Very worrying article about ash extinction due to the ironically named emerald ash borer
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-35876621 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-35876621)
Quote from: theskull1 on March 23, 2016, 08:59:59 AM
Very worrying article about ash extinction due to the ironically named emerald ash borer
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-35876621 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-35876621)
Not good news, but surely there's some sort of quarantine process that could be put in place?
Are Cultec on the stock market yet?
Crash of the ash will change essence of hurling forever
By John Fogarty
GAA Correspondent
Bernie O'Connor says it is a "definite" that hurley makers will lose their livelihoods as a result of the ash-dieback disease and claims it will change the essence of the game of hurling.
A review published by the Journal of Ecology claims almost all ash trees in Europe will be wiped out because of the fungal disease as well as a beetle called the emerald ash borer.
The GAA have established The Ash Society in the hope of tackling a growing crisis although GAA director of games development Pat Daly has already acknowledged there may come a time when ash hurleys may no longer be used in the game.
Long-standing hurley-maker O'Connor is fully aware the wood is decreasing in supply and accepts it could have drastic repercussions for craftsmen like himself.
"That is a definite. You will have the hurley manufacturers going out of business. If they're not available, you will have these plastic ones coming in. Now, I think they're terrible but that's for another day. There's no doubt people will lose jobs."
Newtownshandrum-based O'Connor claims the threat to the ash tree on the continent threatens a quintessential part of hurling. "To me, the whole concept of the game would be gone altogether. It's all about the clash of the ash and anything else won't be the same. Although, I suppose young fellas will grow up with it and they won't really mind.
"The old fella will miss it and there might even be the odd fella who gives up hurling because of it but the young fella won't know any better.
"The sound off anything but ash... there's a different sound off it completely. It will have a big effect on the game in general."
As of now, there are 19,000 hectares of ash in Ireland although 75% of the wood in the country now has to be imported. The total ash demand here per year is between 300,000 and 400,000 hurleys, which equates to upwards of 900 hectares.
Little to no ash is currently being planted here and Daly has spoken about the idea of a hybrid hurley.
According to Daly, the Ash Society, which includes stakeholders such as the GAA, Coillte, Teagasc and the Irish Guild of Ash Hurley Makers, are taking a three-pronged approach. "Number one, breeding from resistance (to the disease).
"It may be possible to breed a strain of ash that would be resistant to the disease.
"Number two, doing more with less ash. In other words, looking at different ways of making the hurley as distinct from the traditional plank, which is a premium cut.
"The third thing then would be to look at some hybrid hurley where there would be some man-made material as well as some ash."
Studies have shown the use of charcoal may interrupt the spread of the disease but there has been little let-up in the contagion with Denmark, where the ash tree is similar to that in Ireland, completely wiped out.
http://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/hurling/crash-of-the-ash-will-change-essence-of-hurling-forever-389166.html
There was something on I think country file a few weeks back about some experimental treatment on ash trees that to date has prevented the dieback it involved some kind of charcoal I think being added to the soil when planted.
...... rushes out to invent rival to the cultec
I thought a good portion of the ash was already coming from China. Is ash dieback an issue in Asia? Perhaps I heard wrong though (about where the ash is coming from).
Is there no other type of timber that has similar properties to that of ash that could be used?
I read this myself the other day and first thought was bloody hell what does this mean for hurling sticks, only getting dearer by the look of things. Sad sad situation.
Quote from: doodaa on March 24, 2016, 02:47:10 PM
I thought a good portion of the ash was already coming from China. Is ash dieback an issue in Asia? Perhaps I heard wrong though (about where the ash is coming from).
Is there no other type of timber that has similar properties to that of ash that could be used?
The clash of the yew doesn't sound as good :)
Quote from: AZOffaly on March 25, 2016, 08:12:09 AM
Quote from: doodaa on March 24, 2016, 02:47:10 PM
I thought a good portion of the ash was already coming from China. Is ash dieback an issue in Asia? Perhaps I heard wrong though (about where the ash is coming from).
