Several towns/cities grind up all the limbs, branches, and trees that are
discarded in their landfills. They offer the wood grindings free for use
as mulch.

I am concerned about getting and using any of this because who knows what is
in it, and I am especially concerned that there may be wood from oak trees
that died of Oak Wilt. Surely if there are, this would spread the disease
to Oak trees on which the mulch was used. If there is Oak Wilt, I
wouldn't even want it anywhere on my land.

Is anyone else concerned about this, and are the landfills, in an attempt to
help, really taking a chance on spreading disease all over?

Comments - please. Bob

I've heard both schools of thought. I have large, mature live oaks which
greatly increase my property value. I wouldn't use the city mulch since there
is no way of knowing. If you shop around, you can buy cedar mulch for about 8
dollars a yard. Now if the city gives away ONLY cedar, that's fine to use, IMO


On Thu, 17 Oct 2002 06:17:59 -0500, "bobwhite" wrote:

Several towns/cities grind up all the limbs, branches, and trees that are
discarded in their landfills. They offer the wood grindings free for use
as mulch.

I am concerned about getting and using any of this because who knows what is
in it, and I am especially concerned that there may be wood from oak trees
that died of Oak Wilt. Surely if there are, this would spread the disease
to Oak trees on which the mulch was used. If there is Oak Wilt, I
wouldn't even want it anywhere on my land.

Is anyone else concerned about this, and are the landfills, in an attempt to
help, really taking a chance on spreading disease all over?

Comments - please. Bob

On Thu, 17 Oct 2002 06:17:59 -0500, "bobwhite"
wrote:

Several towns/cities grind up all the limbs, branches, and trees that are
discarded in their landfills. They offer the wood grindings free for use
as mulch.

I am concerned about getting and using any of this because who knows what is
in it, and I am especially concerned that there may be wood from oak trees
that died of Oak Wilt. Surely if there are, this would spread the disease
to Oak trees on which the mulch was used. If there is Oak Wilt, I
wouldn't even want it anywhere on my land.

There's virtually no chance of contracting oak wilt from mulch. Other
diseases, possibly, but not oak wilt.

Is anyone else concerned about this, and are the landfills, in an attempt to
help, really taking a chance on spreading disease all over?

I checked into it and concluded it wasn't suited to what we do.. It's
basically ground-up tree branches with some foliage, primarily used
for the landfill's own reclamation projects. My concern was the
possibility of pests, pathogens and chemical residues in the fresh
plant material.

After doing a search on "oak, wilt, mulch" and excluding the dot .com
sources and focusing on the edu's and org's. I saw that the consensus
was that since moisture content in the wood material was a necessity
for the fungal spores to survive, if the mulch is chipped and dried
the mulch is virtually safe from infecting other Oaks.
You would have to have a situation where the mulch had retained
moisture content since the time it was shredded and you would have to
have the vector of the sap beetle traveling from the mulch to an open
wound on the tree at the time of the year when the spores are
reproducing. This succession of events is necessary which is why the
odds are so small and 'virtually safe'

The original question refered to materials available at city or
town dumps. I would be more comfortable with materials from one of
the good landscape material sources here in Austin like Geogrowers or
Natural Gardener than I would from a town dump unless I was able to
see that the material was shredded finely and then left to dry.

I've seen bagged goods shipped in on pallets from East Texas that
were stored out in the rain at their point of origin, were soaking wet
and often when opened contained fungal spores ( of some sort ) and
beetles.
One of the best things about shopping for locally produced
products is that it's usually not that hard to get the owner to let
you see the process.
I'm alot more comfortable with John D. overseeing the process than an
agribusiness in another state.

A number of sites I looked at, stressed the importance of the material
being finely shredded. Material that is not finely shredded is more
likely to hold moisture and harbor spores.
Austin Parks and Recreation has an Oak Wilt FAQ available at
their web site that warns of using infected firewood, and to not store
it on your property. They suggest that you make sure you get only
fully dried firewood if your buying Red Oak for your fireplace. I
noticed the Minnesota sites also talked about this a great deal, (
makes sense, they actually need fireplaces up there )

This whole topic of how much risk we are willing to tolerate for
the obvious good of recycling our green materials on a large scale and
not burying them in the landfill, improving our soil on a large scale
with readily available mulch is really important.

It reminds me of what happened today while eating breakfast at
Guero's on Congress avenue today. I ordered migas, bacon and coffee.
I was in a hurry so I asked the waitress to bring me the coffee in a
to go cup.
The young lady leaned in close and said it wasn't healthy to be
drinking coffee out of a styrofoam cup. I told her ," It might be" ,
but look ing at my meal, I said , " I already am eating bacon with my
migas. I'm taking a calculated risk for the better good. "

Steve Coyle
www.austingardencenter.com

I feel a little more confident with your research, thanks. Every year at
Christmas, Zilker Park shreds xmas trees and I'm there first thing to take as
much as I can fit in my truck. When they clear land, particularly cedars, I'm
there to take the mulch. I haven't bought it in three years, but will if need
be. I also never rake my leaves and I rummage through people's garbage who rake
their pine needles! I use those as well.

