 Hi everybody, welcome to our second presentation tonight. We're talking about trees from North Dakota. So let's now talk about our state tree, American Elm. And the American Elm was cherished for a long time because of its beautiful, majestic arching branches that casted shade over our streets and kept us cool in the summer, but then came Dutch on disease and it wiped out millions of Elms across the United States. And the good news, though, is that our state tree is making a comeback. And so here to tell us tonight about some of the best Elms for North Dakota is Joe Zalesnik. Joe is an extension forester for North Dakota State University. Joe, welcome to the forums. Okay, thank you, Tom. And thanks everybody for joining us tonight. We're actually gonna talk more about, more than just American Elm, but we'll at least start there. Since Dutch Elm disease hit the state, there's actually been a ton of research, not only in North Dakota, but throughout the Great Plains, throughout the US, throughout the world on Dutch Elm disease and trying to find different species, different cultivars that are tolerant to it or resistant. There's a whole big discussion about tolerance versus resistance, which we won't even get into today. But when I think of American Elm, this is what I think. I think of these beautiful roadways with the graceful Elms arching over the street and they're just beautiful and they provide a lot of services to each city. And as Tom said, then came Dutch Elm disease. It came to North Dakota in about 1970, maybe even 1969, out in Mandan was where it was first found. And it's still causing a problem in many North Dakota communities. And when I say Dutch Elm disease, it's called Dutch Elm disease because it was first discovered in the Netherlands. And it's not that these are Dutch Elm trees, they are, in this case, American Elms. This was in, oh shoot, where was this? Newtown, North Dakota. But that being said, there is a lot of variety out there that is available in the nursery trade, American Elms, Japanese Elms, Hybrid Elms, and we'll discuss more of those tonight. And now that being said, I do wanna draw out one word of caution here is that no Elm species or cultivar is 100% resistant to Dutch Elm disease. You can find Dutch Elm disease anything that says Elm on it. Now, that's not completely true, but Dutch Elm disease can infect any of the Elms we have around here, even the ones that are highly resistant. So nothing is 100% resistant. The flip side of that is there are some that we don't recommend because of, well, certain issues with some Elms we don't recommend but you're still gonna find a few that might be doing well in North Dakota. The other thing I want to discuss about Elms, say this very briefly, is that when they're young, Elms require a lot of maintenance. Creating good structure on some of these cultivars is an annual event. You have to go out and prune them to create good structure. Keep the branch angles correct or branch spacing correct. Make sure you have actual branches and not co-dominant leaders and it can be a little tough. So we'll talk about that some more further down. Okay, our recommendations. I've been working on this with some colleagues with Greg Morgensen who you just heard with Todd West who you'll hear after me and Jim Walla who I see is online with us tonight. And the way we're approaching this is kind of like a traffic signal and green, generally recommended. These are trees that are hearty, plenty hearty for North Dakota resistance and good resistance to other pests. There are some other pests out there that don't eat those. There's a disease called Elm yellows and oh boy, a bunch of others. And generally good resistance to these other pests. Nothing's perfect, but pretty good. Caution, generally these are things that should do well in North Dakota, have done well elsewhere, but we just really haven't tested them enough here. Or they're brand new. They could be brand new, but plenty cold hearty. We just haven't tested them here. Or sometimes they do have other pest issues that you need to be aware of. And then red, generally we're not recommending these potentially because they're not DED resistant. Sometimes they're not hearty enough. Sometimes it is other pest problems. So just as a big overview, that's the kind of the way we're approaching it here. And before I go one more, I'm gonna ask Tom and Bob, what's my time schedule here tonight? How late do I go? See if I can get an answer from them. All right, well maybe we'll wait for that answer. Okay, starting with American Elm. There are three that we recommend without an issue at all. First is called Prairie Expedition, or Lewis and Clark. That's an American Elm that was selected out of North Dakota. Another one called Princeton, which has been around for nearly a hundred years. 