Is there no other type of timber that has similar properties to that of ash that could be used?
The clash of the yew doesn't sound as good :)
The clash of a the plastic hurl sounds even worse :P
Cultec aren't plastic :) The clash of the carbon fibre sounds no better.
Quote from: AZOffaly on March 25, 2016, 09:30:28 AM
Cultec aren't plastic :) The clash of the carbon fibre sounds no better.
Clash of the Wavin pipe sounds even better
Quote from: AZOffaly on March 25, 2016, 09:30:28 AM
Cultec aren't plastic :) The clash of the carbon fibre sounds no better.
What are they made of?
It certainly isn't carbon fibre cos they'd cost a small fortune if it was lol
EDIT; Its "Made from a composite of synthetic epoxy, nylon and some graphite"
and they are still shieite, I have to accept though that it is probably what my children will be using unless I do a bulk buy with Jim O'Brien!
Jays, they are far from shite. I think they are excellent.
Made in China.
you can actually buy them in direct from the company that makes them for cultec
Quote from: AZOffaly on March 25, 2016, 12:34:08 PM
Jays, they are far from shite. I think they are excellent.
They are particularly good for kids U12 and down IMO, Nice and light with a big sweet spot.
Quote from: manfromdelmonte on March 25, 2016, 01:53:35 PM
Made in China.
you can actually buy them in direct from the company that makes them for cultec
Have you a link for this?
https://www.ft.com/content/67e2c6ea-8d93-4716-bce1-5b535f3f755c
An elegy for the ash tree
Hundreds of thousands of the species are being culled as they suffer from dieback
Joy Lo Dico AUGUST 22 2020
Out near Stroud in the west of England, my little house in the woods is circled by ash trees. But where once I looked up and admired their brushstroke leaves and branches that turned skywards, during the past two summers I've watched their leaves turn black and eventually their naked branches in summer. Half the skyline is dying.
The spores that cause ash dieback were first identified in the UK in 2012, coming in from the continent, and have since rampaged across the country. Tree surgeons and foresters I speak to say felling ash trees is now the majority of their work. The carcasses are being piled high.
"Best punt a few down," says Will, one of the local foresters as we inspect the trees around my home. A few? Maybe one in seven of the mature trees on the land are ash. How do we understand the magnitude of this loss?
Five years ago, it was estimated that the UK was home to 125m ash trees in woods, with up to 60m elsewhere. Those numbers are diminishing fast. Salisbury Plain, the home of Stonehenge, is being cleared of them; Sheffield has a quarter of a million, of which only a fraction are likely to survive. I repeat to myself the line from Auden's Bucolics — "a small grove massacred to the last ash . . . "
The last time we lost trees to a disease in such large numbers was in the 1970s. It was a strain of Dutch Elm Disease, a fungus that hitched a ride on logs shipped from North America. In a matter of months an elm — which has a place in the British imagination second only to the oak — could become merely firewood. A few regrow from suckers, but then die young.
I had little interest in nature as a child, but I remember hearing the phrase "Dutch Elm Disease" repeated again and again on the evening news. It came to signify a turning point, an irretrievable loss. It was also the time of another deep recession.
If the city asks the question 'where are we going?', the woods ask the opposite: 'where did we come from?'
I often wonder why we attach such sentiment to trees. I am as guilty as the rest — friends have witnessed me resting my hands on trees that have been condemned, offering what? A sort of consolation.
Some of Britain's trees are crops, not unlike barley, just larger by some magnitude of zeros. But they are also so much more. The grandest seem like survivors from a lost world, where the gods and the monsters of our imagination lived, "when", in the poet AE Housman's words, "winds were in the oakenshaws and all the cauldrons tolled".
While city parks are our arboreal zoos, our woods, though semi-tamed by our chainsaws, still point us backwards. If the city asks the fundamental question "where are we going?", the woods ask the opposite: "where did we come from?"
