Under the Canopy

Episode 155: Wildfire Smoke And Forest Health

• Outdoor Journal Radio Podcast Network • Episode 155

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Smoke in the air has a way of snapping our attention back to the natural world. We start with what it feels like when wildfire haze rolls in, then zoom out to the less obvious forces that shape forest health every day, the kind you might notice first as a few “mystery” conifers turning brick red along the road or at the edge of your camp. 

I’m joined by David Dutkiewicz from the Ontario Invasive Species Centre, and we get practical fast. We sort out common tree ID mix-ups (spruce vs balsam fir), explain how root competition and natural thinning can make trees die off in clusters, and share simple cues for telling fir, spruce, pine, and tamarack apart. From there we move into the bigger prevention story: why the “Don’t Move Firewood” message matters, how Emerald Ash Borer can survive in cut wood for years, and what to watch for with oak wilt, a fast-moving disease that has already triggered rapid response efforts in Ontario. 

We also hit backyard realities: tar spot on Norway maple, what leaf cleanup actually does, which maples can be tapped for sap, and what Japanese beetles are doing when they “skeletonize” leaves. If you’ve ever wondered how to help beyond worrying, we cover easy reporting tools like invasive species hotlines, EDDMapS, iNaturalist, and CFIA resources so your photos can turn into early detection. 

If you care about protecting forests, camps, and communities from invasive pests and tree disease, subscribe, share this with a friend who buys firewood, and leave a review so more people find the show.

Show Open And Where To Listen

SPEAKER_11

Every week and every single legal interview is you two and great people. Share the stories of inspirations.

SPEAKER_02

When it waves along the way, we're seeing figured out how to get your day. We are going to be in the television. Doing efficient show.

SPEAKER_10

My hands get sore a little bit when I'm reeling in a little pants in the summertime, but that's mighty for more efficient than it was punchy.

SPEAKER_11

You so confidently said, hey Pat, have you ever eaten a drink? Find diaries of a lodge owner now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

SPEAKER_07

As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons of our natural world become harder and harder to hear, but they are still available to those who know where to listen. I'm Jerry Olette, and I was honored to serve as Ontario's Minister of Natural Resources. However, my journey into the woods didn't come from politics. Rather, it came from my time in the bush and a mushroom. In 2015, I was introduced to the birch-hungry fungus known as Chaga, a tree conch with centuries of medicinal applications used by indigenous peoples all over the globe. After nearly a decade of harvest, use, testimonials, and research, my skepticism has faded to obsession. And I now spend my life dedicated to improving the lives of others through natural means. But that's not what the show is about. My pursuit of this strange mushroom and my passion for the outdoors has brought me to the places and around the people that are shaped by our natural world. On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, I'm going to take you along with me to see the places, meet the people that will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and under the canopy. So join me today for another great episode, and hopefully, we can inspire a few more people to live their lives under the canopy.

Smoke In The Air And Camp Life

SPEAKER_07

I don't even drink really. And am I having a hangover of some kind? Did somebody slip me something? Because it was kind of, what's happening out there? It was just like a foggy haze. And then I was heading to an event, uh, I don't remember if it was Halliburton or Lindsay, and I'm driving along, and it's just like, this is weird. It's kind of like an early morning fog, but it's all that smoke. And, you know, first thing I did is uh turn the air purifiers on in the house full of blast to make sure everything's a go, but we seem to be past that part now until the wind changes direction or control gets taken place. But as usual, we'll give a little bit of a rundown of my chocolate lab gunner, and he seems to be getting along okay with now with Bell, which is uh my son Garrett and his wife Brittany, and their baby Gritton's dog, which is a Doberman, and they play a lot now and they get along pretty good. So just like usual, it seems to be going okay. But and lately, Gunner has been, when we're up at the camp, the cottage, he's been swimming like crazy, just loving the water more than usual, which is fine. And as always, I, you know, when I head into the bathroom, I gotta close the door behind me because otherwise, guess who's coming in and gives me that look? He stands, sits between me and the sink and wants his teeth brushed. How many dogs do you know out there want their teeth brushed? Now, Belle, that's the name of the dope, um, she comes and looks and what are you doing? And so, whatever's gunner doing, she wants to try it. And I don't know, she seems to be receptive to getting her teeth brushed, but it might be an interesting way to get dogs to do it, watch another one do it, and then they fall right in the line. Not only that, but if you know, Gunner, I'm not sure if I mentioned, but uh they were there and we look at him, he wants a bath? Go get in the tub, and runs and jumps in the tub and waits for us to come along. So that's pretty good. So everything seems to be going along pretty good. And little Benny, uh, my son's Josh, and is uh fiancé Casey's dog. He hasn't been around, but when you get the three of them together, it's a dog a palooza. But everything's just going fine. They seem to be getting along pretty good. Even though Benny is a ball crazy cockapoo, that's long as he's got a ball, it's okay. But part of the problem is he's a little arrogant too. So he'll take Bell's ball, which is kind of a squishy rubber ball, and then purposely walk right up to her face and kind of rub her face with his with the ball in his mouth. And if she tries to go for the ball, he starts to growl at her. Like test her. I can't believe it. But that's the way things are, and they'll work it out, their dogs, and it seems to be going along good. But I am getting a lot of inquiries uh since we did the uh the podcast with the Naturopathic Vet. And it seems to be a lot of individuals are not happy with the way the system's working now that that uh a lot of the clinics and I think it was I think it was Marketplace that did a show and talked about how uh most of the vet clinics are being bought out by central corporations.

Vet Clinics And Corporate Buyouts

SPEAKER_07

And yeah, it's a bit concerning. Now, other updates. Um in a couple of weeks, I'll be uh I've been asked to do a TV show. It's called Quinty Vibes Live with Nikki Clark, and I'll be on uh Nikki's uh program talking about, well, I sent her a bunch of stuff. She originally wanted to talk about Chaga, but if she talks about the podcast, we'll see. Or some of the other stuff, because uh, you know, when I was minister, I had pretty good uh did some pretty good things uh from my perspective, you know. Uh we had forest fire issues, of course, then, and you went back to cabinet, just asked for more money, and it was never a problem to make sure the funds were there. Now, not only that, so um uh we'll we'll see what we talk about on Nikki Clark's Quinty Vibes Live, which is uh Belleville for though no, and Belleville's kind of halfway between, for the international listeners, between Toronto and Kingston. So it's about an hour and a half, two-hour drive, uh, probably about an hour and 45 from Oshawa. Not only that, but uh my wood winter wood piles over halfway full. Uh Terry, who's uh a guy I I tried to help out with who had a gravel pit issue, he did a cut in an area, and it was a Crown Land cut. So I got permission. Uh I talked to the DM, the district manager there, and they used to issue licenses to be able to pick up um leftover wood that was on the ground, but uh last time I called they said, no, you've got to talk to the person who is responsible or owns the cut and get the okay from them. So I got the okay from them and getting some red oak and a bunch of other stuff. Uh so the the wood pile now is pretty good. And this stuff's been down for a year. So a lot of it is uh pretty dry. Now, the one thing I find with with uh firewood is if you're cutting trees and they got leaves on it, cut the tree, let it lay until the leaves um go crinkly, like dry as can be, because the leaves will suck the moisture out of uh the the tree. I think it's a process that I call my grade eight. No, that was uh grade thirteen when we had grade thirteen and uh uh a professor uh Le Graile, Mr. Le Graile, taught us about transpiration, which is the loss of moisture through trees, where 80% of moisture loss in a tree is through its leaves. So what I would do is if I got fallen trees there, and if you get some wind blown down, I check the leaves, and if they're soft and pliable, I just leave it until the leaves turn completely dry and crunchy, which means they've they've sucked out of as much moisture as they can. And it helps dry the tree a lot quicker for those that are doing firewood and looking for firewood stuff. Now the morning uh was a normal day. Uh up uh fed the dogs, uh cut the grass, uh, did a photo shoot for uh Josh because we've got this new new um blend coming out. We call it Ruby G. And uh Ruby is the color, and it's a hibiscus red beet chaga chicory and lemon extract, and it's going like hotcakes. We don't have it on the site yet, but it will be shortly. And it's outselling everything else like seven to one. We designed it as a cold brew, and it's actually uh uh for those out there old enough to remember, I don't even know if it's still around, but we used to have this stuff called Kool-Aid when I was a kid. And uh, you know, it was Kool-Aid, Kool-Aid tastes great. I wish I had some, can't wait. But uh at that time, back in the 60s, it would be one cup of water and one cup of sugar with this stuff. So, but this new Ruby G, which remember reminds a lot of people of drinking Kool-Aid as a kid, like a fruit punch kind of thing. Um, it uh no sugar in it at all, and good for you because hibiscus is high in vitamin C, anti-inflammatory material in it, plus a chaga and red beets help with uh detoxing and purifying the liver and cleaning out that kind of stuff. And plus a chicory, as uh as we've talked about before on the lemon extract. It's a really nice cold brew. It's not available on the site yet, but I was out doing a photo shoot, and while I'm sitting here waiting for to hook up and get moving, Josh, I sent it off to Josh who takes care of the website, and he says, I need some sun in those photos, so I've got to do a reef reshoot when I get finished recording this morning.

