Black Walnut Lumber

Downed walnut tree presents dilemma

Nick and Susan Doerfler thought their biggest problem was an enormous tree falling on their Doylestown home late Saturday night.

That was before they discovered the tree was a black walnut.

The state Department of Agriculture is trying to track and contain the spread of the walnut twig beetle, which leads to the death of walnut trees by infesting them with thousand cankers disease.

A tree in Plumstead was discovered with the fatal disease in early August.

Agricultural officials have since established a quarantine throughout Bucks County, restricting the movement of most walnut material, including nursery stock, green lumber, stumps, roots, branches, mulch and chips.

“I didn’t know anything about it (the disease) until I was talking to a tree man about having the tree removed and I mentioned it was a walnut tree,” said Nick Doerfler.

The man told Doerfler he is not allowed to haul it away and that no dumps will accept it.

This came as a shock to the Doerflers, who also have a home in Lancaster County, where they were living when the tree came crashing down. A neighbor called to tell them what happened.

The couple struggled to find someone to help them remove the tree, as most tree services don’t want to get involved.

“I’m trying to find someone who will even cut it,” said Nick Doerfler on Tuesday. “It’s so big, I can’t cut it myself.”

On Wednesday, Doerfler said, he located a tree service to help him out.

Tumelty Tree Service in Doylestown said it can cut the tree into 18-inch pieces to be used as firewood, the only permissable use. The firewood must stay within the county, however.

Doerfler plans to give the firewood to his neighbor and to his wife’s nephew in Furlong.

While that comes as a relief, Doerfler said the tree service cannot clean up the leaves or the small twigs and branches that will litter his yard once the walnut tree is cut up.

“Anything they would normally chip has to stay, he said.

Virginia's Black Walnut Trees Face Lethal Threat - Clarke Daily News

Yet another iconic American forest familial appears destined for demise.

The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services has issued a quarantine preventing the movement of black walnut wood and byproducts from the  Virginia counties of Chesterfield and Henrico and the city of Richmond. The move is an attempt to slow down a lethal tree pest known as “Thousand Cankers” disease. The disease, a newly identified fungus vectoered by a tiny beetle, currently has no known control measures and is lethal to the native black walnut species.

“I want to alert you to the first report of Thousand Cankers disease of walnut in Virginia” Loudoun County Extension urban horticulturalist Deborah Dillion said in an electronic mail message distributed to local wood workers. “Last August the disease was found for the first time in the eastern United States in Knox County, Tennessee. In June 2011 suspect black walnut trees were found in Chesterfield County, Virginia. Last week the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS) confirmed the presence of this disease in Chesterfield and Henrico Counties.”

The VDACS quarantine prohibits the movement of black walnut trees, logs, stumps, mulch and other byproducts out of Chesterfield and Henrico Counties and the city of Richmond as of July 21.

“This is bad news” said local wood turner Tom Boley. “It sounds as though our black walnut trees are doomed.”

Prior to the discovery of the disease in Virginia, Thousand Cankers disease infestation had been found only in the western states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington before being observed in Tennessee. The Virginia discovery marks the first occurrence of Thousand Cankers Disease ( Juglans nigra was confirmed in the samples. Because this is the first report of Thousand Cankers disease of black walnut in Virginia, VDACS is conducting a delimiting survey to determine the extent of the infestation surrounding the positive find. Initial delimiting survey work has found additional trees with Thousand Cankers disease in Chesterfield and Henrico Counties.