globalization has many good and bad points and one is the spread of pathogens.

soils have very much been disturbed as well as air and temp. movements.

when is the last time u saw someone actually build a forest instead of cutting one down?

non local genotype spp. genetics can get into a population and disrupt the future of that system in many a way.

and here is a prairie botanist theory that u have to look in the scale of millions of years.
there is a trend for the grasses to become the dominate ecosystem. which if this is true...they are doomed to prairies anyhow :)

i know that none of these are the exact answer but add em up and u get problems for all ecosystems and not just the forests!

froggy

I don't think it would be prudent to plant any type of ash right about now but I am with lycopus and feel the oak wilt might be overblown so you might want to consider planting oaks and perhaps you might even consider a few shagbark hickories and a few hazelnuts which are actually a large shrub. About the Beech trees, I hadn't heard anything but I sure would love to. Your questions would be welcomed in the tree forum where there is at least one entomologist who would be far better capable of validating your concerns than me.

Say Froggy... I am trying... you know what you said about the last time anybody heard of someone building a forest as opposed to cutting it down. I don't have a lot of land but I will be planting in excess of 1000 saplings this coming spring. Mostly hardwoods and many genotypes from my region. There are other people who live around me trying also thanks to the comments of people like you and lycopus.

Ohio agricultural officials are pulverizing ash trees around each area discovered with the beetle. But the new infestations keep growing, and in 2004 effort may be abandoned for lack of effectiveness. You can only spend so many millions of dollars in a useless effort.

This is far worse than Dutch elm disease, a fungal disease for which some American elms are resistant. No ash can survive the Emerald Ash Borer. And containment by destruction of the host ash trees as almost surely too little and too late. The bug hopped around nurseries and wild ash trees in SE Michigan for several years before anything was done. Too little, too late.

The only long term hope for Fraxinus in North America, as I see it now, is to collect ash seeds from still-healthy trees in each ecological region and habitat. Preserve these cryogenically in germplasm centers (if possible), and let the trees become extinct in the next 20 years. In fact, once seeds can be properly stored, it would then be best to assist the wipeout of the ash by spreading the beetles. Then, after all ashes are gone, the beetle will die out. The ash tree is the obligate host. No ashes, no Emerald Ash Borers. Then, plant new ash trees and start over –until some horticulturalist brings in another Asian ash to start the whole thing over again.

(Isn’t it too bad North America doesn’t have any horticulturally acceptable plants? What would our landscapes look like if we only had native species? What would life be like without Austrian pines or Norway maples?)

Want to really stay awake tonight? Indeed, forget oak blight. It’s a non-issue, at least in the North where we don’t have live oaks. It’s been around for centuries, and our oak ecosystems will survive that fungus.

But wait until the new sudden oak death fungus, Phytophthera remorum, gets out of California (as it will, probably in a containerized horticultural Rhododendron, where the fungus can live asymptomatically). If you thought Dutch elm was bad, check out SOD, sudden oak death. This newly-described fungus apparently kills every oak that it contacts. It resides quietly in Rododendrons and perhaps some other woody species, from which spores can easily infect nearby oaks. It apparently nails oaks in both the red and white sections of genus Quercus. It almost surely came into North America residing quietly in some Tibetan or Himalayan Rhododendron for the hort trade in California.

Oaks in North America, at least in large scale environments as we’ve known them, may disappear within the decade. The native landscapes that we know may soon disappear. The threats are real.

And need I mention the ominous menace of the Asian Long-horned Beetle. It eats and kills just about all hardwood trees. No effective controls exist.

Better take a few deep, contemplative breaths next time you walk through a North American deciduous forest. Your children may never have the chance.

Ecological globalization is such a wonderful concept.

I think you are making overly broad conclusions about tree health based on information that applies to relatively localized areas. You accurately describe the effects of acid precipitation on some tree species in the Appalachians and the Northeast (and perhaps some western high-altitude forests as well), but the insect and disease problems that were discussed earlier in this thread cannot be attributed to the same causes. Soil acidification is simply not an issue in the midwest, where the Emerald Ash Borer is doing most of its damage. I also have seen no mention of acid precipitation in connection is sudden oak death in California.

I don't think deciduous forests will disappear, I do think that oaks will give way to maples, however.

--John A. Blakeman

First of all, I'd recommend the reading of "The Dying of the Trees" by Charles E. Little. It's available at or through your public library or at amazon.com and other bookstore sources.

Here's the link to amazon.com so that you can read the customer reviews.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0140158723/qid=1130377398/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-7431889-9049510?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

2. For other knowledgeable sources of information, I'd contact the librarians at the Sterling Morton Library at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, IL. I've been to this lovely arboretum more than several times and have been in the library and have also made use of the assistance of the librarians.

The main link is listed way below and several other links are given immediately below as well.

A Map of the Morton Arboretum - all 1,600 acres

http://www.mortonarb.org/maps/wholemap_rollovers.html

General Visitor Information

http://www.mortonarb.org/visitor_information/general_information.htm

The Sterling Morton Library

http://www.mortonarb.org/visitor_information/smlibrary/smlibrary.htm

The email address to the Sterling Morton Arboretum

library@mortonarb.org

Hope this is useful.

Bill