Inside Ontario’s Water Bomber Playbook

SPEAKER_07

Now, one of the other things was is when I was Minister of Natural Resources, part of it is most people don't realize, you automatically become the commander-in-chief of the Ontario Air Force. Most people don't even know that Ontario has an Air Force. Well, I was in charge of fixed 56 fixed wing and rotary aircraft. Now, we had bombers, we had helicopters, we had beavers, uh, mauls, otters, we had all kinds of stuff out, the King Airs. They were all part of uh the responsibility of the commander-in-chief, which was me. And and I recall, well, I should go back, uh, the bombers are water bombers. Uh, and we had quite a few. We had uh some of the Canada's uh we were just at that time changing over from the 215s, the CL215s, to the CL415s, which are actually um uh a higher model, and it takes a few seconds, like 12 seconds, to to put in thousands of liters of water when it in, but uh when um they dip down and pass over a lake to fill up. And then they go out. And a lot of people don't know, but uh a lot of times um a lot of the bombers will actually water bomb the areas fires are leading into as opposed to just doing it on the fire, which they I'm sure they do, but they'll bring in a lot of buckets to do stuff like that in order to suppress the expansion of it. And I I recall I was um dealing with uh um I was we went up to see, and I took my critics from the other two parties, and we went up to Wawa for Wawa 13 Fire, which was was that 2002 or 2003, and it was huge. Now, for those Ontario from Ontario who know Durham Region, it would be about the size of Durham Region. And we landed up in Wawa, and I gotta tell you, it was like something from from um apocalypse now. You walk in there and there's all these, and everybody's talking about the oh, they got a couple of Swarovski helicopters there. It's like, okay, what's the big deal? Well, they're pretty big and they're pretty carry quite a heavy payload. But it was like all these helicopters landing and this planes landing at this this uh field, and and for anybody that remembers uh Richard Dreyfus, Holly Hunter John Goodman uh movie called Always, it was kind of like the center there. And what that was about was about some forest fire guys, and they were water bomber guys. Richard Dreyfus and John Goodman. And and I think, if I remember correctly, Dreyfus flew over John Goodman's plane when it caught fire. It could be reversed, could have been John that put out Dreyfus's fire uh on his plane when it caught fire, um, just by flying over it and dropping water on it. Anyways, uh it was a pretty good show. But uh when you see all these guys coming in, it was just like that at Wawa 13, and it was amazing to see. One of the other things that I found really interesting was um I'm out at the at the front line of the fire, because they take us right to the fire to see all the firefighters, and and lo and behold, there's this guy called Mike Ald, great guy uh from Thunder Bay. And I said, Mike, what what are you doing here? Anyways, Mike works for at that time was working for Buchanan Lumber, can Buchanan. And he says uh he had his crew with him, he had a whole crew. He said, Jerry, these fires, you know, this is our livelihood. When we're not out in the bush cutting because we can't, we gotta be out there doing what we can to protect it. And here was the forest crew that would be out normalisty harvesting these uh forests, is out fighting fires to put them out. And I I was rather impressed. So it was it was kind of neat to see um Mike and his crew out there and everything else that uh takes place. But y you know, and of course everybody's like, oh, just get more planes and more of that, but uh it's not quite as easy as you think. I know Ontario's got uh a large order for quite a few more planes. Um I think they're expanding with six more water bombers and five more helicopters, but it takes quite a few years to build it. But it's not just that. You need specialty pilots to be able to land and just skim the water to pick up the water to pick it up and do that kind of same. And the same thing with the helicopters that use large buckets to be able to dump on these things. And the you know, the conditions got to be right for all that kind of stuff. So it's it's a little bit difficult. And not only that, it's such seasonal work. So who are you gonna get to hire that's gonna be able to work for, you know, basically um depends on the year, but it could be could be as early as May. Most of the time is later on, like June, July, August, September. Three, maybe four months worth of work and then they're done for the year. It makes it tough to get individual trained individuals. And so these you know, water bombers will get out there and they'll put the water out there to to uh and then the fire fighting crews come in and and directly attack a lot of the fire. But you know, there's there's all kinds of fires. And I see uh a friend of mine, uh uh one of my uh the building blocks of my life was uh scout leader of mine, uh Ken Ridge, his son James is living in B.C. And James uh did a posting where he was talking about, listen, says we got so much smoke blowing up from Oregon and Washington State here in BC that it's just probably just as bad where we are as compared to what's blowing uh to other jurisdictions out of Ontario with the forest fires that are here. So, you know, we all do the best that we can and and yeah, a bit of a national forest strategy. Now, most people don't realize uh what happens with forest fires as well. So, Ontario, the north um west part of Ontario has some pretty um high number of forest fires. And what'll take place there is planes from Manitoba will assist in fighting the uh Ontario fires. And all of a sudden, if it picks up in Manitoba, water bombers and helicopters from Saskatchewan will assist Manitoba, and it's kind of a domino effect. So and the same thing takes place when fires aren't happening in Ontario and Quebec needs assistance, we'll move over there. And then if we need assistance, then Manitoba moves back in to help us, and on and on and on. And so it's a reciprocal agreement that a lot of other jurisdictions. So a lot of the Ontario, well, I think all the Ontario ones are the upgraded 415s, which is the turboprop plane, where the 215s are are not, and a lot of the 215s that are up flying there are from Manitoba. And uh these are just ways that we help out and work out to make sure. One of the things that that developed when I was minister, I can't take responsibility. I just happen to be sitting at the helm because the ministry does a lot of great work with a lot of great employees. But normally what happens is whoever's the minister, uh, you know, they get to pound their chest or whatever to, you know, say they're responsible. But it wasn't really. We developed this technology that really assisted um predominantly in Ontario is First Nation communities because they're fairly remote. And the difficulty is you have small communities of 100, a couple of hundred people, that uh forest fires, you know, directly all of a sudden uh appear. And of course, we try to put them out. But one of the things that we tested that seemed to be working very well was these roof sprinklers. And what happens is you put them on your roof, because uh a lot of the housing fires that took place were hot ash or flames that were landing on the roof and then catching on fire that way. But these roof sprinklers were keeping the roofs uh moist and uh the the shingles were uh kept uh wet that helped save a lot of communities. So these roof sprinkler systems that were being tested was there when I was minister, and it made a a uh quite a difference for a lot and was very, very successful. So, yeah, so Ontario currently has nine uh CL 415s and and they take about it takes them 12 seconds to get 6,130 liters of water. But you know, it it's still uh currently there and there's n there's the uh nine uh 415s, eight helicopters and six twin otters as well, and five turbo beavers that Ontario has. But with the expansion of the new six water bombers and five helicopters, Ontario should be uh in a leading situation. But of course, you know, the feds helping out would be a big uh a big asset as well, because a lot of uh First Nation communities are effectively um responsible directly uh under the federal jurisdictions.

