Slow to fight southern pine beetles

[dogg57]

New Jersey State Forester Lynn Fleming said not a single municipality has taken the state up on $10,000 grants to suppress the tree-killing southern pine beetle.
Fewer than 10 individual property owners have received one of the $7,500 grants made available near the beginning of this year.

Fleming said she doesn't think many people know just how serious a pine beetle infestation can be.
“Some people, I think, feel that, well, the tree just dies. They don't realize that the tree becomes a carrier for other trees,” Fleming said, meaning that infestations can jump from one tree to a neighboring tree.
The beetles chew their way through bark and deprive trees of the nutrients and water they need to survive. They have affected about 35,000 acres in New Jersey since they were discovered there about a decade ago.
Damage slowed down a bit this year though. That was partly, Fleming said, due to state suppression efforts, and partly due to the wet weather.

http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/...n-pine-beetles-?Itemid=3&linktype=hp_topstory

 

[dogg57]

Southern pine beetle infestation remains a significant threat in New Jersey, especially within the million-acre Pinelands National Reserve, but was not as severe last year as initially feared, Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin said today.
"We must remain vigilant about this serious threat to our pine forests," Commissioner Martin said. "The DEP has been undertaking a multipronged approach to deal with this problem, including removing stands of impacted trees on state lands to control outbreaks before they spread and working with private property owners and municipal governments whenever possible to control outbreaks on private lands."
In 2012, pine beetle infestations claimed 6,200 acres, compared to 7,000 acres last year, bringing the total number of acres affected in New Jersey to 27,000 acres since 2010. Most of the damage has occurred in southern portions of the Pinelands National Reserve, particularly in areas south of the Mullica River.
The largest outbreak occurred in 2010, when some 14,000 acres statewide were affected, largely because trees were stressed by extremely dry weather.
http://www.capemaycountyherald.com/article/government/trenton/89303-dep+continues+pine+beetle+battle

 

[dragoncjo]

I think pine beetles are actually the best things for the barrens, create a ton of habitat through the dying trees. In my opinion a dead pine tree has more value to species than a standing one. The pines could use a little thinning in the abscence of burning (which is not allowed anymore it seems).

 

[manumuskin]

they are doing a burn on Coal road Bass river state forest tomorrow.they were prepping it today

 

[manumuskin]

cutting down and chipping a crap load of woods down here in millville wma due to beetles now.tearing em the hell up they are.

 

[dogg57]

Since 2001, SPB populations in New Jersey have
been on the rise, destroying 1000 new acres of
pine forests each year on average, but infestations
remained largely confined to the southern sections
of the state. Then, in 2008, SPB crossed the Egg
Harbor River for the first time and entered the pine
forests of Atlantic County, and continues to move
north and west.

http://www.state.nj.us/dep/parksandforests/fire/docs/spb2011.pdf

 

[manumuskin]

I brought em.Sorry :-(

 

[JohnD.]

They have been killing pines here along the Delaware bay for at least the last 10 maybe even 15 years now. They seem to prefer Loblollies and Pond Pines over Pitch, Shortleaf and Virginia pines when available. They have taken out quite a few large stands of BIG Pond Pines and Loblollies in Southern Maurice River Township. Over the past year or two I have notice large groups of dead and dying Pitch and Shortleaf pines moving northward. Last year a number of pines have begun to die on my and my neighbors properties. The good news is that they don't seem to bother the smaller trees.

 

[manumuskin]

Millville wma has just wiped out hundreds of acres of woods withing a couple miles of my house.They took a beautiful pine oak upland forest that me and my wife used to walk and old road through and turned it into a wasteland.Three quarters of a mile across they have desertified and this in the name of pine bettle management.I guess they just saved the forest????

 

[ecampbell]

Did they take out the oak also?

 

[Gibby]

Manu, is the location on this older map? I am curious to what information the DEP is using for control and if the earlier points have been eradicated or grown larger.

http://www.state.nj.us/dep/parksandforests/forest/2003spbreportmap.pdf

 

[manumuskin]

Manu, is the location on this older map? I am curious to what information the DEP is using for control and if the earlier points have been eradicated or grown larger.

http://www.state.nj.us/dep/parksandforests/forest/2003spbreportmap.pdf

the area is on this map but it does not appear to be marked in red if red means infected areas.map is so small I cannot read it.

