Size : ft in height m Trunk Diameter: 2 ft 0. Sun: Full exposure Water: Plenty of water constant Soil: moist organic soil sphagnum , wet, swamps, coarse sand, heavy clay and calcareous soils. Diseases: Larch canker caused by Lachnellula willkommii fungus Pest: Sawfly, larch looper, Japanese beetle, tussock moth, woolly aphids and larch case-bearer. The seeds are food to red squirrels, while seedlings are common treat for snowshoe hares, the inner bark of the tree is fed by porcupines.
Birds like song sparrow, white-throated sparrow, common yellowthroat, Nashville warbler, and veery use the tree for nesting. The wood is used for making snowhorse and other sturdy things like knee of a wooden boat, fuelwood, poles, posts, and pulpwood. Recipes Conifer Muffins. Basic Search. Winter Survival Food Handbook. Learn how to survive on wild edibles during winter. This handbook is a full colour publication, 5. PDF Plant Magazines.
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Listen below to stories about history, people, culture, art, and the environment in the Northwoods that go a little deeper than a traditional news story allows us to do. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Tamarack trees, like many of us, could live anywhere in Wisconsin but prefer the Northwoods.
The question asker submitted this photo of tamarack trees on County Hwy J. The Masked Biologist. He is anonymous so that he can separate his professional life as a biologist from his personal feelings about the natural world. See stories by The Masked Biologist. Tamarack is also usually windfirm enough for the seed-tree system to succeed.
Satisfactory reestablishment of tamarack, however, often requires some kind of site preparation, such as slash disposal and herbicide spraying For successful tamarack plantations, the planting stock's roots and shoots must be well balanced and dormant; probably the best stock is begun in a greenhouse and transplanted for 1 year.
Competition must also be controlled, the first 2 years after planting being critical. Because tamarack is very intolerant, the trees should be planted at wide spacings such as 2. Damaging Agents- Because its bark is thin, tamarack is highly susceptible to fire damage, except perhaps in older, upland stands; and because its roots are shallow, it is usually killed on peatlands by all but very light burns.
However, the habitat of tamarack-especially south of the boreal forest-is normally wet enough to protect the tree from fire 6. In the boreal forest the tamarack type apparently has a high surface-fire hazard in spring but a low crown-fire hazard in pure stands Abnormally high water levels often kill tamarack stands, and those that survive under such conditions usually grow very slowly.
Other effects of high water include dieback and the development of adventitious roots and shoots 8. Wetland road crossings and beaver damming are the primary causes of flooding. Road-caused flooding has killed tamarack or reduced its growth on thousands of hectares in northern Minnesota 40 ; natural gas and petroleum pipelines will probably have similar effects unless cross drainage is provided 3.
Strong winds can uproot large tamarack trees growing in swamps or other wet sites where rooting is shallow. Compared with black spruce, however, tamarack seems to be fairly windfirm. The larch sawfly is the most destructive insect enemy of tamarack.
Epidemics occur periodically across Canada and the northern United States and have caused tremendous losses of merchantable tamarack throughout most of the tree's range. Indications are that radial increment declines markedly after 4 to 6 years of outbreak and trees die after 6 to 9 years of moderate to heavy defoliation 9.
In southeastern Manitoba and northern Minnesota, however, imported parasites of the sawfly especially Olesicampe benefactor have become established and should reduce the frequency and duration of future outbreaks The larch casebearer Coleophora laricella is also a serious defoliator of tamarack. A native of Europe, it is now widely distributed in eastern North America westward to southeastern Manitoba and the Lake States. The larch casebearer attacks tamarack of all ages, and several severe outbreaks have caused extensive mortality in some areas Outbreak severity has lessened in recent years, however, probably because imported parasites of the casebearer have also become widely established Only a few other insects and related organisms such as mites that feed on tamarack are known to sometimes cause serious injury.
During an outbreak the spruce budworm Choristoneura fumiferana can severely damage tamarack where it grows along with balsam fir and white spruce-the preferred hosts. The larch bud moth Zeiraphera improbana has had occasional short epidemics, and the spruce spider mite Oligonychus ununguis is occasionally found in large numbers on tamarack. The larch shoot moth Argyresthia laricella is widely distributed but serious injury is unusual.
One of the most common bark beetles attacking tamarack is the eastern larch beetle Dendroctonus simplex , but it feeds mainly on weakened, dying, or dead trees. Warren's collar weevil Hylobius warreni , common in Canada, has killed pole-sized tamarack in Michigan's Upper Peninsula 34, Several insects feed on tamarack cones and seeds, but little is known about their importance. Those that feed inside cones include the spruce coneworm Dioryctria reniculelloides and a seed chalcid Megastigmus laricis.
Two defoliators that sometimes feed on tender young cones during epidemics are the spruce budworm and the larch bud moth 16, Cones were still being produced after 3 to 4 years' defoliation by the larch sawfly in Canada and after 8 years of attack in northern Minnesota Tamarack is host to many pathogens, but none causes disease serious enough to have an economic impact on its culture.
The only common foliage diseases are rusts, such as the leaf rust of poplar Populus spp. However, this rust, caused by the fungus Melampsora medusae, and other rusts do little damage to tamarack 19, The needle-cast fungus Hypodermella laricis has attacked tamarack in Ontario and has the potential for local damage. Tamarack is essentially free of stem diseases. Eastern dwarf mistletoe Arceuthobium pusillum is occasionally found on the tree 29 , but its witches' brooms are small on tamarack and occur only where the tree is growing in mixture with infected black spruce The root- and butt-rot fungi reported on tamarack include Armillaria or shoestring root rot Armillaria mellea , Scytinostroma galactinum, red-brown butt rot Phaeolus schweinitzii , and the false velvet top fungus Inonotus tomentosus 19, They are not aggressive killers on tamarack; however, flood-damaged trees are particularly susceptible to attack by fungi such as Armillaria root rot 8 , and pole-sized trees have been killed by the false velvet top fungus.
The principal heart-rot fungi of tamarack are brown trunk rot Fomitopsis officinalis and red ring rot Phellinus pini. Climacocystis borealis causes a white mottled rot of tamarack in Canada Snowshoe hares kill many tamarack seedlings in some areas of the Lake States, Alberta, and Alaska White-tailed deer and moose apparently browse seedlings or saplings to a lesser extent.
Porcupines commonly feed on the inner bark and deform the stem or kill the tree. Many tamarack stands have been damaged by this pest in the Lake States, Maine, and eastern Canada It can be especially damaging in plantations Red squirrels often cut cone-bearing branchlets, and birds such as the red crossbill occasionally eat the seeds The principal commercial use of tamarack in the United States is for making pulp products, especially the transparent paper in window envelopes.
Because of its rot resistance, tamarack is also used for posts, poles, mine timbers, and railroad ties. Other wood products include rough lumber, fuelwood, boxes, crates, and pails In interior Alaska young tamarack stems are used for dogsled runners, boat ribs, and fishtraps 4 ; in northern Alberta the branches are used to make duck and goose decoys Historically, knees from larger trees were used in wooden ship construction and Indians used the fine roots to sew birch bark, the wood for arrow shafts, and the bark for medicine Tamarack has certain wildlife values.
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