95 plus years that was selected. And then Valley Forge. And we'll talk about each of these really briefly. Okay, the Prairie Expedition Elm, this was actually selected out of North Dakota along the Wild Rice River. That's the original tree. It survived when all the Elms around it died. And Dr. Dale Herman selected this. It was either the 1980s or 1990s. And it has since done very well throughout North Dakota, throughout the Northern US. Oops, skipped over one there. All right, it's generally fairly upright, although it does eventually get that arching branch structure. Good quality foliage, that is. It is pretty resistant to Elm leaf beetles. And like I said, very hardy. Oh, by the way, I didn't say this earlier and I meant to. Most of the Elms that we have, the American Elm that we have that's native here, and a lot of the hybrids and the ones we recommend are going to be large trees. They're gonna have yellow fall color. And they're generally gonna have that vase-shaped form, unless we say otherwise. That's kind of what you see with Elm trees. Sometimes they're a little bit different colors, sometimes they're a little more upright or oval. But overall, that's what we're expecting to see. So prairie expedition. Another one that we recommend is called Princeton. And this was selected surprisingly out of New Jersey. And yet it does well here. There is some concern about the branch angles on it. It's generally a pretty tight branch angle. And these are fairly upright because of that. But in the long run, they do eventually get that arching structure. Now this tree is obviously open-grown. You know, it's not sitting there with a lot of competition in a boulevard. But it would generally do pretty well. Cities around here planted a lot of Princeton Elm. Again, it's a little bit tough to create that structure because of the tight branch angle. All right. Valley Forge is another one. This was selected, oh, was this out of Ohio? I believe, USDA 1982. This is fairly upright. Now that being said, I have the term floppy there. And I got that from Alan Lee, who works for Fargo Forestry. He calls it floppy. I said, what do you mean by that? He said it grows so fast that sometimes it gets top heavy and leans over, flops over. And it's funny because if you look up the description of this on Wikipedia, they also use the word flop that it flops over. So yes, it's cold hardy enough. Yes, it has good Dutch Elm disease resistance and it grows fast. It'll do just fine here. But it has a lot of maintenance requirements, high maintenance requirements. And I liked this quote. This was out of report. From a report, I believe out of California, likely to require more maintenance than most municipalities would find acceptable. You gotta prune it every year for quite a while to create that good structure, at least on the bottom part of the stem. So Valley Forge, we recommend it, but know what you're in for. It's got a really pretty fall color. Like I said, most of the Elms are going to be yellow in color. And there are different shades of yellow, but you know what, they're pretty beautiful at times. Nice bright yellow, little bit of brown on the edge of the leaf there. So those are our three green light. Under the yellow caution, there are four varieties we're listing here. One's called Colonial Spirit, Jefferson, New Harmony, and St. Croix. These have not been tested enough in North Dakota. A Colonial Spirit, I believe is, geez, only two or three years old, maybe even less, that's been out in the nursing industry. Jefferson and New Harmony have been out for quite a while. They just haven't been tried here a whole lot. And then St. Croix also less than five years old. This was selected out of Southeast Minnesota. And so, geez, it should be hard to hear. Should do just fine. And that being said, I know that Fargo Forestry planted a few of them last year. They're planting about 20 this year. Gee, I'm going to plant one this year. But it's gonna be a while before we know for sure. So here are some that you might wanna try that have done well elsewhere, should do well here, but be a little cautious. And then, boy, everything else. The American Elm, there are so many cultivars out there that people recommend. And I have these four listed here, simply because these are the ones you might, you're more likely to see being advertised in the nursery industry, American Liberty. With a name like American Liberty, how can you refuse that or independence? Washington is actually six different trees that are kind of mixed together, so you never know exactly which one you're gonna get. Minneapolis Park, I mentioned that here very briefly, only because it's from Minnesota. We have a ton of Minneapolis Park American Elms in Fargo, and they're doing great, but that's because Fargo has a very aggressive Dutch Elm Disease Management Program. So again, we don't recommend these. They're generally not DED resistant, and or they're not cold hard enough for our area. Okay, so that is American Elm, very briefly. Let's move on to the hybrids. And as far as hybrid Elms go, I have to say, the genetics are all over the place. And boy, there's Japanese Elm, Crosswood Siberian Elm, there's one called Wilson's Elm, which I think might be a Japanese Elm now. White Elm from Europe, they're all over the place. So I really can't make too many generalizations. But that being said, there's a lot of them that will do well