What bugs/diseases/critters have ya'll seen that weren't around 30-40 years ago?

[etpm]

Seems to be something going around that's confusing a lot of people about their gender. What are the vectors for contagion of mental disease?

Nothing has changed except social acceptance of differences in sexuality. Sexuality is obviously not binary and never has been. Some folks are totally heterosexual but lots are not and this has always been true of humans as well as other mammals. We only need to look at the other mammals to see this. There is nothing going around. I'm frankly tired of smart folks who refuse to see this fact. Sheesh!
Eric

 

[jmc]

Nothing has changed except social acceptance of differences in sexuality. Sexuality is obviously not binary and never has been. Some folks are totally heterosexual but lots are not and this has always been true of humans as well as other mammals. We only need to look at the other mammals to see this. There is nothing going around. I'm frankly tired of smart folks who refuse to see this fact. Sheesh!
Eric

i read a theory about social exclusion that it's an evolved trait from our hunter/gatherer ancestors. A tribe could only be as large as food from their immediate range could support so they had to "encourage" members that didn't fit in to move out. Must have worked, so here we are with it.

 

[ponytug]

Has anyone ever heard of a "Deer Ked" I saw my first one a few days ago.

Deer Keds

I have found permethrin to be very effective against the deer ticks in our area. I have actually lightly misted the Swayer permethrin spray on a tick and it was dead in less than a minute. The article said DEET was not effective of deer keds, but that permethrin kills them in 20 minutes, that seems like a long time. If I find another I'll be trying my light misting test on it.

View attachment 4304889

Great! Yet another biting insect to watch out for.

Like any selection pressure, DEET tolerance is rising in a number of insects. Permethrin a bit less because it is a pretty labile chemical, especially in sunlight, even with potentiators like t-butoxide.

Thanks for posting this. To my knowledge, I have never seen one.

All the best, Peter

 

[WinterDeere]

Sexuality is obviously not binary and never has been.

I wasn’t speaking of preference, but identification. You either have a Y-chromosome, or you do not have a Y-chromosome. Binary.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Emerald ash borer.

 

[WinterDeere]

Emerald ash borer.

In the next few weeks/months, I'm going to harvest what I hope is the last dead ash in my neighborhood. I say "hope" because I've been treating my own with bifenthrin, and haven't lost any, whereas all of my neighbors have experienced 100% loss.

The last one of those still standing is a monster, easily over 4 feet diameter at breast height, and in a neighbor's yard just 300 feet from my own property line. They've left it standing way too long, I tried to convince them to cut it 2-3 years ago as it was showing a lot of damage then, so I expect it's going to be an unpredictable and dangerous drop. It's also close enough to a house that there's some small chance of damage, so the neighbor agreed to call in a pro to put it on the ground, and then I'll buck it into logs and haul it away while the neighbor deals with burning or chipping the upper branches.

Each of mine, including one fairly large about Ø30" DBH and pin-straight up over 3 stories with a big crown, are all showing various levels of damage. But I'm hoping that with the rest of the ash essentially gone from our area, and my continued treatments each spring, the pest might eventually move on and leave mine to survive.

 

[HawkinsHollow]

I am in GA and my ash are all either dead or heavily affected and dying. They will not go to waste though. The wood is absolutely gorgeous when milled into 1x lumber and I am looking forward to trying it in the wood stove this winter. Let me ask you this since you have experience with the EAB. I try not to let teh firewood get to far from my property as not to affect others ash trees. But if I have it at my property 1 mile away the ash in my neighborhood are likely affected as well? Is that a safe assumption? Also does the EAB persist in dried firewood?

 

[WinterDeere]

I am in GA and my ash are all either dead or heavily affected and dying. They will not go to waste though. The wood is absolutely gorgeous when milled into 1x lumber and I am looking forward to trying it in the wood stove this winter. Let me ask you this since you have experience with the EAB. I try not to let teh firewood get to far from my property as not to affect others ash trees. But if I have it at my property 1 mile away the ash in my neighborhood are likely affected as well. Is that a saw assumption? Also to the EAB persist in dried firewood?

I have watched members from the upper midwest, where EAB first took hold in this country, debate these problems 15 years ago. It seems that all efforts to stop or slow this pest, short of treating each individual tree, are ineffective at anything other than just slowing it down a bit.

I'm not sure the daily range on these borers, but suspect that refraining from moving firewood over "vehicular distances" probably is good practice. But on the flip side, I think their range is greater than you might haul wood with a tractor, so no point in letting wood from your neighbor go to waste.

At 1 mile, I guess you're sort of on the fringe of that. The reality is they'll probably cover that mile gap over a single spawning season, whether you move the wood by vehicle or leave them to their own devices, but I'm no botanist.

 

[HawkinsHollow]

I have watched members from the upper midwest, where EAB first took hold in this country, debate these problems 15 years ago. It seems that all efforts to stop or slow this pest, short of treating each individual tree, are ineffective at anything other than just slowing it down a bit.

I'm not sure the daily range on these borers, but suspect that refraining from moving firewood over "vehicular distances" probably is good practice. But on the flip side, I think their range is greater than you might haul wood with a tractor, so no point in letting wood from your neighbor go to waste.

At 1 mile, I guess you're sort of on the fringe of that. The reality is they'll probably cover that mile gap over a single spawning season, whether you move the wood by vehicle or leave them to their own devices, but I'm no botanist.

Yeah if they have made it all the way to North GA I doubt me moving it a mile is going to do much. We have WAY fewer ash down here than our northern neighbors and I feel it might be harder for them to spread because of that. So helping them get too far along is not something I want to do.

 

[Jstpssng]

According to this website;

Emerald ash borer

How to identify emerald ash borer

extension.umn.edu

• EAB will move only about one-half to one mile a year from infested sites. But people can carry it hundreds of miles when transporting firewood and other wood products or nursery stock

It's just making it's way into our state now, coming in from the south as well as from our Canadian friends to the north. (Thanks, guys. )
We are slowing the spread with quarantines and also experimenting with predator bugs, but eventually it will be statewide I'm sure.
It doesn't help when people bring infested wood from out of state. However I can't completely blame them, given the ridiculous prices charged for a bundle of campwood that won't even build a decent fire.