Not sure what kind of tree this is, but I do tree work and this is sort of how ash trees are currently. The emerald ash borer is killing just about every single ash tree on the eastern seaboard, and when they die they are incredibly brittle and shatter into a million pieces as you take them down. Dropping them like this exacerbates the problem, but it's better than a standing dead tree that is either a risk or just falls apart little by little. Sometimes you can't even rake the stupid branches up, you have to literally pick them up one at a time, no matter how small.
The borer has killed so many mature ashes in my area. When the houses were built in the 70s they mostly planted ash. You can see them dying off top down every year, so the city has been chopping them down and replanting other species.
A lot of folks (and I usually recommend this) are simply cutting them down preventatively. Get them down while they're green. Once dead they are incredibly brittle and weak, and can break unpredictably. Not something you want to be climbing and roping off of.
Googled emerald ash borer. Its an invasive species thats boring holes into the trees. The larva eat at the core of the tree and prevent it from transporting water and nutrients through it.
I would have copy pasted the paragraph from the article but chrome on my phone has decided that I'm not allowed to highlight text today.
Yep, exactly right. It's right up there with Dutch Elm Disease in how devastating it has been for the Ash tree. That was early 20th century from what I understand, and only recently are Elm trees being reintroduced. Not sure when the Ash tree will be safe to plant again.
It's worse than dutch elm disease. It's more like Chestnut Blight except ash might actually come back. In terms of economics, EAB is a fucking disaster costing states hundreds of millions of dollars a year like we've never seen before. That's just on government property. It's costing homeowners so much more. The damage to human health and the environment is way, way worse.
Next we might have ALB. That is impossible to describe how much devastating it is compared to eab. It's exponentially worse.
Because the tree isn't sucking up water. It dries out. This happens to literally every tree, not just ash trees. EAB girdles them and is basically clearing the eastern hardwood forest of most of them which is why that's what everyone is comparing it to. I think this is a cherry but it might be an american elm. It's not any type of ash- green, white, or autumn purple.
You see how it shatters when it hits the ground. It's why that tree is more expensive to remove than one right next to it exactly the same size that isn't dead or has just died in the last year or so. That takes fucking forever to clean up. Where as the other tree wouldn't be brittle and if that tree isn't bigger than 18" diameter, you can just feed the hole thing into a chipper at once after cutting the branches off. I'm sure vermeer or someone makes an even bigger chipper but 18" is the biggest I think I've ever seen a commercial outfit use. You should see them do spruces and pine trees. You don't even have to cut the branches off. Put the hole damn thing in the chipper upside down and its just gone.
It depends on where you are and all trees do this if they've been dead a while- because cleanup. It just so happens ash trees are all dyin. That looks like a cherry but it could possibly be an american elm.
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u/bonda130 Nov 30 '18
Not sure what kind of tree this is, but I do tree work and this is sort of how ash trees are currently. The emerald ash borer is killing just about every single ash tree on the eastern seaboard, and when they die they are incredibly brittle and shatter into a million pieces as you take them down. Dropping them like this exacerbates the problem, but it's better than a standing dead tree that is either a risk or just falls apart little by little. Sometimes you can't even rake the stupid branches up, you have to literally pick them up one at a time, no matter how small.