Softwood Lumber Fight At The WTO

SPEAKER_07

But you know, and and I have to tell you about um one of the things, the other things, because I mentioned uh Mike Gold, who's working for Ken Buchanan, Buchanan Lumber, was uh when I was minister, and this was something I was directly responsible for, uh there was uh there was the U.S. softwood lumber deal that was um we had taken the United States over uh to the WTO, the World Trade Organization, um, to the courts there, because they were disallowing Ontario softwood, well Canadian softwood, into the states. And I have to tell you, all the the ADMs, the assistant deputy ministers were responsible for the forestry file. Oh, minister, we have to we have to negotiate a deal with them because it's gonna be it's gonna be uh bad and and uh we're gonna lose in the courts and it'll even be worse. But if we broker a deal before, it'll be in our best interest. So I said, well, let me uh let me think about it. And it's not just think about it. So I contacted, you know, a number of the the lumbing companies out there and asked them their opinion. And I recall what Ken Buchanan said from Buchanan Lumber out of Thunder Bay. He said, Listen, he said that you're doing the right thing, and he says, keep doing what you're doing. And I'm telling you right now that if we lose that, and we're not going to, it's gonna cost me $55 million because of the uh um all the the tariffs and the fees that'll be paid. And he said, But minister, you're doing the right thing. I said, so I contacted the uh ADM and I said, no, we're gonna proceed with the court stuff. And they're like, we're gonna lose, and it's gonna be the worst thing, and on and on and on. And so I said, nope, no, we're doing the right thing. Just keep going with your with the way the process is and we'll proceed with that. Well, they didn't agree with me at all. So on the morning the decision was being made at the WTO. I had a briefing session, and I had my um forestry uh advisor in, my media advisor there, along with all the people from the ministry. And um they're what happens is they're asking for messaging. So they're trying to give me advice. So we'll get media interviews and you need to say this and that. And I said, so this was like nine o'clock, eight o'clock in the morning. And the decision was supposed to come out at noon. And I said, Well, wait a second here. All all this messaging you're telling me is all if we're gonna lose. Oh, minister. We got virtually no chance of winning at all. We have to be prepared for the loss. I said, what are you talking about? What do you mean no chance? So we have a 10% chance of winning? So oh no, no, I don't think we have a 10%. We have a 5% chance? Well, maybe we have like a 2-3% chance. I said, Yeah, maybe a two or three percent chance that we could win this in the courts, the WTO. So I said, Well, this meeting's over. And I said, uh we're gonna win this at noon. And I got up and left the briefing. And of course, everybody looks at me like, here's this wild guy again. Here he's going, just and he's not prepared, it's gonna be costly, and then the ministry, and on and on, and on. And guess what? Uh noon we won. And and everybody's like, Minister, how did you know? Like, how did you know? And I said, Look, you get guys like Ken Buchanan telling me he's gonna lose $55 million to keep going the way we're doing because it's we are right and we're gonna win in this. I said, that's the kind of decisions and the sorts of people that I reach out to to find out what we need to do and how to keep things going. So, you know, there there are ways uh to deal with uh a lot of things that are going on. So Ontario was successful in defeating the uh uh United States at the World Trade Organization over the softwood lumber deal. Because they were saying we were subsidizing it. And but they were looking at old data. Um they were saying that uh because what happens is um a lot of the companies in the States have to buy lumber off private land where most of the the forest comes from Crown land, and 87 percent of the province of Ontario is owned by the Crown or the province of Ontario. So a lot of that would, and they pay stumpage fees based on stumpage fees are based on the current selling rate of of lumber out there. And so some jurisdictions, so they were saying, you know, we were subsidizing our forest industry by building roads, which we weren't. They were uh responsible for building their own roads and accessing, maintaining them and putting bridges and culverts in. And so we they were dealing with with old information that uh the states, and we were very successful. So there are there are some things out there, and so long as all the stuff comes forward and you follow the right paths, you can be successful. You know, uh I talked about the the Ruby G and we're we're gonna get on the website. And uh John, the tea expert, I've had on a couple of times. John's heading back to Pakistan with the United Nations to continue to set up the entire country's tea industry. And it's great to see that uh individuals here that we're working with with the with our business are having great success in moving forward with uh helping other jurisdictions. Um he was a bit concerned they had to delay it because of uh the activities in the the province they were going to in uh Pakistan. But uh now they've they've got all the security set up and everything else. And believe me, yeah. Um in some of these other jurisdictions it's not like it is in Canada. And you need to make sure everything is just tickety-boo before you uh put your life on the line to assist other jurisdictions in moving forward with industries such as Pakistan and the tea industry. So we're wishing John some good success on his trip to back to Pakistan to help that country with her industry. And we should have the Ruby G on the market fairly shortly.

Tree Expert Returns With Corrections

SPEAKER_07

But let's get to today's guest again. So we didn't finish up last time, and I gotta apologize, David Dutkovich, which is uh from the uh Ontario Invasive Species Center, back to come and talk about trees again. And and I sent David some images of the the spruce trees I was talking about uh because uh they seem to be dying off in quite a bit of numbers in their areas, and they don't know why, so I thought I'd bring the expert in to talk about that kind of stuff. Welcome back, David. Sir, we had to cut it short last time, but they were trying to close the studio on me, and I couldn't get back in time to get any in there any earlier, but I appreciate you taking the time to be in back recording with us again, David.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah, no worries. I'm glad you have me back.

SPEAKER_07

Yeah. So you got the images I sent about with uh the spruce trees? Yes. Yes, I did. Okay. And what can you tell us what's going on?

SPEAKER_06

Well, okay. I don't, you know, mean to um disagree with the minister the previous minister, but they're all those trees you sent me are balsam fir trees. Oh yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh they are uh balsam fir trees. And um essentially the images that you show here, there's a couple of images of these uh brick red trees that are in amongst the green foliage. Uh there's uh one image here that's a roadside. There's two trees sort of side by side with each other, typical roadside that you see. And those trees essentially have died from, and most of the pictures that you have sent, I'm pretty sure a lot of these trees have died from uh root competition.

SPEAKER_07

Really?