In Auden's poem, they are the place beyond the reach of church and state, where morals are loosened, while the nightingales sing above. This is where we find our own nature. Auden concludes sardonically that "a culture is no better than its woods." It isn't the woods that bring savagery — it is too much civilisation.
I wandered lonely as a cloud (in lockdown), with Simon Russell Beale
Simon Russell Beale on nature as salve
As a preview of the upcoming FTWeekend Festival, one of the world's leading theatre actors reads William Wordsworth's most famous poem, which takes on new meaning amid the coronavirus crisis. Russell Beale will be performing a curated selection of poems — from EE Cummings to Emily Dickinson — at his Friday September 4 event, as part of the fifth annual FTWeekend Festival, which will be digital this year. For more information on the three-day online extravaganza, its host of starry global speakers and to purchase a festival pass visit: ftweekendfestival.com
When you head back towards the wild there is more than just the romanticism of the magnificent trees. There is fungi and decay, viruses and sharp teeth. To walk in the woods is to be reminded that things live, mutate, grow, flourish, and die.
Someone suggested recently that, to slow the spread of ash dieback, one could rake up all the leaves in autumn — they harbour the spores. But this seems to go against the spirit of our woods. Do we really want more manicured parkland?
Our grief over the ash is a human grief, our attempts to control its loss part of our culture. But in nature there is always the possibility of regeneration. Once this tree recession is over, wildflowers will spring up, drunk on the light, then saplings will find space, some brambles of course, and in 10, 15 years new woods.
Last week I tramped across the parts of my woods with public footpaths, tying blue ribbons around the few ash trees that looked like they were still in with a chance — maybe one in 10 will make it — before their leaves fell and the healthy would be difficult to distinguish from the sick. The fellers will arrive in a few months.
Down a bank, I was surprised. There, in a conclave of ash, was a tree I'd not noticed before: it was an elm, but not one of the several young sickly ones I'd already come across. It was stout and in full leaf. Here was something which, without any human intervention, planned to survive. Dammit, I thought: there's hope.
Quote from: seafoid on August 23, 2020, 01:42:31 PM
https://www.ft.com/content/67e2c6ea-8d93-4716-bce1-5b535f3f755c
An elegy for the ash tree
Hundreds of thousands of the species are being culled as they suffer from dieback
Joy Lo Dico AUGUST 22 2020
Out near Stroud in the west of England, my little house in the woods is circled by ash trees. But where once I looked up and admired their brushstroke leaves and branches that turned skywards, during the past two summers I've watched their leaves turn black and eventually their naked branches in summer. Half the skyline is dying.
The spores that cause ash dieback were first identified in the UK in 2012, coming in from the continent, and have since rampaged across the country. Tree surgeons and foresters I speak to say felling ash trees is now the majority of their work. The carcasses are being piled high.
"Best punt a few down," says Will, one of the local foresters as we inspect the trees around my home. A few? Maybe one in seven of the mature trees on the land are ash. How do we understand the magnitude of this loss?
Five years ago, it was estimated that the UK was home to 125m ash trees in woods, with up to 60m elsewhere. Those numbers are diminishing fast. Salisbury Plain, the home of Stonehenge, is being cleared of them; Sheffield has a quarter of a million, of which only a fraction are likely to survive. I repeat to myself the line from Auden's Bucolics — "a small grove massacred to the last ash . . . "
The last time we lost trees to a disease in such large numbers was in the 1970s. It was a strain of Dutch Elm Disease, a fungus that hitched a ride on logs shipped from North America. In a matter of months an elm — which has a place in the British imagination second only to the oak — could become merely firewood. A few regrow from suckers, but then die young.
I had little interest in nature as a child, but I remember hearing the phrase "Dutch Elm Disease" repeated again and again on the evening news. It came to signify a turning point, an irretrievable loss. It was also the time of another deep recession.
