Air drying ash-Should I spray?

Yes

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

There is no wood that borers prefer better than ash. I cut a log and didn't get it to the mill right away. In three weeks it was riddled with bug holes and dust.

On the other hand, you may not have a resident population of insects ready to attack and you will never have a problem.

Where have you found ash not already dead from emerald ash borer?

Judgement Call

Yonak

Brian, I've air dried quite a lot of ash lumber and I've seen, probably, 5% ~ 8% damaged, in some way or another, by bugs and another 5% diminished by other natural defects. I've noticed that the occurrence of bugs depends mostly on how long the logs lay on the ground before being milled. ..So, the decision, for me, based on length of contact with the ground after falling, is your tolerance for the aggravation of treating the boards versus the percentage of damage you're willing to accept.

alternative experience

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

I had a several hundred bdft pack of KD ash invaded during storage and 100% loss. The damage was not apparent until we sold it and the customer planed it. After that experience we treated every pack of ash we bought if it hadn't already been treated at the mill by dipping.

Invasion post sawing has nothing to do with how long the logs lay on the ground. If there is a population of insects flying about they will find your ash if the logs only lay on the ground a day. Of course if the logs are invaded before sawing it gets things started earlier.

Absolutely!

Dick Coers

Nothing ruins your decade like having to burn an infested pile of lumber! If it's still fresh cut, a borax preventative is the way to go. I 100% agree with Bill, ash is like candy to powder post beetles!

Re: alternative experience

Brian Chitwood

The log was on the ground over a year. I see no signs of any bugs when I stacked it but I really don't want to lose the wood. Im thinking I better spray.

Re: Yes

Brian Chitwood

Im in Wisconsin. The log was on the ground for over a year. I see no signs at all of bugs but I really don't want to lose the lumber. Im thinking I better spray.

Re: Yes

Joe in a Cleveland suburb

"Where have you found ash not already dead from emerald ash borer?"

There is an old ash tree on the street I live on. The owner of the house has it inspected once a year or so by an arborist. It supposedly is free of EAB. Last I heard anyway.

where do you live

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

an ash log on the ground here in TN would have begun to rot. And if not PPB's there is a bug/worm that will bore 3/16" holes the entire length of a log that stays wet for a few months..

Re: where do you live

Brian Chitwood

Wisconsin

Re: Air drying ash-Should I spray?

John K Jordan

According to Prof Wengert there is nothing you can spray that will kill power post beetles already inside the wood. They may stay there for several years before emerging. PPBs in the wood are killed by heat.

Spraying the right product on the surface, however, may prevent new infestation.

question about ash and emarald ash borer

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

I thought the emerald ash borer started in Wisconsin and hence Wisconsin trees would all be dead several years ago. Any insight on why this tree was alive a year ago? Did you cut the only emerald ash borer resistant tree in the world?

Stuff doesn't rot as quickly in the frozen north but am still surprised the log had not started to rot on the bottom if it lay all summer. I gather it is sawed into lumber and the lumber is rot-free on its edges and no worm holes on the edges of the boards?

Wengert may be wrong

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

I have an experiment underway that so far shows I killed an established infestation.

It'll be a long experiment *LINK*

Dick Coers

"Outdoors, the life cycle of a powderpost beetle normally requires about a year; however indoors, powderpost beetles may require two or more (possibly up to five) years to complete their development and emerge from the wood"


https://citybugs.tamu.edu/factsheets/household/termites/ent-2008/

Re: question about ash and emarald ash borer

Brian Chitwood

No visible signs of any rot or any bugs. Logs were on the ground through all seasons. I'll spray with bora care and hope for the best.

Wengert is not the only reference

John K Jordan

I read a paper from the US forest products laboratory that concurred. Perhaps a literature search will locate past research. Contacting the FPL might be a good place to start.

I'm sure you know that an experiment with a sample size of one board/batch/species/etc may be interesting but not conclusive.

