i would at a minimum... plant some replacements ...

so that if and when it happens.. you have a few years growth on the replacements ...

i took mine down at about 9 years.. mostly because they were at just the size .. where i could do it myself.. for free ... you dont mention your options in that regard ...

another year or two.. and i would have been paying money to make them fall down ...

i dont buy a lifetime of money invested in treatment ....

ken

Where are you located?

With a decade of mild winters EAB was spread. This winter has been the coldest in 30 years and likely killed many larvae in zone 4 and lower and some in zone 5.

Does't mean they'll spread again.

I always like Ken's suggestion to plant small replacements near by and leave the others. Then in 5 to 10 years you can still take out the ash by yourself (otherwise at a smaller cost). If EAB strikes in that time period, oh well.

mdo, I can shed a little light on this: With the Emamectin Benzoate-style treatments available now, tradenamed Tree-age (The 'a' has the two little umlauts or whatever they're called above it, and the word is pronounced like the word triage), it is reasonable to expect two solid years of control from a single treatment, and quite possibly three years. For high-value trees like yours, this seems like a reasonable thing to do. Alternatively, the Imidacloprid insecticides will give a single year's control but are easier to apply. So even that's not a crazy thing to do. Environmentally speaking, either one of these methods is fairly low risk to surrounding organisms, being either injected straight into the trunk, or spread on the ground and soaked in via watering or rainfall, depending on which chemistry you reach for.

The other half of your question I can answer too: What seems to happen with EAB is similar to other exotic insect invasions-there is a ramping up period, a period of overwhelming infestation, and then, just as you'd probably expect,a leveling off period after the insects have killed most of their hosts. So if you do happen to save yours during the hot time, you would still need to treat to have the surety of protecting the trees, but overall pressure would level off a great deal.

These two lines of thought are straight out of very recent arborist's convention/seminars, so they are up to date.

The relevance of this winter's cold temps was also a hot topic (Buh dum bum), but in reality, most thought is that while some of the less-deeply positioned larvae may indeed be killed, EAB has two larval forms and one of them is positioned deeper into the trunk, likely meaning the weather will have fairly little impact one way or the other. We can always hope though!

+oM

Tom, is there sufficient evidence that EAB won't utilize alternate hosts? I thought there were some studies that show that they do.

im in zone 5 bordering on 4. I wouldn't remove them myself, theyre probably around 20-25+' tall and I don't have a truck for hauling, chainsaw, etc. so I don't really want to deal with it. from online reading im guessing ball park cost of removal would be $500-1000 but treating isn't exactly cheap either, the bayer advanced stuff a lot of people recommend runs around $150 a bottle, though sounds like it would probably last me at least 2 years. but still if im paying $75-100 to treat them every year for 20-30 years or however I long I live at my house it wont take that long to recoup the cost of removal, plus there is no guarantee it will work and my trees would be even further behind if they end up dying a few years down the road. glad to hear the cold may kill them, maybe ill wait at least 1 more year before i make a final decision and see how things go this summer

I bought a concentrated form of the imidochloropid(spelling, I am on the OLD cell). It made treatments affordable ish. Feel like I need a hazmat suit when I go near that big bottle and when mixing it though.

Its probably no worse for me or the bees than the farm across the street from my work though as long as I just don't spill it on myself.

I like Ken's advice. Perhaps you will fall in love with one of the possible replacement trees and only have to treat one ash long term.

Good luck with either decision. Darn EAB.

Whaas, there is a study which showed that EAB will oviposit on non-ash species under no-choice lab conditions, but they apparently aren't suitable for development of the larvae (with the possible exception of privet, another Oleaceae). As far as I know, nothing other than ash has been confirmed in the field as a host for the EAB in the US.

Here is a link that might be useful: Host Range and Preference of EAB

Look for the CoreTect tablets, they should be much easier to use than a drench. Some reports say they'll last two years.

Yes, re: other hosts.....only Fraxinus at this time. For a while early on, some of us thought maybe lilacs, for whatever that would have been worth, but it really does seem to be ash only.

I think the Emamectin benzoate treatment makes sense, but I really do dislike any delivery system that requires boring holes into my tree(s). But if the ash tree-especially a nice, big white ash in my system of priorities-was right in my yard, or some other high-impact location, I'd probably do it.

Incidentally, municipal forestry departments all across the eastern (mostly) US are having to decide what course of action to take. It is not an easy decision. From what I've learned-and this really depends on whether or not one factors in all of the environmental benefits of trees generally-the option of doing nothing and letting things take their course is far, far from the least expensive. IOWs, it's going to cost $$, big time, no matter which way you turn.

+oM

I must be a bit more daring...I take out 30' trees with a felco saw, lol.

I have a 30' boxelder (likely 10 years old) to take out in a few weeks if the snow melts a bit.

Whaas, if you are replying to something in my last post, something didn't compute. I was surely not saying municipal forestry depts. lack the technical know-how to remove trees! I was trying to explain the deep financial pit this is going to be for many of them......with the main point being that waiting to see how bad it gets is not going to be inexpensive either.

The dept. I happen to work with routinely handles something in the 30 ft. range as a "tip and chip", meaning, the simplest and most expedient tree removal imaginable.

+oM

No, to the OP. I think its nuts to drop $500+ on getting a 20' tree removed.

When my boxelder was 20' the estimate was $100, so more on par with your last statement. Not even worth the $100.

I can fold that tree with an error load it up and take to the village dump where they recycle into wood chips.