SPEAKER_06

So um these trees are are tacked in so tight with a lot of this understory growth that's happening as well. Okay. Um that the roots are just essentially getting because the balsam fir trees have these like shallow root bases, and they're not very large trees either. Yeah. So they're roughly around, you know, eight to ten to twelve centimeters dbh, so not very big. Um and so I think a lot of that uh has to do with the root disturbances and things like that. So uh when dealing with balsam fir trees, um there's this area that I find uh these trees tend to uh get so big, and then if they can't uh grow larger, if there's too much competition, then they just sort of die.

SPEAKER_07

Oh, really? So it's it's a a natural thinning. Yes. I yeah, right.

SPEAKER_06

Because I know that's it.

SPEAKER_07

Yeah, because when uh I I recall I had Pierre on, and uh I can't remember, was it about you start off with about eight, ten thousand stems per hectare. And as uh the trees grow, they start to naturally thin themselves out, and that's all that's taken place here.

SPEAKER_06

I'm pretty sure this is what I would say.

SPEAKER_09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06

Because I see this a lot, especially um in certain stands, uh, especially in those mixed, you know, uh hardwood and uh conifers stands. Um, that this does happen uh quite a bit. Because there are some other healthier uh spruce trees. Like there's uh in the one image, there's a a spruce tree right almost 10 feet beside it, and it's it has a little bit of a hardier root base. Right. So um I think that's pretty much what's going on, is a lot of these these uh brown uh balsam firs are just they can't compete with the the maples, the birches, the poplars that are in this area, and they're just they're just dying altogether.

SPEAKER_07

Oh yeah, okay. Interesting, yeah. Yeah. When you look at them, because I'm looking at some of the images I sent you now. Um, and some of them were high up, so I didn't think that road salt was uh the issue. And yeah, um I'm looking at uh a number of them. So just root competition.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah, and uh you know what root competition, a lot of people forget about uh what's going on underneath the ground. Yeah, and I I think you're right about the road salt thing because if you were to actually see road salt, usually it has one side of the tree that turns this like coppery red color. But with your images that you're we're looking at right now, the entire trees just from top to bottom is just brick red.

SPEAKER_07

Yeah, and a lot of the um the other ones is not just uh the um uh the fir or the spruce, but you also get cedars and a bunch of other trees and pine trees that are affected by road salt as well, right?

SPEAKER_06

Yes, that's that's very correct.

SPEAKER_07

Right, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I just took a random selection. I didn't uh as I was driving by, I thought, oh, take a bunch of pictures here. But yeah, definitely. And um you can see that. So that's good. So one of the ways uh I've got some other ones that are dying off now. If I thin those out a bit, well, those furs, uh, can the other ones that are still there?

SPEAKER_06

Yep, they should uh start to bounce back because it reduces competition. Right. And like these clusters of trees here, there's there's a lot of competition going on in those smaller areas. Right. So if you were to sort of thin them out a little bit, it would help them sprout even further. Yes.

SPEAKER_07

Yeah. And and so uh, David, so um like a a lot of uh people wouldn't know um and uh yeah, I just sent you images and and I think I mentioned it the first time there uh some firs as well as a spruce. Um it uh short needles are usually um are uh spruce and hemlock and uh furs, but the long needles are pine trees in most cases, right?

SPEAKER_06

Yes. So I always like to think about it is spruce needles have a nice uh they grow all around.

SPEAKER_07

Yeah, all around the stem.

SPEAKER_06

Uh the stem. Whereas uh if you look at uh balsam fir needles, for example, they tend to the lower branches especially, they tend to lie flat. And uh another way to really distinguish them is they have these really pointy tops. So if you look at uh spruce trees, they're kind of a little bit bushy towards the top. Whereas you look at uh my old uh dendrology professor in college would say they very cathedral-like tops. They have these beautiful little spires at the top.

SPEAKER_09

Oh, yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_06

Uh, which is always a great way to differentiate. And the pine needles and pine uh trees, they tend to bundle their needles. Yeah. So you'll get bunches of three or two or five, and they'll be in a cluster of five rather than individuals that sort of uh needles branching off from the main stem.

SPEAKER_07

Yeah, I recall. Uh so at one point it was uh in vogue to be able to to give out little saplings. And uh one MPP, um, he was giving out saplings and he gave it to me, and I said, Oh, thanks. Um uh appreciate the pine tree. He says it's not pine, it's spruce. I said, No, it's not, it's it's it's a pine tree. He said, No, no, no, it's a spruce tree. Jerry, I paid for spruce trees. I said, it's not a spruce tree. See, long needles, pine, short needles, you'll get your your your firs, your spruce, your hemlock, actually your larches as well, right? But this is a long, these are pine needles. No, it's not. And try to explain to some people. And so the other thing is is your your larches, your like tamaracks and that, David?

unknown

Yep.

SPEAKER_07

Um, they lose their their needles every year. Which kind of surprised people because they'll go by and see, and and I've had individuals in the vehicle say, Oh, look at all those dying trees. They said, They're not dying. I said, those are uh tamaracks and they're losing all their needles that they do every year. Because and I recall being in school and the professors saying uh the high schools and things like that, that um your coniferous keep their needles all year long where your deciduates lose them. And I, you know, I put up my hand, I said, Well, what about tamarack? And they're like, What? Right? So are there are there other are there other um coniferous trees that uh lose their needles?

SPEAKER_06

Uh so they don't technically lose their needles, but well, I guess they would. Um pine trees, uh, every couple years, what will end up happening is they'll shed older needles.

SPEAKER_09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06

Um, and so a lot of people are concerned sort of at that time. I remember my my great aunt, uh, she has a uh sort of a small farm property, uh and she called me up one day and was asking, she said, My pine trees are losing all these needles. Can you come and take a look? And so I went out there and I looked at everything, and the trees looked very healthy, but it was just those the the very older needles, I'd say maybe two to four years old needles. Yep, and they were just shedding. And so sometimes those will shed, but they still keep that uh three or two to three year growth of needles on the head of it.

SPEAKER_07

So they'll always have some, but when your your larches and your tamaracks lose, they lose, they all fall off, right?

SPEAKER_06

They look like very dead trees. I always look at uh uh driving on the road near Massey. There's a lot of uh tamaraces and larches in in the roadside there. Yep. And in the fall time and in uh the winter, it just looks like a dead zone of trees. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07

They they I think those ones there, they kind of go yellow before they fall off, if I remember correctly. Yeah. Going through because I've driven through I drive through Massey a couple of several times a year. Yeah. Yeah. And some of the other stuff I recall, uh Jerry Ganyon Sr., who was uh kind of a bushman, trapper, prospector, et cetera, et cetera, um telling me that uh the best snowshoe-making material is second-cut swamp tamarack. Tamarack, because they uh when you soak the in, it bends the best to make those round uh ends of uh snowshoes. And that's what he used to make his snowshoes from was second-cut, which means um so they've they've cut the trees, and then you'll get growth coming up from it. But he said second-cut swamp tamarack were the best ones to make snowshoes from because they were the most pliable and very easy to work with if you want to make snowshoes. Which that's good to know. Yeah, it's kind of different.

Fishing Podcast Promo Break

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Back in 2016, Frank and I had a vision to amass the single largest database of muskie angling education material anywhere in the world.

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Our dream was to harness the knowledge of this amazing community and share it with passionate anglers just like you.

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Thus, the Ugly Pike Podcast was born and quickly grew to become one of the top fishing podcasts in North America.

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Step into the world of angling adventures and embrace the thrill of the catch with the Ugly Pike Podcast. Join us on our quest to understand what makes us different as anglers and to uncover what it takes to go after the infamous fish of 10,000 casts.