If the city asks the question 'where are we going?', the woods ask the opposite: 'where did we come from?'
I often wonder why we attach such sentiment to trees. I am as guilty as the rest — friends have witnessed me resting my hands on trees that have been condemned, offering what? A sort of consolation.
Some of Britain's trees are crops, not unlike barley, just larger by some magnitude of zeros. But they are also so much more. The grandest seem like survivors from a lost world, where the gods and the monsters of our imagination lived, "when", in the poet AE Housman's words, "winds were in the oakenshaws and all the cauldrons tolled".
While city parks are our arboreal zoos, our woods, though semi-tamed by our chainsaws, still point us backwards. If the city asks the fundamental question "where are we going?", the woods ask the opposite: "where did we come from?"
In Auden's poem, they are the place beyond the reach of church and state, where morals are loosened, while the nightingales sing above. This is where we find our own nature. Auden concludes sardonically that "a culture is no better than its woods." It isn't the woods that bring savagery — it is too much civilisation.
I wandered lonely as a cloud (in lockdown), with Simon Russell Beale
Simon Russell Beale on nature as salve
As a preview of the upcoming FTWeekend Festival, one of the world's leading theatre actors reads William Wordsworth's most famous poem, which takes on new meaning amid the coronavirus crisis. Russell Beale will be performing a curated selection of poems — from EE Cummings to Emily Dickinson — at his Friday September 4 event, as part of the fifth annual FTWeekend Festival, which will be digital this year. For more information on the three-day online extravaganza, its host of starry global speakers and to purchase a festival pass visit: ftweekendfestival.com
When you head back towards the wild there is more than just the romanticism of the magnificent trees. There is fungi and decay, viruses and sharp teeth. To walk in the woods is to be reminded that things live, mutate, grow, flourish, and die.
Someone suggested recently that, to slow the spread of ash dieback, one could rake up all the leaves in autumn — they harbour the spores. But this seems to go against the spirit of our woods. Do we really want more manicured parkland?
Our grief over the ash is a human grief, our attempts to control its loss part of our culture. But in nature there is always the possibility of regeneration. Once this tree recession is over, wildflowers will spring up, drunk on the light, then saplings will find space, some brambles of course, and in 10, 15 years new woods.
Last week I tramped across the parts of my woods with public footpaths, tying blue ribbons around the few ash trees that looked like they were still in with a chance — maybe one in 10 will make it — before their leaves fell and the healthy would be difficult to distinguish from the sick. The fellers will arrive in a few months.
Down a bank, I was surprised. There, in a conclave of ash, was a tree I'd not noticed before: it was an elm, but not one of the several young sickly ones I'd already come across. It was stout and in full leaf. Here was something which, without any human intervention, planned to survive. Dammit, I thought: there's hope.
That doesn't make for good reading.
What countries do the hurley makers bring them in from?
Tough one for the Gembots here
Hurling is the native game
But it requires foreign ash to survive
But ya can't be having that Soros and Bill Gates-funded new world order globalised foreign ash
Guess hurling will be forced to die if the plastic "patriot" blood and soilers get their way
There was a time (I think) a lot of ash was coming in from Poland
I thought there was a bamboo based hurl in production...?
edit: One google later and yep:
https://www.the42.ie/torpey-hurleys-bambu-bamboo-hurl-5143899-Jul2020/
Quote from: Milltown Row2 on August 23, 2020, 10:33:06 PM
There was a time (I think) a lot of ash was coming in from Poland
The Clasz of the Asz
Quote from: RadioGAAGAA on August 23, 2020, 11:10:02 PM
I thought there was a bamboo based hurl in production...?
edit: One google later and yep:
https://www.the42.ie/torpey-hurleys-bambu-bamboo-hurl-5143899-Jul2020/
Torpey's bamboo hurleys were featured on RTE Nationwide programme this evening.
