Ash

[GrahamRounce]

I hate to sound morbid, but is ash going to be plentiful and cheap now, for a while? Could someone say something to someone about not just burning it all?

 

[dickm]

Just got this from the Agroforestry network, in case anyone's not seen it.

Last week, the Forestry Commission released the following video with advice on how to identify Chalara fraxinea symptoms in the field.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sI7hgFZ-4g&feature=youtu.be

 

[Hutzul]

I hate to sound morbid, but is ash going to be plentiful and cheap now, for a while? Could someone say something to someone about not just burning it all?

An expert on Countryfile or the News, I forget which, said it had to be burnt on site to stop the fungal spores from infecting other land areas.

 

[adzeman]

One of the benefits of Ash is it is quick growing and can be coppiced so hopefully we will overcome this present problem and return to normality.
It is one of my favorite woods.

 

[AndyT]

The Guardian has in-depth coverage of this and a summit meeting held today - http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/07/ash-dieback-politicians-experts-strategy

Slightly encouragingly they have a slideshow of pictures from Denmark where infection is advanced - the caption to picture 6 is "Large areas are harvested at the same time. All of these logs were diseased ash trees. When harvested in an early phase, they are still valued as good timber"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environme...-dieback-denmark-trees-in-pictures?intcmp=239

 

[custard]

Slightly encouragingly they have a slideshow of pictures from Denmark where infection is advanced - the caption to picture 6 is "Large areas are harvested at the same time. All of these logs were diseased ash trees. When harvested in an early phase, they are still valued as good timber"
quote]
I guess the key phrase is "harvested at an early phase", the very informative Forestry Commision video, linked to in an earlier post, seems to suggest Chalara fraxinea makes quite a mess of the actual timber once it takes hold.

 

[AndyT]

I guess the key phrase is "harvested at an early phase", the very informative Forestry Commision video, linked to in an earlier post, seems to suggest Chalara fraxinea makes quite a mess of the actual timber once it takes hold.

Yes, quite. I could have linked to this picture instead - a young ash tree badly done for:

 

[Phil Pascoe]

This is Great Britain - no one seriously thinks that anything is about to become cheap and plentiful, surely?

 

[riclepp]

Hmmm. I think that Ash will become more expensive for the mature trees. As it seems that the way to control the fungal infection is to rip up the young trees and burn them. Thus making Ash a bit harder to get for the time being; especialy English Ash. I agree to one of the above commnts, Ash is a beautiful wood.

And that a vast majority of bsinesses are very greedy, which has spread to the whole of hmanity (rant over) and to make a quick buck!!

Cheers

 

[tekno.mage]

As the government has not demanded that mature infected trees are felled, and that young infected trees are destroyed in situ, I doubt there will be a sudden glut of ash timber coming to market. There are also restrictions on movement of material from infected areas at present (implying that if you fell an uninfected ash tree in an area that has infection you should not move the timber off the site). There will also be less ash sapling planted because of the risk of them succumbing to the disease, so potentially we may see a shortage of ash timber in the coming years, rather than a glut.

Information on the government website states that there is no risk of infection from sawn timber, providing it does not have bark attached, so imports of ash timber are not banned.