Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Aldeer General Forum Pine Beetles

I'm seeing pine beetle spots and damage absolutely everywhere. If you have beetles on your property in NW Alabama, send me a PM and I may be able to get them cut for you. No promises because I have quite a bit in front of me including some of my family's timber that's being actively killed.

Also, if you have lost a considerable amount of timber to the beetles, I can help you determine the value lost to be reported to the IRS as a casualty loss deduction for tax purposes. PM me for this as well.

Where is this ? I was warned today by our forester to be on lookout .i live in northwest al I haven’t seen any yet . Some has been found in wayne county tn so far .

I’ve seen pine beetles here in my area since I was a we little lad…

I spend most of my time in Winston, Marion, and Franklin, but the beetles are especially bad this year across Alabama, Mississippi, and I'm sure most of the Southeast. The Bankhead and surrounding areas are really bad. Almost all of the pine stands I've been in lately have some beetle activity to some extent.

Be on the lookout for red needles, patches of dead/dying trees, frass (sawdust) around bases of trees, and small holes in the bark with sap/frass coming out. You can hear them working in an active tree most of the time.

They're always around to some extent, but there are years like this and last where they become an epidemic.

Forestry flew a week ago and said half of the pine stands in Colbert were affected

A friend told me of a forester that has 500 acres with some damage and no one to cut. He also said maintenance shutdowns were coming at 2 mills.

I know a guy that had 300 acres cut a month ago and he had Beatles

I’m seeing not only dead pines from beetles but a lot of unexplained mortality as well.

Here’s two pics I took of dead patches and individual trees across a broad area in Fayette.

I’ve got them on 3 of my properties. Luckily we caught them early and saved the grade pine. Logger is so busy he can’t get to everyone

It’s been a learning experience for me this year looking for them. As SEW said above look for pitch tubes, sawdust and brown tops. Also look up and sometimes you can see the sawdust in the needles up high before they get too bad.

Maybe some of that brown spot needle blight? Seems like it is gaining a lot of attention recently. I honestly hadn't even heard of it until recently.

We cut one of our stands we weren't necessarily planning on cutting yet this spring because there was some unexplained mortality. Didn't really see any signs of beetles, but there were a couple small, dead patches an the needle density looked really thin. Thankfully we did because the beetles are now on the neighboring property

I’ve been working on spots all week pushing down dead trees and live ones around them and building a perimeter.

This is what happens when you remove bio diversity from the landscape and try to row crop a tree(that traditionally only grew on the bottom half of the slope down to low lands)at 20,000 stems per acre on any acre you can plant.

I’ve noticed a few on my place.

Do what now? .

Nobody plants 20k per acre. Try 400-700. Although your statement is sensationalized, it’s also a tiny bit in the right direction, but not really. Managing a healthy pine stand has its challenges to be sure - but no different than a farmer with any crop. You just have to baby them for 25-35 years versus a few months.

Not really. They are not bad in the SW 1/4 of AL at all this year. Actually- I haven’t seen one single patch. And I have access to an acre or 3

A guy had a video of them eating some pines in his back yard. I was surprised how well you could hear them. Then again he could’ve punked me. 😂

From the farm looking back up along the trace you can see similar patches.

That’s the coroner, not the culprit. The ones you can hear are just eating dead wood. SPB or Ips or decline killed it, most likely. Or it could have just died.

I’ve heard central MS has it real bad.

Yes it is bad over here in MS. I had to cut 70 acres of big mature pine that I didnt want to cut but had no options. There are other areas on my property with beetle problems. May end up having to cut it all.