in North Dakota. There are seven listed here. Each has its advantages and disadvantages, and we'll go through each of them very briefly. Accolade, Cathedral, Commendation, Danada Charm, New Horizon, Pioneer, and Triumph. You might notice, I'm sure you did, that there's two names listed there for Accolade, for example, Accolade and Morton. Okay, Accolade is the trademark name, Morton is the cultivar name, and it gets very confusing. Some varieties, some cultivars, have only the cultivar name, then they don't have a trademark name. And sometimes the trademark name is really catchy and it's sold under the trademark name, and sometimes the cultivar name is pretty catchy and it's sold under the cultivar name, and it gets really confusing really fast. So we're not even gonna go down that road. So that being said, let's go through these, and then I'll actually get to the questions after we get through the hybrids. Okay, wait a second, let me find where I'm at here. Okay, Accolade, also called Morton, this was selected out of the Morton Arboretum in Chicago, and it's funny because everything you read about, everything you see about it, it's similar to American Elm, it's just smaller. It grows a little bit slower, the form is the same, the leaf color is the same, and it does very well here. It does need corrective pruning when young. And I have a little note there at the bottom, it might be straight Japanese Elm. If you're looking at the literature about what the parentage of this is, they say different things. So hard to say for sure, which actually it is. We have it listed under the hybrids. Most of the literature does say it's a hybrid. Okay, another one, Cathedral Elm. Thank you, Greg, for this photo. This is a great photo of Cathedral Elm. I've shown this to a buddy of mine earlier today, and he said, oh, that second one is a classic, Cathedral Elm. Cathedral Elm is one of the fastest growing trees out there, it is amazing how fast it'll grow. Now that being said, it does have some issues. Yeah, it grows like a weed, but it's very high maintenance. It gets these long branches, and that leads to a somewhat weeping form. It can look like it's leaning over like it's weeping, and that's a little tough to manage and try to get that central leader established and growing long into the future to provide good structure for the tree. Above average resistant to Dutch Elm disease. If you read other state's recommendations and the literature that's out there about Cathedral Elm, most say it has very high resistant to Dutch Elm disease, and we have found that Cathedral Elms can be infected by DED, but they sometimes will get over it. That is, they'll be able to wall off or isolate that infection within the tree, and there's a little bit of scientific literature that supports that, but it's not as DED resistant as we might think. So just a heads up with that. But man, this thing grows like crazy. Another one called Commendation. This is, oh, by the way, the cult of our name is called Morton Stallwort, and if we went back to Accolade, Accolade is called Morton, and a lot of its offspring that were selected from seeds that were grown from Accolade Elm are then called Morton, something else. So this is one of them. Commendation, for example. Commendation, upright form or more oval, is very pretty in that it's got a more muted yellow fall color. And this one, again, will do very well around here, and it was created from Accolade, a controlled pollination between Accolade and some other tree that was already a hybrid. So its genetics are really mixed up. This is a very pretty tree, especially when the new foliage is coming out. Dan at a charm. You can see it's called Morton Red Tip, and you can see why. That is beautiful the way that new foliage comes out, and it's got that burgundy or red tip on the leaf. That is, sorry, not on the leaf. The tip leaf on the branch, on the twig, that's the one that's red. As the leaves develop even further, then they get more green. Very pretty. Somewhat upright with fast growth. Yes, this thing will grow quickly. May suffer from branch breakage. There was a little bit of work down in the Twin Cities that suggested that this one might not be as structurally strong as some of the others. But we haven't had any major issues with it here yet. This one was created from open pollination. That is accolade borseed, and they don't know who the parents were, and planted out a bunch of seed, and this one came out pretty good. All right, let's keep going. New Horizon. These are two photos of the same tree. As you can see, it's kind of an upright to rounded form leads to the branch. The individual branches are fairly upright, but the overall tree is pretty rounded. I'm thinking this photo was in Bismarck, I believe. Are these photos? The site was in Bismarck, and you can see it's doing really well. Interesting form. These are some larger specimens. Actually, I think this is the same tree, two different photos from two different angles. I believe this is at the Absurac Research Farm. So a little more mature of you, and it kind of grew out of that rounded form a