I was walking through a forest in Ohio over the weekend and came across hundreds of ash saplings. Are ash making a rebound from EAB or what would account for all the saplings?
Let me know if this post is better suited for the forestry subreddit instead.
by utahplantman
4 Comments
They probably won’t reach the size they did before but many will still live long enough to produce some seeds and keep the species alive.
I think they’ll end up like elms. Still around, just not as common as they were; and large specimens are rare.
Im ngl. I feel like i recognize thst trail lol
The saplings aren’t an indication of a rebound. EAB doesn’t kill them until they’re 4″ or so in diameter. My property has hundreds of volunteer ash saplings but all the mature ones are dead or dying.
In Rhode Island, parasitic wasps have been released. The hope is, saplings like these will survive long enough for the wasps to get the EAB population down to the point Ash can make a slow recovery. We’ve lost very close to all of our Ash here. Fingers crossed. URI does great work with programs like this.