 

[manumuskin]

Did they take out the oak also?

they took out a lot of oak also but did leave standing oak trees.Every pine in the destroyed area was gone,not a pine left standing but some oak left.

 

[Gibby]

the area is on this map but it does not appear to be marked in red if red means infected areas.map is so small I cannot read it.

Manu, the PDF controls don't appear in the lower right of your screen when the cursor is moved to there? I used the zoom control on the panel that appears.

 

[manumuskin]

Dopey me,didn't realize I was looking at a pdf,thought it was a jpeg.I zoomed in and some of the smaller areas they wiped out are shown in red but the large area I speak of up near the visible exception along the northern edge of Millville wma is not shown,must be a new area.
this is an approximate extent of the area,I have not walked the perimeter yet but walked to the preimeter from several locations and this is very close.I also checked on a stone that marks a corner of an exception.When I found the stone about two months ago there were flags all through the woods just west of it.I thought they were hunter flags which is odd because the same bunch of guys have hunted that section forever and I thought why should they need to flag anything,they should know these woods as well as I do.I pulled a bunch of them down.It was to mark this area.The stone is nw 50 ft from their edge of devastation but still in the woods.
http://maps.njpinebarrens.com/index...730300903&z=16&type=nj2007&gpx=NJPB1252915997
I would have rather given the woods to the beetles then seen the mess they have made of them.I was in those woods reguarly and they did not seem to be anything wrong with them from what i could see.A lot of nice big healthy pines and a few dead ones.I guess it is now in fashion to save the forest by cutting it down and shredding it.

 

[Boyd]

Wow, did they really cut hundreds of acres? Some information from the PPA here, sounds like they may be using the "cut and take" approach: http://www.pinelandsalliance.org/protection/hotissues/ecological/southernpinebeetle/#Solutions

There have been indications that the NJ DEP is also considering a cut-and-take approach, in which infested and healthy trees within an affected forest patch are cut down and removed, the wood then being sold for economic gain. While this approach would help offset the cost of cutting trees in SPB-infested patches, there is concern that it could provide incentive to remove more healthy trees than is necessary.
_____________

Between mortality due to SPB attacks and mortality due to mechanical cutting and felling, the abundance of pine trees will be reduced under the cutting approaches, but there is no subsequent fire to suppress oaks and jump-start pine regeneration. Cut-and-leave and cut-and-take will not suppress oaks, will not reduce the litter layer, and will not encourage pine regeneration if these methods are not followed by high-intensity prescribed fire.

 

[manumuskin]

I just redid that track and connected the ends to make a loop so I could get the acres.The size was 103 acres so I did exaggerate a bit.The track is just approximate.I walked part of the perimeter at each end and guesstimated the rest so it is just a guess.It may be slightly larger or smaller then what I've drawn as a track.We'll definitely know the next aerial shoot.It is a disgusting wasteland.There was no excuse for that.They could of sent men in to drop each infected tree individually and then sprayed it,Of course that would have taken longer and probably would have cost more but it would've put more people to work and not left a desert in it's place.

 

[dogg57]

http://www.nbc40.net/story/24948803/wild-winter-could-freeze-pine-beetle-population-growth
The Forest Service isn’t just relying on the weather to kill off the potentially harmful bug. They’re actively working to stop the spread of the insect by isolating, flattening areas of affected forests.

 

[Teegate]

In September they made it to Long Island.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/29/n...s-destructive-southern-pine-beetles.html?_r=0

 

[dragoncjo]

Possibly related, but what are the Lee bros doing off speedwell on the road up to Harris station/pinecrest. It looks really good, opening up forest.

I still think if dead trees are left and allowed to rot out it provides great habitat. Pines needs to be thinned in a major way, if pine beetle does it, that works. Snakes love rotting dead logs and standing trees, as do woodpeckers. I'm not a plant guy but I imagine the increased light on forest floor and open cover is good for them.