little bit. This is a medium-sized tree, slightly arching branches. Talking with another colleague of mine, he said, maybe slightly isn't quite correct. And then he kind of waffled and went back and said, well, maybe they are slightly arching. So we'll go with slightly arching for now until we can come to some kind of consensus. Upright oval form. As the tree gets bigger, yeah, it'll go from that rounded form of the smaller tree to more upright or more oval. There's limits to how far that crown will spread out. Fall color, yeah, it's yellowish-brown, okay. Not this beautiful bright yellow, it's kind of more muted, but it develops later. It's kind of slow to mature, or slow to color up in the fall, excuse me. Possibly good drought tolerance. There's a site, a test site out in Bismarck. That's a really tough site that these are doing well on. So, well, let's hear it for that. In terms of foliage-feeding insects, there have been some, what you call it, there have been some individual trees that have had problems with foliage-feeding insects. So, that's New Horizon, okay. Now, Pioneer, Pioneer's a little bit different one. And, hold on a sec, a Pioneer's a little bit of a different one. This is a medium-large tree, dense-rounded crown. Similar to Commendation in North Dakota Tests. It's done well, good insect resistance, obviously good disease resistance. There is a little bit of concern is that will this be hardy enough for North Dakota? In the two test sites, I mentioned earlier, one was really droughty. The other one is further east and actually maybe a little more prone to flooding. It has done well so far. Some sources list Pioneer as hardy to only zone five. So, be a little cautious with this one. Okay, Triumph, also called Morton Glossy. This is another interesting one. And, I call it interesting because it's more upright. If you read about it, shiny foliage. This, it's funny because that's what the literature says. Everybody says the same thing, it's shiny. Okay, and that's the name, Morton Glossy. And this is a cross between Accolade and Vanguard. Vanguard's one that we kind of, that's on our yellow list, our caution. Okay, so coming through the hybrids, we go from the greens to the yellows and caution on Patriot and Vanguard. They're hardy enough, they're resistant to DED, mid-range and other characteristics. Structurally, may have some issues. Insect problems and growth rate, they're just not as fast. I do wanna mention that, oh shoot, what you call it. My sister-in-law has a great Patriot Elm in St. Paul. So, heads up with that. Okay, the hybrids that we're not recommending are Frontier, Homestead, Lincoln, Prospector and Regal. And yeah, they've seen a few really nice prospectors or regals around, but not too many. There's sometimes there's hardiness problems, sometimes there's really bad Elm leaf beetle problems. So, those are ones we generally don't recommend. I've been told I have to wrap it up pretty quick. So, I'll just go through Japanese Elm pretty quick and then we'll call it good. There are three Japanese Elms that we are recommending and we'll go through those. Maybe, there we go, Discovery. I really like Discovery Elm, it's very rounded. It's super dense and it's super slow. Grows very slowly, has a lot of really fine, fine twigs. And these trees, this is, I'm sorry, this tree, two different views of the same tree, is well over 15 years old. And you can see it's not all that big. Okay, here's another shot of Discovery, upright to round, very dense and slow growing. That's what we had to say about it. I think, I believe it was commendation that it looked like to me, very similar. Here's another one called Freedom. Might be a little bit harder to find. This is interesting because it's kind of mushroom shaped. This one is definitely more spreading out. And what I like about it, here's the same tree in the fall, is this color that it gets this kind of yellowish-purple color in the fall. Okay, or red-purple tinge, as we have. Might be difficult to find, but it's that compact mushroom shape. So it's more spreading rather than upright or rather than arching. So, all right, one more. I do want to recommend, sort of. I'll come back to that in a sec. Northern Empress called Burgundy Glow. This is an NDSU release. And the reason I say, well, sort of, is because I'm not sure if it's available yet in the nursery trade, and maybe Todd West can address this later. It's been released from NDSU, and availability is pending. I know Todd's been working with the nursery industry, trying to get this one out there. And I hope they can get that wrapped up and established soon, because I have to say, this is where this tree really shines. It's just beautiful in the fall. I love this foliage. This fall color is awesome. Thus the name Burgundy Glow. Aren't those leaves beautiful? Burgundy, or sometimes green to yellow to Burgundy, like on the lower right as they're transitioning. Just beautiful. And it grows like crazy. At least the one we have on campus, so it's a little bit tough, might be tough to establish structure on it. And yeah, availability is pending. And a couple