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Tight lines, everyone.

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Find Ugly Pike now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts.

Chaga Tea Testimonial On Blood Pressure

SPEAKER_07

Okay, here we are in Lindsay with Bill, who's actually this gentleman has given blood over 230 times.

SPEAKER_05

233, yeah.

SPEAKER_07

233, and that's amazing. And you've had some success with Chaga. Tell us what you're dealing with and what you did and uh how you um what you used.

SPEAKER_05

I had mild uh high blood pressure high blood pressure wasn't very really high, but I was on medication for a few years, and then I uh quit drinking coffee and started drinking this tea. Uh the combination tea, the green and the chaga. Right. And uh my medication is coming. Your medication's gone? Coming. And you couldn't give blood during the other times? Yeah, I could. Oh, you could? I could, yeah. Yeah, so but uh a few times uh the machine kicked me out. Oh yeah. So but now it doesn't anymore.

SPEAKER_07

So you think uh the the green tea in the chaga was uh helped uh normalize your blood pressures?

SPEAKER_05

Oh yeah. Oh, very good. It wouldn't be just stopping coffee, it would have to be something else.

SPEAKER_07

And that's the only thing you did differently.

SPEAKER_05

Yep. Well, we're thank you very much for that. And my blood pressure is probably that of a 40-year-old man and I'm 71. Oh, very good.

SPEAKER_07

Well, that's good to hear. Thank you very much for that. No problem. Okay.

Chaga Discount Code And Offer

SPEAKER_07

We interrupt this program to bring you a special offer from Chaga Health and Wellness. If you've listened this far and you're still wondering about this strange mushroom that I keep talking about and whether you would benefit from it or not, I may have something of interest to you. To thank you for listening to the show, I'm going to make trying Chaga that much easier by giving you a dollar off all our Chaga products at checkout. All you have to do is head over to our website, Chaga Health and Wellness.com, place a few items in the cart, and check out with the code CANAPY, C-A-N-O-P-Y. If you're new to Chaga, I'd highly recommend the regular Chaga tea. This comes with 15 tea bags per package, and each bag gives you around five or six cups of tea. Hey, thanks for listening. Back to the episode.

Don’t Move Firewood And Emerald Ash Borer

SPEAKER_07

David, what other kind of uh you know you'd alluded to, we didn't get a chance to talk about some of the other tree stuff that was going on out uh when we were last on. What other kind of stuff can you update us on and what's happening with trees out there and and what should be uh can we do to help out, if anything?

SPEAKER_06

Um well I was gonna talk uh a bit about some of the uh you know invasive species that are are on our our doorstep.

SPEAKER_08

Yep.

SPEAKER_06

Um uh it's interesting you were talking about uh firewood earlier, because I often have uh coup a f a few people ask me about uh firewoods at at camps and cottages and things like that. And and I always want to plug the the Don't Move Firewood initiative. Um and people tend to kind of get confused about it because you know, how far can I move? What can I move, that kind of thing. And uh I sort of just want to discuss about um there's a paper that came out a couple years ago uh in Michigan, and it was looking at the uh Emerald Ashbor. Um for those who may not know, Emerald Ashborough's uh uh a beetle uh that came over from uh Asia in probably the late 90s, early 90s, and sort of was under the radar until uh 2002 when it was first described um in Canada, or not in Canada, but in Michigan, uh, and then later found in Canada by the Ministry of Natural Resources. Uh actually I think that would have been around the time you were minister.

SPEAKER_07

Yes, I was I was minister when it was um discovered in the Windsor area. Yeah. It came in and contaminated skids from China.

SPEAKER_06

Yes.

SPEAKER_07

Right.

SPEAKER_06

Uh and sort of that beetle's sort of been spreading across the the US and uh and Canada, and it rapidly spreads uh through these areas, and a big portion of it is is spread through uh movement of firewood uh because the ash trees die, and ash is a great burning fire or uh burning wood. Um and um this paper that came out that I was reading, they looked at how long can animal dash bore live in um in bolts, in log bolts or in firewood. And they were finding that the beetle can actually, the larva of the beetle can survive in the wood for up to two to three years uh after the tree's been cut.

SPEAKER_07

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_06

Yes. So there's been a number of different beetles that can uh survive in those trees uh for that amount of time. So um that being said, there's also other things that can survive in in um in trees as well. Um you had mentioned uh you use oak, for example. Um I don't know if you've uh heard about oak wilt that uh was on the landscape in 2013. It was discovered uh in someone's backyard, or sorry, not 2013, 2023. Uh was discovered in someone's backyard, it had killed the trees. Um and oak wilt is an interesting um fungal species because it kills the tree, and so a lot of people think that, oh, the tree's dead, you know, I can cut it down and and remove it.

SPEAKER_07

Right.

SPEAKER_06

Well, the oak wilt fungal pads don't occur until the next growing season, the next season. So, say for example, you had an oak tree in your backyard and you cut it down because the whole thing had just died, um, and then you decide, oh, I'm gonna cut this tree down and then I'm gonna bring it to my cottage or something like that to use as firewood for next year. Well, that that fungus is still in those in that firewood, and it will start. To sprout even though it's been cut. And so you can actually transport that fungus unknowingly and it can get out. So one of those rules sort of that you think about is you try not to move any sort of cut firewood anywhere from about 100 kilometers from where the tree fell. Because you could potentially be moving those invasive species.

SPEAKER_07

Right. Now with oakwill, I think it affected um, I can't remember if it was more red or more white, though.

SPEAKER_06

It affects more red oaks.

SPEAKER_07

Right.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah. The white oaks seem to be a little bit more resistant to it. They can wall off the area a little bit easier, but the red oaks just uh they can't uh close off the fungus uh from getting into it. So white oaks, you can sometimes treat it by removing dead limbs and things like that, but the red oaks, you know, it goes through them pretty quickly.

SPEAKER_07

Yeah. Well, and and I drive by and I see so many people selling bagged firewood everywhere. Just constantly from five to ten dollars a bag. I I wouldn't be surprised if I drive by two, three dozen locations on a regular basis that everybody's selling this camp firewood in these bags.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07

Is there anything that can be done with that? Like can it be can it be sprayed with something to decontaminate it or what kind of precautions?

SPEAKER_06

Uh a lot of the firewood that you'd see, say, coming from uh like bagged firewood from like Home Depot and things like that, that is kiln dried. So a lot of it brings uh the temperature of the wood up to a certain uh internal temperature, and that will usually uh kill whatever's uh inside of it. But uh when you get um, you know, people that are selling uh firewood, usually a lot of those people when they're selling just the bags or the boxes of firewood, I think a lot of those people are local. They've got everything from local, they're trying to sell local. Um so a lot of those people aren't actually transporting it large distances. Uh, but there are certain places that you need to be aware that if you're looking at that firewood, you know, make sure it's been kiln dried, make sure you know what species it is. Uh, because if you are looking at, say, uh an emerald ash for infested tree, you know, or oak trees or something like that, um, you know, you've got to be careful of possibly moving different contaminants. Now, there hasn't been any other oak wilts instances uh in Ontario since those uh two cases were found, one in and Niagara Falls and the other one uh in the Springwater Township, uh which is near Barrie.

SPEAKER_09

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah, so those were the two places that it was discovered. The trees were cut down and removed, and they were destroyed. So uh they've been doing constant monitoring of the oaks and stuff and uh trees surrounding it uh over the last couple of years, and CFA hasn't been able to detect any further um uh cases of those wills.