I feel I'm doing my part in the recycle process, which is extremely important.
I just won't use Dillodirt (sludge product) or municipal mulch. I won't say I
never will because eventually I do all my "nevers."

V


On 18 Oct 2002 21:51:07 -0700, (Steve Coyle) wrote:

After doing a search on "oak, wilt, mulch" and excluding the dot .com
sources and focusing on the edu's and org's. I saw that the consensus
was that since moisture content in the wood material was a necessity
for the fungal spores to survive, if the mulch is chipped and dried
the mulch is virtually safe from infecting other Oaks.
You would have to have a situation where the mulch had retained
moisture content since the time it was shredded and you would have to
have the vector of the sap beetle traveling from the mulch to an open
wound on the tree at the time of the year when the spores are
reproducing. This succession of events is necessary which is why the
odds are so small and 'virtually safe'

The original question refered to materials available at city or
town dumps. I would be more comfortable with materials from one of
the good landscape material sources here in Austin like Geogrowers or
Natural Gardener than I would from a town dump unless I was able to
see that the material was shredded finely and then left to dry.

I've seen bagged goods shipped in on pallets from East Texas that
were stored out in the rain at their point of origin, were soaking wet
and often when opened contained fungal spores ( of some sort ) and
beetles.
One of the best things about shopping for locally produced
products is that it's usually not that hard to get the owner to let
you see the process.
I'm alot more comfortable with John D. overseeing the process than an
agribusiness in another state.

A number of sites I looked at, stressed the importance of the material
being finely shredded. Material that is not finely shredded is more
likely to hold moisture and harbor spores.
Austin Parks and Recreation has an Oak Wilt FAQ available at
their web site that warns of using infected firewood, and to not store
it on your property. They suggest that you make sure you get only
fully dried firewood if your buying Red Oak for your fireplace. I
noticed the Minnesota sites also talked about this a great deal, (
makes sense, they actually need fireplaces up there )

This whole topic of how much risk we are willing to tolerate for
the obvious good of recycling our green materials on a large scale and
not burying them in the landfill, improving our soil on a large scale
with readily available mulch is really important.

It reminds me of what happened today while eating breakfast at
Guero's on Congress avenue today. I ordered migas, bacon and coffee.
I was in a hurry so I asked the waitress to bring me the coffee in a
to go cup.
The young lady leaned in close and said it wasn't healthy to be
drinking coffee out of a styrofoam cup. I told her ," It might be" ,
but look ing at my meal, I said , " I already am eating bacon with my
migas. I'm taking a calculated risk for the better good. "

Steve Coyle
www.austingardencenter.com

Xref: 127.0.0.1 austin.gardening:19482

Since the Texans scored their last touchdown, Steve Coyle saw fit to
opine:

[excised]
If someone is disposing of an Oak Wilt infested tree, the ground up
material would contain Oakwilt disease. Ted Fischer, our former county
extension agent used to talk about how Oak Wilt had lived in pockets
through out the centuries but the major spread occurred during the
clear cutting for power lines in the hill country and clearing of land
for sub division construction.
The brush would be piled up and burned, and incomplete burning of
the ash would result in Oak Wilt infested material moving to new
locations on the wind.
[more missing]

I certainly won't argue with Ted, even through a proxy, but I've been
given to understand that burning the wood kills the spores. We have
cut a bunch of dead oak, and our extension agent has told us that it's
OK to burn it - it can't pass the infection that way.

--
All Chat no Cattle

God Bless Texas wrote


I certainly won't argue with Ted, even through a proxy, but I've been
given to understand that burning the wood kills the spores. We have
cut a bunch of dead oak, and our extension agent has told us that it's
OK to burn it - it can't pass the infection that way.

It was the "incomplete" burning that I mentioned as a problem,
complete incineration kills the spores. Also, given that this was
some years ago when Ted was the county agent it could have been a
speculative hypothesis as to why Oak Wilt suddenly became such a
problem in the Hill Country, and not a statement of fact
A couple of Oak Wilt sites I looked at mentioned that underground
root to root infestation accounted for 90% of the infections of Oaks.
Problem is I can't locate the original source of this information and
how it was ascertained. Something to watch out for on the net ( and
in gardening journalism in general ) is the ease with which
information becomes self reinforcing.

A question I've been puzzling over as far as the epidemiology is
concerned is:
If the large majority of infections are root to root what accounts
for the break out and movement of the disease into new areas in recent
years ?

Now if it would just stop raining I could get away from hanging out
on the computer looking at pics of Oak Wilt and do some gardening.

Steve Coyle
www.austingardencenter.com