Great piece! Totally agree on the non-aggressive response to these periodic population booms. Eventually, I believe nature will equalize these invaders, which is not to say we shouldn’t avoid introducing and spreading them.
Good morning Heather. Thanks so much for all the info I receive from your letters. I 'get' snags and have a quick question. I had a snag of a fir tree until it came down in a winter storm last season. Are fir snags of equal value to deciduous snags? I never felt it lived up to my expectations but how's a guy to know? Great thanks. Chip
Good morning, Chip! I apologize for the delay in responding. I wanted to think about your question and get a second opinion. Without doing more research, I don't think there's any reason why fir snags would be less valuable than deciduous. The softness that makes conifers less good for furniture shouldn't affect the ecological value of their rotting process. In north Florida, once covered in pine forest, we see amazingly beautiful pine snags filled with life. But that doesn't mean every tree makes a good (or attractive) standing snag. Maybe it helps to think of a snag as a process, not a finished thing. Your fir was a short-lived standing snag and now the value of its continued rotting will take place on the ground or in a wood or brush pile. Hope that help!
I ran a tree service in Tennessee for years and saw a good variety of snags. In my experience, its a similar situation to the favored host idea in Heather's article. Pretty much any snag will make for perching and nesting space for birds, but then internally, I've seen different critters colonize deciduous bark as opposed to coniferous bark. There are also very distinct fungal communities between the two. For example, many of the edible fungi growing on deciduous trees fruits from the trunk in the spring, whereas many of the edible fungi growing on conifers fruit from the roots in the fall.
Great piece! Totally agree on the non-aggressive response to these periodic population booms. Eventually, I believe nature will equalize these invaders, which is not to say we shouldn’t avoid introducing and spreading them.
Thank you, Lisa. I hope you are right about the long term.
Good morning Heather. Thanks so much for all the info I receive from your letters. I 'get' snags and have a quick question. I had a snag of a fir tree until it came down in a winter storm last season. Are fir snags of equal value to deciduous snags? I never felt it lived up to my expectations but how's a guy to know? Great thanks. Chip
Good morning, Chip! I apologize for the delay in responding. I wanted to think about your question and get a second opinion. Without doing more research, I don't think there's any reason why fir snags would be less valuable than deciduous. The softness that makes conifers less good for furniture shouldn't affect the ecological value of their rotting process. In north Florida, once covered in pine forest, we see amazingly beautiful pine snags filled with life. But that doesn't mean every tree makes a good (or attractive) standing snag. Maybe it helps to think of a snag as a process, not a finished thing. Your fir was a short-lived standing snag and now the value of its continued rotting will take place on the ground or in a wood or brush pile. Hope that help!
I ran a tree service in Tennessee for years and saw a good variety of snags. In my experience, its a similar situation to the favored host idea in Heather's article. Pretty much any snag will make for perching and nesting space for birds, but then internally, I've seen different critters colonize deciduous bark as opposed to coniferous bark. There are also very distinct fungal communities between the two. For example, many of the edible fungi growing on deciduous trees fruits from the trunk in the spring, whereas many of the edible fungi growing on conifers fruit from the roots in the fall.