New York Released Wasps to Save Its Ash Trees — What Happened Next Was Unreal

Comments · 375

• JU

  @justanamerican9024 · 2 months ago (edited)

  I am a retired forester with sixty years of forestry experience. Please listen: ZERO ash trees in my area have survived after the EAB beetle arrived. I hear talk that there are some trees resistant. NO! If you live where the beetle has just arrived and want to help the ash trees on your property with what is coming, cut all the ash before infestation. They will sprout from the stump/roots 90% of the time. This will starve the EAB beetle for there is no other trees they can reproduce on. The beetle needs the rough bark to lay its eggs on. Sprouts have smooth bark so until they develop rough bark in 4- 6 years they are safe. If EAB beetles are still in the area and the sprouts start to develop rough bark, cut them also. Eventually the beetles will die out in the area and the sprouts will shorten the time ash will need to reestablish itself in the forest. <br><br>Just a heads up on cutting ash that has the EAB beetle infestation: once an ash tree is infested assume the branches are brittle, even if the leaves are still on the tree. Please be careful cutting any ash in infested areas, you cannot count on an infested tree acting the way you were used to before the infestation started. I have cut hundreds of ash since this disaster started and have been alarmed at how unpredictable they become when you are felling them. If you are not alert and agile, let someone else cut it; if you choose to leave it standing, avoid walking under dead ash trees. Be safe.<br><br>Thank you for this video, it is important for people with ash trees on their property or they encounter in their work or recreate around and are informed.

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• JO

  @johnp9218 · 2 months ago

  I have 10 beautiful ash trees on my farm that I could not bear to lose. For the last 15 years, I have treated them with a drench insecticide that has preserved all of them in an untouched pristine condition. Hopefully this pest will move through the area and I can stop the treatments, but I will not give up on my small collection.

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• GE

  @GeorgeMarshall-ke2xs · 2 months ago

  I’m in Saratoga NY. I lost all my Ash trees (probably 200 trees) except for one tree which is in perfect health. &nbsp; About 4 years ago &nbsp;I dug up an old iron horse shoe and leaned it on a branch. &nbsp; That’s the tree that survived. &nbsp; Not sure if it was luck or the iron kept the beetles away. &nbsp; &nbsp;What disaster to loose another tree species. &nbsp;Like the chestnut.

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• MR

  @MrShadowcast · 2 months ago

  In Monticello, NY my parents lost two MASSIVE ash trees. I’m sure that I will never see an ash tree like those again in my lifetime.

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• TH

  @TheInvasiveFiles · 2 months ago

  What amazed me most wasn&apos;t the wasps—it was the decision to work with nature instead of against it. Sometimes the smallest ally can save an entire forest.

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• MI

  @Miloholiday · 1 month ago

  My ash trees in NY Catskills died from the bottom up in the span of 2-3 years. Two year’s later the tree is coming back to life with growth appearing from the bottom up. Life goes on

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• MA

  @markphelps588 · 2 months ago

  We bought our house in north-central New Jersey in 1999. Our one acre has since lost all our ash trees. We have paid to remove no fewer than 12 and still have at least as many more standing dead trunks, one of which fell and landed on our roof in March. Great story here, but unfortunately too little and too late for us.

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• JA

  @Javaman92 · 2 months ago

  Here in the Oswego area of central NY we have lost most of our beautiful ash trees. &nbsp;It is such a sad sight. &nbsp;That there is hope for these trees eases the pain in my heart.

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• ED

  @Edcognito · 2 months ago

  I&apos;ve lost dozens along my back fence line by the creek. &nbsp; There is one back there that takes two of us adults to put our arms around - it was huge. &nbsp;:(

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• BO

  @bobster3900 · 1 month ago

  Here in the Champlain Valley of New York, we have basically none left. It has wiped out thousands and thousands that I drive by all the time and it makes me so sad. And it’s quickly spreading into the Adirondacks, which I’m really hoping something can be done before it wipes out all of them in the Adirondacks.

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• SI

  @SithLordmatthew · 2 months ago

  Paid to have 3 dead ash trees cut down on my land &nbsp;just last fall there are still several more to cut. These can grow very strait and tall they die drops most branches and when they fail the roots break off and the root ball is then very small the trees come down very fast and with crush anything in their path. Often the ash trees fall with all the bark still intact it feels like almost no warning since you had no idea how bad the tree was when it does this.

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• JI

  @JimLosapio · 1 month ago

  I live in western New York in a rural town and own just shy of 30 acres. My property was loaded with ash trees. My house was in the middle of an ash forest. I no longer have any live ash trees left. This devistation was so overwhelming to deal with. It became very dangerous to even come in my yard or be in my house. Tree companies didn&apos;t want to deal with the ash trees because they were too unpredictable to cut down. I ended up having to deal with these trees on my own and over the course of a couple of years was able to eliminate all of the ones threatening my house. There are still a lot of standing dead trres. At the time New York was helping all of the lake front owners with all kinds of grants to deal with the rising waters from Lake Ontario. The rising lake level was causing property damage but was not a dangerous threat like these trees. I went to the state and wrote to the govenor and recieves nothing back. I did research on the ash borer and did not find anything but the treatment of indidvidual trees. This would not work in a forest. The current situation is there are a lot of standing dead all around the area. They are always falling or branches breaking off. We continually lose power because they are falling on the powerlines. I see it only getting worse. The roadways are all lined with dead trees.

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