They do seem a genuine alternative to ash and are already being used by some inter-county players.
However the bas of the hurleys featured (both ash and bamboo) differ greatly from those in use up to more recent years.
It has a pointy heel which obviously does not lend to ground hurling.
Another trend emerging is shorter hurleys - back in the day the top of hurley would be same height as your hip bone.
The shorter hurleys that some players use nowadays are also not designed for ground hurling.
Hurling used to be my first love but I don't get the same enjoyment from it these days.
I believe a lot of the skills and the thrills of the game have been lost with the disappearance of ground hurling and the clash of the ash.
Quote from: AZOffaly on March 25, 2016, 08:12:09 AM
Quote from: doodaa on March 24, 2016, 02:47:10 PM
I thought a good portion of the ash was already coming from China. Is ash dieback an issue in Asia? Perhaps I heard wrong though (about where the ash is coming from).
Is there no other type of timber that has similar properties to that of ash that could be used?
The clash of the yew doesn't sound as good :)
How 'bout the screech of the beech? ;D
Quote from: hardstation on October 30, 2020, 10:29:03 PM
Ground hurling must be out of the game near 30 years now?
I don't see it ever returning.
Galway v Limerick in 1980 was fierce ground hurling altogether. Like you say hardstation, I'd say those days are firmly in the past.
Quote from: hardstation on October 30, 2020, 10:29:03 PM
Ground hurling must be out of the game near 30 years now?
I don't see it ever returning.
all the same would you not love it if someone went in pulling like Daithi Regan in his prime when one of those rucks formed where everyone is hoking for the ball like auld chickens?
Or is that just me ;D ;D ;D ;D
Quote from: johnnycool on November 02, 2020, 09:20:32 AM
Quote from: hardstation on October 30, 2020, 10:29:03 PM
Ground hurling must be out of the game near 30 years now?
I don't see it ever returning.
all the same would you not love it if someone went in pulling like Daithi Regan in his prime when one of those rucks formed where everyone is hoking for the ball like auld chickens?
Or is that just me ;D ;D ;D ;D
Yes, but he must hit the ball first, everything else is a bonus
Quote from: Milltown Row2 on November 02, 2020, 09:28:00 AM
Quote from: johnnycool on November 02, 2020, 09:20:32 AM
Quote from: hardstation on October 30, 2020, 10:29:03 PM
Ground hurling must be out of the game near 30 years now?
I don't see it ever returning.
all the same would you not love it if someone went in pulling like Daithi Regan in his prime when one of those rucks formed where everyone is hoking for the ball like auld chickens?
Or is that just me ;D ;D ;D ;D
Yes, but he must hit the ball first, everything else is a bonus
A nice big follow through is fine then, good to know ;D
Quote from: Farrandeelin on November 01, 2020, 08:15:05 PM
Quote from: hardstation on October 30, 2020, 10:29:03 PM
Ground hurling must be out of the game near 30 years now?
I don't see it ever returning.
Galway v Limerick in 1980 was fierce ground hurling altogether. Like you say hardstation, I'd say those days are firmly in the past.
limerick were moving the ball nicely along the ground yesterday
Quote from: johnnycool on November 02, 2020, 09:49:48 AM
Quote from: Milltown Row2 on November 02, 2020, 09:28:00 AM
Quote from: johnnycool on November 02, 2020, 09:20:32 AM
Quote from: hardstation on October 30, 2020, 10:29:03 PM
Ground hurling must be out of the game near 30 years now?
I don't see it ever returning.
all the same would you not love it if someone went in pulling like Daithi Regan in his prime when one of those rucks formed where everyone is hoking for the ball like auld chickens?
Or is that just me ;D ;D ;D ;D
Yes, but he must hit the ball first, everything else is a bonus
A nice big follow through is fine then, good to know ;D
I personally have no issue.
As for last night game there was some ground strokes , mainly short forward passes, not the shinty style swings