Ash Die Back - loss of wood in Europe

Just nature doing its job. Often these species changes and proliferation of diseases in vegetation are more often like 'cruel humans win at accelerating climate change'

Lets hope it doesn't happen to birch, maple, luan or poplar, or drums are really in trouble.
 
Just nature doing its job. Often these species changes and proliferation of diseases in vegetation are more often like 'cruel humans win at accelerating climate change'

Lets hope it doesn't happen to birch, maple, luan or poplar, or drums are really in trouble.

Indeed.
It was a different world before the elm died and nobody who wasn't around back then will ever know what it was like to have them everywhere.
 
That's very sad and disturbing. Ash is a wonderful drum wood. My ash snares are very lively.
 
Just nature doing its job. Often these species changes and proliferation of diseases in vegetation are more often like 'cruel humans win at accelerating climate change'

Lets hope it doesn't happen to birch, maple, luan or poplar, or drums are really in trouble.

"Mankind accelerating climate change" is a fun myth, but not always applicable. From the article:

"The trees are being killed off by the fungal disease ash-dieback along with an invasive beetle called the emerald ash borer."

Looks like ash-dieback is relatively new in Europe, and science may be able to help us figure out why older ash trees seem immune. That would be great, and another example of how mankind's presence complements the Earth, rather than being such a horrible disease on the pristine planet (as we always hear).

Bear in mind that they told us the spotted owl was gone, and most recently that the bees were vanishing. We were supposed to enter a 'global ice age' in the 70s, and according to Al Gore we should all be on fire by now. The world rarely conforms to our self-flagellating armageddon fantasies (thankfully).
 
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"Mankind accelerating climate change" is a fun myth, but not always applicable. From the article:

"The trees are being killed off by the fungal disease ash-dieback along with an invasive beetle called the emerald ash borer."

Looks like ash-dieback is relatively new in Europe, and science may be able to help us figure out why older ash trees seem immune.

Climate change denial? No myth at all. Ever see a temperature vs. CO2 emission record for the past decades? There is a connection, well known in botany and ecology, of the link of temperature extremes to survival of fungi and other maladies to many trees and plants. Read on the red pine beetle. The lack of good cold hard winters is documented in many forests that used to have one - leads to survival and even flourishing of these kinds of diseases, linked to insects or fungi. No armageddon, no tabloid fantasies, just data and facts is all.

And yes, too bad for a really nice wood. Hey, maybe mankind can re-invent a synthetic ash....or we can all just play vistalites. Oops James mentioned the Vista Palm is going too...damn.
 
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Having serious internet access issues, so brief replies over the next few days.

English, and to a lesser extent, European ash, is an extremely important species to us in Guru. We use it extensively, and for good reason. Perversely, dieback has increased availability due to selective culling, but longer term, the outlook is bleak for the species. We could move to swamp ash, but it's not the same in our opinion.
 
Wow that is sad. I found this article that further elaborates on this issue. http://phys.org/news/2016-03-poor-outlook-ash-trees.html
I didn't realize how abundant ash was in the UK. Looks like there is hope with a fungus resistant ash but the dang beetles seem to be unavoidable.
 
Unfortunately, its just a matter of time before our forests are utterly ravaged here in Canada. With the warmer winters not keeping them in check anymore, Japanese Pine Beetles are multiplying like crazy and heading East. For a long time they were only in British Columbia, but now are in Alberta and marching onward. They kill virtually every pine tree in their path and maybe in as little as a couple of decades we will have no pines left. If you knew how many pine trees there are in Canadian forests you would know what a huge deal this is. Even scarier, once one species is removed from the ecosystem, especially one like a very prolific tree, no one can predict what happens after that. Other plants, trees, animals, the atmosphere, ground water.....a huge chain of events will unfold.
 
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We need to figure out which other insects, birds, or predators will feed on the Japanese Beetle.
 
I don't think we have too great a track record with that type of thing. Look at the cane toad in Australia for example.
 
Has anyone made a drum kit out of Norwegian Wood?
 
As an alternative, bamboo is an almost infinitely renewable resource, and some instrument makers have been making instruments out of it. Ukuleles in bamboo sound good! I know that DW and Yamaha have made drums out of it, and I thought they sounded great. Bamboo, beeing a hollow grass, takes a bit of engineering, but it can be done. A stave bamboo would be a nice project.
also, it's rigid and tough as nails.
 
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