SPEAKER_07

And just so our listeners know what's CFA, I know what it is, but Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_06

Uh CFA is the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Right. So a lot of people think, oh, the Food Inspection Agency, what do they have to do with um plants and things like that? But uh they have a Plant Protection Act in the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and under that Plant Protection Act, they are tasked with the um the duty to protect our not only native uh species uh in Canada's trees and forests uh from getting invasive species coming across the border, right? But they're also looking at uh different grains and and uh agriculture as well.

SPEAKER_07

Yes, yes, CFIA uh does a lot of inspections for a lot of different products and uh does a good job at it. So, okay, so um and oak now is there anything that people

Oak Wilt Warning Signs And Spread

SPEAKER_07

can do? Like how do you spot it if you're seeing it in the first place?

SPEAKER_06

Well, uh with oak quilt, for example, a lot of people don't really spot it until it's almost too late. So um the sort of signs of symptoms of of oak quilt is the the thinning of almost the entire tree.

SPEAKER_09

Right.

SPEAKER_06

Uh the the leaves look sort of brown, they start to get this ombre effect of basically it looks like the chloroplasts are being sucked back into the tree. So the tips of the leaves will start to brown uh as the green is just taken away and uh they start to look like it's fall again, uh, even though it's say July, for example. Um so that's sort of one of those telltale signs. Um that's how the um the detection in Springwater Falls was detected, is someone found uh that sort of um decline of the tree, uh, and they were able to get it tested at uh the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Laboratory in Ottawa. Um because they were we were really on the hunt for that. Whereas the other uh tree, so in Niagara Falls, these trees were massive. They were you know 70, 80 feet tall. Uh, you know, they had um a huge, I think the one was uh 70 centimeters uh diameter at breast height. Uh, you know, we're talking massive trees. And those uh I think there were four trees. Um they were actually found by an arborist. So the homeowner had asked uh if an arborist could come take a look at these trees to cut them down. And the arborist was going to start to just basically take a look at these trees and notice the pressure pads. So these trees had been completely dead. Uh, and what had happened is the fungus developed these pressure pads, which were basically black and white fungus, and it pushes against the bark from the inner wood, and it cracks these uh these bark open so you can actually see the pressure pads. And a lot of people say it smells like juicy fruit gum, uh, you know, um, like a mead wine type of smell. It's a very sweet attractant. And what it does is this fungus basically sends out this scent to say hey to all these uh beetles that are known as picnic beetles. Uh and these beetles tend to sort of converge on those funguses. They eat the fungus, they lay their eggs, the eggs hatch in there, they have a life cycle that goes on, and then they spread out to different trees. And so that's uh one way that the oak wilt will spread. Another way is through the roots. Uh they'll uh oak trees tend to like to share resources and will attach themselves uh via roots to communicate. And so that's another way that the fungus can spread. Um, but anyways, so these trees were just taken down. They're found by an arborist, the arborist alerted uh the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, uh, which I'm actually impressed by the speed of how the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Vasa Species Center, and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, as well as the um uh Natural Resource Canada, all essentially converged on this one site um and had these trees cut, removed, uh, and uh destroyed uh within I almost think it was like 35 days from initial detection. Really? Yeah, so it was a very rapid response because we don't want this uh invasive uh wilt disease in Canada. So um those are sort of things that you should be looking for when you're when you're dealing with oak trees, is just essentially the very rapid decline uh and death of of a tree because uh oak wilt in some instances can kill a fully mature oak tree in up to six weeks.

SPEAKER_07

Really?

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07

So this this uh fungal relationship is that an arbuscular or is it an ectomycorrhizal? Uh I think that's the way it's said. Um relationship.

SPEAKER_06

I don't know the fungal details of that. I know it's similar into the same group as how a Dutch elm disease wilt uh works. It's the same sort of uh wilt type, but I'm not sure how the which type of uh fungus group it's in.

SPEAKER_07

Yeah, the reason I asked that is because like the Airbus, I can't remember which is which. One just surrounds the roots and then spreads out to other trees. And Susan Samard uh out of BC was uh did quite a bit of research in this. And um the other one penetrates the roots and then joins with the trees, and the two it it'll there are certain species. Uh, for example, I don't think cedar and birch will actually uh have the same relationship because the the uh the the arbuscular relationship does not exist in one of them. Okay. And so the the only reason I'm asking is is if it passes through roots, is it possible to pass other trees that would have the same type of arbuscular uh fungal relationship with other trees?

SPEAKER_06

So from the research that's been done in the states, um, it only really will go between oak to oak.

SPEAKER_09

Okay.

SPEAKER_06

It doesn't leave the oak uh genus. Okay. So um a lot of the in Michigan it's uh it's um what they do to prevent root-to-root transfer, because uh it's interesting if you look at pictures of of oak wilted and stands, uh they tend to you can see where the initial tree was because it's dead. Yep. And you can see sort of a radius of um dying trees around it. Right. So it's almost like you can see this coppery circle surrounded in this green uh forest. So with Michigan, they have such um sandy soil, they can essentially put these six feet long vibratory uh cutting blades into the ground with a retractor, and they can cut the root transfer um around the, they basically drive around the infestation and they can stop that root-to-root transfer. Um so that is one of the ways to manage it. Um I don't know if that would work as well in you know Canada's more rocky shield forest. Right.

SPEAKER_07

Yeah. Some of it though, I I worked with Dan uh Dr. Ann McComoyle, who did uh she trained on um she did fungal research out of Penn State University. And we got talking about um some of the the fungal contamination that was killing golf course greens. Oh and anytime a golfer wore cleats on one contaminated green and went to another golf course, it spread it to the other golf courses. And uh her response there was kind of interesting uh because I tried uh I tried a Chaga blend, to be honest, to see if it uh uh controlled or or killed some of the other fungals on some of the uh golf courses. What we did was we I blended up uh some Chaga and they they poured on contaminated zones. But uh it's still it's still being looked at. Um but her response was that uh uh if they they pour like soapy water on, it'll kill the the uh contamination fungal, but it'll also kill the other the good funguses that are there as well. So I don't know if something like that along the drip line uh would be a way to kind of control it or not. Um I mean these are all things that could be discussed, but and the powers to be with the research money to be able to look into that. I don't know. Have you ever heard of anything like that?

SPEAKER_06

Uh I haven't heard of that so far yet, but I do know they are experimenting with some uh fungicides in the States. Uh they haven't had major success with it. It's more of uh from what I understand, it's more of a maintaining, it won't stop the infestation or the infection, but it will sort of slow it down for a little bit. Okay. But if the tree does end up uh dying, and that's usually through like stem injections.

SPEAKER_09

Right.

SPEAKER_06

Um so you know, in the States there's been sort of some uh work done on on that. Uh in Canada, more or less we're working on a lot of uh detection research uh for the m a lot of the the uh experiments that are being done right now.

SPEAKER_07

All right. Well, I know the municipalities bring in a lot of trees and does a lot of plantings in a lot of different areas. Um is and I think it what is it? Um is it a Norwegian maple? Yes, Norway maple. So that must be called a Norwegian maple, I would expect it's not native to Canada, correct?

Tar Spot On Maples And Leaf Cleanup

SPEAKER_06

No, it's not native to Canada.

SPEAKER_07

So the municipality is planting a lot of these, and I and I happen to notice, because I have one in my front lawn, but the leaves get this round black spot in them. Yes. What is that and how is that, and is it something to worry about?

