrated against in Victoria and threatened with lawsuits by some of the environmentalists. I have no beefs with a lot of environmentalists, but ones such as this cause a huge amount of damage in the future while giving themselves pats on the back for some questionable acts in the present. Some of these idiots move from cause to cause without once taking responsibility for their actions. This is not environmentalism, it is self aggrandizement! ( C'mon D.S. stand up and take another bow.)

Yep. D.S. was nominated as the greatest Canadian ever, a little while back, God help us.

 

[HS Climber]

yeah seems like you cant cut down a tree without the environmentalists all over your back.

 

[arbadacarba]

Just the point! If you are a real environmentalist you measure the pros and cons. Some of the best environmentalists I have met were out in the woods cutting trees all their lives. Some of the worst were highly educated in "environmental science" and had never left the proximities of the city except to protest in the summer. If somebody feeds you a line - call them on it immediately! If they can defend it -fine. If they can't, ignore them and tell everybody you know to ignore them too. We now have most of the western pine forests at risk because of a few educated idiots being catered to by weak-knees. We need synthesis, not hysteria!