Perhaps you have the resources to do it right with suitable controls. Variables I that come to mine at the moment - wood species, initial moisture content, environment, proof of infestation, dates of infestation, verification of the species of PPB.

I cut up one spalted maple log into turning blanks and put the pieces in a tub. The next day there were dozens of PPBs in the bottom of the tub, some still alive. I captured them for ID then put everything outside until I could treat with heat this summer.

JKJ

interpreting data

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

I'm sure you know that an experiment with a sample size of one board/batch/species/etc may be interesting but not conclusive.

It depends on the conclusion reached. I didn't claim I was attempting to invent a treatment foolproof for all situations. If someone claims established bugs can not be killed and I accomplish this task with a sample size of 1 I have shown their conclusion to be flawed. This one exception might be sufficient to encourage others to try this, or other treatments. But of importance to me, I may have stopped the invasion in some lumber of interest to me.

The live bugs boring holes in the wood require oxygen and that oxygen must come from outside the lumber. Hence, there is diffusion of oxygen from outside the lumber, through tunnels to where the bug is boring. Deprived of this oxygen they will die. Dose this oxygen with something toxic and they will be killed by it. The only question that remains is whether I could diffuse something toxic to the ends of the tunnels.

At the end of my experiment this lumber will or will not be rid of boring bugs. I will observe then conclude it is, or it is not. Done. I have succeeded or failed. It could be that someone else has infested lumber and they might wish to try what I did, were it to be successful.

Re: alternative experience

Brian Chitwood

Yep, its ash. Sure of it.

claims

John K Jordan

>>>If someone claims established bugs can not be killed and I accomplish this task with a sample size of 1 I have shown their conclusion to be flawed. This one exception might be sufficient to encourage others to try this, or other treatments. But of importance to me, I may have stopped the invasion in some lumber of interest to me.

Yes, that's Logic 101.

But I do not know if Wengert, et. al., have the knowledge and data to claim an external chemical treatment will never work to kill off an existing infestation or they are aware of cases where it is impractical or not reliable. The later would be enough to prevent absolute reliance on a method.

Everything I've read from non-amateur sources states that heat (at a specific minimum core temperature) will always work. I'll attempt to contact FPL and see if there is specific research concerning this. It's a topic of interest to many of us.

JKJ

Re: claims

John in NM

"But I do not know if Wengert, et. al., have the knowledge and data to claim an external chemical treatment will never work to kill off an existing infestation or they are aware of cases where it is impractical or not reliable. The later would be enough to prevent absolute reliance on a method."

That is also logic 101 -- you cannot prove never. You can prove improbable.

The number of external chemical treatments possible is so huge that you would also not be able to prove improbable for each and every one.

The point being that just because one person or research lab has yet to come up with a practical surface treatment does not make it impossible. Fortunes have been made on doing the previously impossible, as designated by the body of work existing up until the impossible is made possible. No fortune is likely to be made on a surface treatment for PPB, but its still interesting to hear about Bill's experiments.

Re: claims

John K Jordan

>>>Fortunes have been made on doing the previously impossible, as designated by the body of work existing up until the impossible is made possible. No fortune is likely to be made on a surface treatment for PPB, but its still interesting to hear about Bill's experiments.

Yes, go for it. Some of us would buy it.

I don't have an official experiment

David Weaver

but the porch on my house had a PPB infestation. It was stained and not solidly finished, so I repeatedly slathered the wood (and any joints) and area where they exited (below the post and into the end) and the frass piles and the carcasses ceased to reappear after a while.

At the outset, I cleaned the carcasses and frass piles to see if they would reappear while procrastinating about the infestation, and unfortunately, they did reappear each time I cleaned them.

I have no proof that the timbor did anything, plus my stained posts (which were reddish) had white residue all over them (and I'm sure most would find that unfavorable) for quite a while, as did the floor around the ends of the posts. But I also never saw frass or carcasses again, either.