SPEAKER_06

So that is actually um it's called tar spot.

SPEAKER_04

Okay.

SPEAKER_06

Uh and it's actually it is a fungus. Uh it doesn't really uh harm the trees, more of like aesthetic thing. Um but essentially, if you don't want that uh here, you have to sort of get rid of the the tar spots. So at the in the fall time, you essentially have to rake up every single leaf in your yard uh and get rid of those um uh those leaves because uh over the winter time, uh those those leaves that are decomposing on the ground, that fungus is starting to uh get prepared to release spores. And in the springtime, those leaves they'll release the spores into the the air, uh, and then the tree will continue to have the tar spot. Um it's not something that particularly uh hurts the tree uh from the some of the classifications. That's it's not known as a very harmful classification uh fungus for trees, uh, but it is something that's aesthetically not the nicest to look at.

SPEAKER_07

Right. I had a neighbor who was very concerned with it and and uh was part of the the garden club and the garden club tour. And she wanted to uh to uh uh to spray her trees to get rid of it, but it also required all the trees in the neighboring area to be sprayed as well because it would spread to them as well. I don't know if there is a way to control that. It can be probably spread by birds as well.

SPEAKER_06

Um air, birds, yeah. It's one of those environmental ones that sort of just pop up. Yeah. Um, I have noticed it is a lot, it's found a lot more on um like the Norway maples seem to be very susceptible to it. Right. Um sometimes you might see it on a sugar maple or uh a red maple, but uh mostly I find it's it's usually on the Norway maples, right? Whether they're the what type of variety they are, but it's I find it's always sort of on those those maple trees. Right.

SPEAKER_07

So one of the things then, uh David, you brought up the various maples. Um, what maple trees will actually produce maple sap? Because a lot of people just think it's one type.

SPEAKER_06

Well, to be fair, they all produce maple sap. Yes. Uh it all depends on your sugar content that you want. That's right. Yeah. So if you're thinking about, you know, you want to produce maple syrup, well, sugar maple, um, you know, hard maple, um, as another term for it, but sugar maple has a higher sugar content, so you need less sap in order to make the same amount of sugar in the maple syrup because you concentrate the sap down. Whereas red maple, you can make um uh maple syrup from it. It might take, you know, um twice as much or maybe a third as much uh sap in order to make the same amount of syrup. So uh I and I do know you can make syrup out of other trees too. I have seen birch syrup before. Yeah, walnut. Walnut syrup. I've never had walnut syrup. I've tested, I've tasted birch syrup, and it's not bad. Yeah, but uh it's not as nice as those maple syrups. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07

Birch syrup I I've I've made a few times, and I've got to tell you the first time because I was always told that birch ran sap ran after maple. So, and I have about 150 taps. So um I tapped a bunch of birch trees and didn't run at all. And so it was like strange. So I thought, well, this is kind of sad. So that would be probably the end of March or in April, and then nothing ran. And so I pulled all my taps, or I thought I did. And then I recall in June, I'm looking at them going, what is that? All of a sudden I didn't pull two taps. Uh they were kind of on the far side of the tree and I didn't notice them. And the the sap was running in June. Oh, really? Yeah, so I I I boiled it down, and to be honest, it would be difficult, except for the color, because it was pitch black. Wow. And but taste wise, very I found it very similar to maple. I gave a bunch away to a bunch of people, didn't do anything with it. And so I tried again next year, nothing, couldn't get anything. And then the one year I tapped the birch trees the same time as I tapped the maple trees. And so I saved the birch sap and then tried to boil it, and I got it and started to boil down, and it tasted horrendous. I was just disgusting, I would not, so I poured all the sap out because it was just disgusting. So I don't know uh some of the reasons why. I mean, you talk to the the the maple syrup people out there, and oh, when the buds are out, does when to stop because then the tap sap turns bitter and all that kind of stuff. And I don't know. Maybe it's different for obviously it's different for birch, but it was interesting to see it run that time of the year.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah, I do know that uh there is there is definitely a difference in taste, even in the maple trees versus the initial uh syrup run versus the later syrup run. Yes. Um I don't know the nuances for the birch sap, but uh it'd be interesting, you know, for people that do like yourself, you know, do the the experimentation with it.

SPEAKER_07

Yeah, well I've tapped on Norwegian maples and got sap out of that, as well as some soft maples as well. Yep. Some um, what was that one? Uh silver maple, I believe. Oh yeah, okay. Yeah, and got sap out of that. Sometimes it was okay, sometimes uh there was a fair bit, and sometimes hardly any at all. But yeah, and uh it just blended it all together and you don't really notice it. So but yeah, you like you said, uh the different sugar contents in them, and obviously the sugar maple is the one, but just just lets people know that there's a lot of other trees that you can uh tap and get maple syrup out of them. Maple sap, I should say, not syrup, yeah. Yeah. All right, David. So what other kind of um uh uh information or insight can you give us on some of the trees that uh people should be cognito or understanding about?

Reporting Invasive Species The Smart Way

SPEAKER_06

Um I sort of just want to uh touch base a little bit on uh, you know, uh when people see things and there's trees that uh, you know, like yourself, you know, you're curious about your properties, you're curious about the trees around. You know, if people see things that are are weird in their forests and they haven't seen before, it's always a great idea to, you know, ask someone. There's there's multiple different platforms uh to in order to get in touch with research scientists and different scientists. Uh there's the invading species hotline, uh, which is run by the Ontario uh Federation of Anglers and Hunters. Um and it's basically an invasive species hotline that people can call or send in photos and and uh they get in touch with um different uh researchers. Actually, some some of the images related to insects come to me directly. Um and then there's also some other uh resources that people can use, such as the uh EdMaps, which is like an early detection uh mapping system for invasive species.

SPEAKER_09

Right.

SPEAKER_06

And you know, a lot of those uh uh platforms have have uh scientists and and individuals on them. Uh I know iNaturalists, for example, um I'm part of the um Coleopter Society, which is the the Beetle Society. Oh, okay. And like last year there's a couple times where they all got together, uh, myself included, and they basically just sat on uh we just sat on iNaturalists and went through different Beetle sightings and was helping people with identifications right from their photos. And so like sometimes there's some really good ways to get in touch with with uh different research people. Um you know we're we're not a a huge group of individuals people that are are uh you know um experts in trees and and and diseases and and insects and things like that but uh there are certain things ways to get in touch with us uh through different uh platforms and things like that so I encourage people if they see something they've never seen before to sort of just take a picture of it and either send it into some sort of uh group there's a Canadian um food inspection agency has a surveillance website where you can report as well um because you know people on the landscape they're the ones that are are finding a lot of the insects um you we had mentioned before about um Asian longhorn beetle uh you know it's it's a an a large beetle that looks like our native Sawyer beetles or pine buds like people like to say um and it was you know one of those trees were or one of those insects was found by an individual that had landed on their car. So that person knew enough hey this is a weird bug I'm gonna take a picture of it send it in and it's recorded and alerted to us so that we're able to you know initiate a rapid response for that.

SPEAKER_09

Right.

SPEAKER_06

Uh I had mentioned about the arborist the arborist had had some prior knowledge about oak wilts and was like is this what I think it is and sent it in to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and we were able to mobilize a response for that. So you know people are the stewards of of our land and you know it really helps uh you know the people that try to prevent invasive species if everyone you know pitches in and helps out so that's always a really good thing to to put out there.

