Lodgepole Pine and the Mountain Pine Beetle

I love trees!  Magnificent, beautiful, and stately creations they are.  Living here in Idaho, the most prominent tree that grows in our area is what is commonly known as the lodgepole pine. I've always thought pine trees quite beautiful.  But, this lodgepole pine - while it can be a beautiful tree, most of the time, it is at the very bottom of the line of trees in Idaho that are considered valuable, and is certainly not my favorite tree.

To be fair, the lodgepole pine does have its benefits, as its quick growth provides shade for the nicer more long-term trees like the Douglas fir that need shade until they get mature enough to handle the sunshine.  It grows very quickly, and as it grows, lower limbs die off, and become an eye sore.  It is the limbs that cause the most grief to owners of lodgepole pines, along with the fact that they have a very shallow root system, and can topple over with just a breath of wind, it seems.  You do not want them anywhere near your home!  (We took out most of our lodgepole close to our home because of that very reason).

In our 10 acres, we have a lot of lodgepole pine growing, but they are providing shade for the smaller firs that are growing underneath them.  So they really aren't all that bad... in fact they are quite necessary for a healthy forest.

So then you may ask... why do you dislike the lodgepole pines so?

And I will tell you this... come and work with us for a day cleaning up the brush from the lodgepole pine, and you may understand.  {smiles}

... see all that dead brush?  It is from just ONE lodgepole pine!  That is a lot of dead limbs to haul to a burn pile.  For every average lodgepole pine tree, that is how much brush comes from their limbs.

My husband or son cuts down the tree, and we then carry off the brush to the closest burn pile.  Today, it was just my husband and I working, so those brush piles you see were mostly built by myself.  My husband did help me some.

The sad news is that a terrible bug, called the mountain pine beetle has attacked a large number of our lodgepole pines.  We had an Idaho forester come out to our property and he advised us that the best way to ensure that we keep the beetles from further advancing their attack on our trees this summer was to begin to cut down the half-dead trees now, before spring comes, and the beetles come out of hibernation.

You can see here some of our trees attacked by the pine beetle.  They are half green, and half red (which means dead).  These are the trees that the beetles have hibernated in for the winter.  They must come down now, and the brush and tops burnt before/during spring if we have any hope of saving the rest of our trees.  We have a large amount of these trees that are infested with the beetle, and a far more larger number that are already dead.   The dead ones we will leave standing for now.  Our greatest concern now is to take out all the half-dead trees with hibernating beetles.  

They are going to burn!  All the limbs and tops of the tree must be burnt in order to kill out the beetle, as they hibernate in the top of the tree for the winter.  These beetles do not eat dead trees, but they attack a healthy tree, kill it, and move on to the next healthy tree.  It is a plague that is affecting and wiping out much of Idaho's lodgepole pine.  And while lodgepole pine is at the bottom of the totem pole of valuable trees, as I mentioned earlier... these pines still do play an important role in the infrastructure of the forest.  And while I hate their dead limbs... these pines really are necessary in a forest for the slower trees to take root and grow.  

This means that we have a lot of work to do!  So we got started today as the snow had begun to melt again, and it was time to get busy.  

I love our woods, our trees, and the beauty within the forest.   It breaks our heart that so many of our trees are going to have to go down.  Even if they are lodgepole pine! 

While we have often lamented the large amount of dead limbs that lodgepole pine sport, they still can be a beautiful tree to look at, if maintained well.  When we bought our ten acres, the trees had not been maintained in many years, and it has been a lot of work for us to slowly take out the dead trees.  But, now our work has increased immensely because of the beetle infestation.  And we will be taking out the half-dead trees now, and leaving the dead trees alone... for now.  

But we are making the best of it, and looking at it as a necessary job to do to preserve the remaining live healthy trees we have.

Now, all we need to do is teach Annie and Roger how to haul brush!  {smiles}  She doesn't look too interested, does she?

As I walked around our yard today, there was still joy to be found everywhere... especially with my little feathered friends so happily filling their bellies, and bringing a smile to our hearts as we watched them.

Regardless of the loss of these trees, I found hope in knowing that if we work hard this spring, we can hopefully save the rest of our trees.   And we sure don't need a membership at the gym... we've got lots of exercise cut out for us over the next few months.... one hour of hauling brush is worth about 2 hours at the gym, we believe!  {smiles}

We are looking on the bright side of things as much as we can, and hoping that we can stem off the advancement of the pine beetle.  We have been told that this is the most effective way to fight, which is to burn them while they are hibernating.  And all this healthy exercise won't hurt us a bit, even though our muscles may complain at night... like they are doing now :)