that we haven't tried yet, simply because they're that new, and we really don't know much about them. Greenstone should be fine, should be cold-hearty enough, and Knight Rider should be, but don't know. And we'll call this one our last one Emerald Sunshine. It just isn't cold-hearty enough for North Dakota. So I did see that there were some questions. And, okay, Frank has an Elm, mid-sized Elm growing in the open. Lace-like holes in all its leaves. Oh, due to severe drought or possibly pest infestation. That was likely the Elm leaf beetle feeding on those leaves. And it's really tough. I don't know if you have a cultivar that's more susceptible to that or not, but it was likely the Elm leaf beetles. They can really do a number on the trees. And can Princeton be planted in a farm tree line where previous Elms had disease? It's a tricky question. Yeah, it should be able to survive there. Dutch Elm disease is a fungus that's spread by beetles. And the beetles need dead and dying trees for their habitat. So if there are still dead or dying trees there, you need to take them out before planting the new ones. So take those out and the disease isn't going to, isn't going to survive in the soil. But if there's still habitat for the beetles, then that might still be an issue. Can I provide quick guidance on pruning young Elms? Boy, every year. What we're looking for is not only branch angles that are too tight, but what's called included bark. Wish I had more time and maybe we can do an extra one. Sorry, I really can't answer that in a short time I have. Okay. Let's see. Two trees that grew out of an overgrown lilac patch. Yeah, Tommy. Let's deal with Elm-related questions. Okay. All right. What are the wildlife issues? What I've seen is, in terms of wildlife, is, oh shoot, I can't think of it now, the bird, the woodpecker, sap sucker, yellow-bellied sap sucker, there's some Elms. I don't know yet if there are certain Elms that are more susceptible than others, but I've seen just major damage on certain individual trees. Excuse me, and I haven't been able to check out and compare one cultivar versus another. There was another one, I can't remember which it was, that the researcher used the term deer candy. Just the deer just loved them, but they loved that one specific cultivar. Okay, can valley forage be planted in shelter belt and not be pruned? How tall do they get? Valley forage is American Elm, and if you plant them really tight, you might not have to worry about pruning them up or the structural problems, but they'd have to be really close together. Even out in a shelter belt, even out in a shelter belt, you should keep an eye on them and prune them and create that good structure for the first few years. Control of leaf beetles without harming beneficials. That's a great question. I don't have the answer to that right now. There's, it's tough, it's tough. Elm leaf beetles, you could try and mid-ecloprid or some other, can't think of the word right now. Mid-ecloprid, it's a systemic, excuse me. You could try some of the systemics that when the elm leaf beetles feed on those trees, they would take up that insecticide that might help. Do any of these trees shed ceilings like Chinese Elm? So far, not so much. I do wanna say Siberian Elm, you mentioned Chinese Elm very briefly. What we, what some people call Chinese Elm around here is what I like to call Siberian Elm. The scientific name is almost Pumala and the reason I use Siberian Elm is because there's this other, there's this other tree called Lacebark Elm that won't grow around here. It's just not hard enough. And a lot of people call that one Chinese Elm and it's a whole different, a whole different species. And so the point I wanna make here is that Lacebark Elm, almost Parvapholea, which some people call Chinese Elm, will not grow in North Dakota. So thank you for setting me up with that. Do they all suffer from woolly elm aphid? You know, I don't know. I know the American Elm sure will. Not sure about the others. It's a good question, Barnes County. Lila and Cass, north side of Fargo and Elm came up as a volunteer. If any way to know a variety, cultivar, kind, likely it's either an American Elm or a Siberian Elm. If it's coming from seed, just as a volunteer, then it's not a cultivar. It's not a variety. You could tell the species by looking at the buds and comparing the buds to a known species. If you know American Elm, you can compare the buds on your volunteer to the American Elm. If they're similar, then it's an American Elm. Compare them to a Siberian Elm. If they're similar to that, then it's a Siberian Elm. Okay, that being said, I think I've talked myself out here. Tom, you wanna take it over? You filled us full of wisdom. That was pretty quick. You know what, I'm worried about Elms now and thank you for that. Oh, you bet. So we're gonna just move on now, everybody. Joe, thank you for your presentation tonight. We appreciate it. And we wish to stay on time. So we're gonna take a quick two minute break, two minute break, and then we're gonna learn about some tough trees for tough sites. Two minute break.