Japanese Beetles And Cicadas Explained

SPEAKER_07

So these Japanese beetles ooh yeah I I see them everywhere on golf courses on the greens everywhere is it can can you give us some insight on the Japanese beetle first of all maybe describe it so people know exactly what you're talking about and how do you deal with it?

SPEAKER_06

Oh Japanese beetle my sister's been calling me nonstop about them. Yeah I can understand why yeah um so Japanese beetles um they're a type of scarab beetle andor turf beetle I guess you can call it that as well uh but essentially this this beetle it's a coppery uh color on the back of it and it's based uh off this green body uh with coppery basically wing coverings and they have these little white tufts along the side of their their body um they're around about a centimeter to a centimeter and a half uh in length uh and essentially they they cluster around trees they go for rose bushes they you know they have a lot of different varieties of plants that they eat and what they do is they skeletonize um flowers they skeletonize uh leaves and it basically they eat all the the the important parts of the the plant that uh and they basically swarm either trees or or um different plants so what what do you mean what does skeletonize mean so uh if you look at a leaf for example you see um the fleshy green part of the leaf but you also see these little tiny veins that go up you'll see usually in a maple tree for a maple leaf for example you see one large main vein and then there's uh a couple other branches of veins that are making the points of the leaf right and so what these beetles will do is they'll eat the the um the green part of the leaf but they'll leave the veins and so that's what we call skeletonization is they basically eat all the the green part of the fleshy part of the leaves and all the veins behind so it just looks like a skeleton of that leaf.

SPEAKER_07

And so how do you deal with them? I know it's a you can get the I think you can pick up these pheromones that uh have them fall into a bag of some kind and then they can't get out of the bag.

SPEAKER_06

Yes. So uh the traps, a lot of people think that the trap uh attracts the beetles to it and it does. So what uh people need to realize is that if you want to protect something you need to put the trap away from what you want to protect. Right. So for example if you had a a yard where you had a beautiful garden one side do not put the trap in the garden or else you'll attract all the beetles to it. Put it on the other side of the property you know next to your shed or something like that or there's or next to the house so that the beetles will then go from the garden to the trap and be attracted to that. They'll basically fall into the the bag and and there's either soapy water or there's a kill strip in it which is just uh like um uh a little insecticide essentially that uh kills the beetles on contact and so those types of traps uh work really well um also uh looking at if you start to see your grass is starting to go a little bit and you have large uh infestations of of Japanese beetle uh there is some uh beneficial nematodes that you can actually purchase as well um and those nematodes essentially in the rain they'll they plump up because the nematodes are when you buy them they come as like a sort of like a powder almost okay and they're all shriveled up and these roundworms are what nematodes are uh they basically uh go after the larvae that are in your grass turf so the beetles are actually spending most of their life cycle uh in your grass area okay so those are really the two big treatments for uh trying to get rid of um uh Japanese beetle in your in your areas okay and and one other one that I was explaining to to uh Brittany and uh my grandson Greta who's now three months old sure he doesn't know but but um cicadas and the sound they make and tell us a bit about cicadas so uh cicadas are are an interesting they're a native species that uh is found in in North America uh and they have a really interesting life cycle actually uh they spend 17 years actually underground yep and uh there's what's called as broods um so there's a there's two different broods that are going around there's cicadas sort of popping up every single year but essentially what they are are they're about a you know 20 to 30 centimeters in length for the body but their wings are a lot longer and they're almost about five centimeters uh in total length with their wings uh and they're this little bug that you'll hear in in the summertime if you ever walk through a forest when it's getting hot you'll hear this buzz this sort of like whining buzz that's going on yeah like a high pitched whine yeah sometimes we used to think it was the wind blowing through the wires yeah right yeah yeah but it's this this insect that essentially contracts its its stomach uh very rapidly and makes this high pitched whine uh sound and these cicadas will um emerge uh not so much in Canada in huge numbers but in the states when they have I think it's every 10 to 20 years uh they'll have a certain brood that will uh emerge and we're talking about billions. Oh really? Billions of cicadas that will emerge all at the same time to mate and and relay their eggs into the ground and things like that. And uh not so much in Canada but in the States there there are are these cicada outbreaks and I think we're due for a double brood is what it's called in the next couple years. And you know like when I say billions when like they'll be everywhere. When you I don't know if you've gone to North Bay during shad fly season oh yeah but like to the nth degree of just cicadas everywhere uh in certain central uh north central and central uh United States and those cicadas you know as much as we love to hear them up here but they do become a big pest down there.

SPEAKER_07

Yeah I can imagine with that kind of numbers yeah yeah very interesting all right well I'm sure that there I don't know if there's any other ones that uh you wanted to mention or not David um I think we've covered a lot of uh different groups and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_06

Um sounds good just yeah just checking

Resources From The Invasive Species Centre

SPEAKER_06

to make sure.

SPEAKER_07

So David tell us how can people find out more information or where can they get in touch with you uh to get more details about all the the interesting things that we just finished talking about.

SPEAKER_06

Well a lot of uh resources uh that you can get in touch with us from are on the uh Invasive Species Center website and that's just under uh world the www.invasive species center dot ca we have lots of species profiles um we have lots of uh webinars we actually do a monthly webinar series where we have different experts on to talk about uh different invasive species different research topics uh you know not just terrestrial um you know forest related but also uh we have a fisheries uh department as well so talking about um you know Asian carp um or invasive carp uh talking about zebra mussels um we also have been discussing and providing money towards uh cleaning up um not only uh the well and canal from uh European water chestnut but we're also tackling um uh water soldier well in the Lake Simcoe area. Okay. So there's a lot of different research that you can uh get involved with or even uh getting in touch with us um you know and using the resources that we have available uh as well as uh like I had mentioned before about um if you find anything that you know you've never seen before uh you know taking a picture of it with your phone to uh report it to you know either EdMaps or the invading species hotline um those uh types of uh places are great resources as well as the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has some great resources as well and the Ministry of Natural Resources also runs a uh MR hotline as well uh but uh the MR essentially provides funding to the invading species hotline to basically keep that going it's monitored 24 hours a day uh so if you find different uh species doesn't have to be insects it could be diseases it could be aquatic it could be plants uh but you can get in touch with an expert uh in order to uh get an identification or or get some help and assistance uh with um uh what you've found in the wilderness very good well david thanks very much you very much appreciate that and it's just uh more information that uh people need to know and keep things uh our environment just a better understanding of what to do the things the do's and the don'ts and the reasons why appreciate that David thanks very much uh and just more information about things out there under the canopy thanks

Outdoor Journal Radio Promo And Close

SPEAKER_06

David thank you everybody I'm Angelo Viola and I'm Pete Bowman now you might know us as the hosts of Canada's favorite fishing show but now we're hosting a podcast that's right every Thursday Angela will be right here in your ears bringing you a brand new episode of Outdoor Journal Radio.

SPEAKER_10

Hmm now what are we going to talk about for two hours every week well you know there's gonna be a lot of fishing I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to god them and they were easy to dodge yeah but it's not just a fishing show.

SPEAKER_03

We're going to be talking to people from all facets of the outdoors from athletes all the other guys would go golfing me and guards and turkeys and all the Russians would go fishing.

SPEAKER_10

The scientists now that we're deforesting a lane thing it's the perfect transmission environment to line chaps if any game isn't cooked properly marinated for me you will taste it.

SPEAKER_03

And whoever else will pick up the phone. Wherever you are Outdoor Journal Radio seeks to answer the questions and tell the stories of all those who enjoy being outside find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts