Oct 27, 2026 · 30 min · 9 segments
A dialogue with Aaron Blumenkron, the owner of Goby Walnut. Goby is an urban sawmill in Aurora, Oregon that salvages dead and unwanted trees from urban areas–milling them into live edge slabs, lumber…
And it's when a tree contracts it, it's almost 100% of the time it's fatal.
Yeah, so it's, um, it's a fungus that travels on the back of a twig beetle.
And essentially what it does is it starts the tree of its nutrients from the top down.
And what does that mean? So if you're looking at a tree and you start to see bare spots in the canopy, usually up toward the top of the crown, that's typically a sign that the tree is starting.
And then before you know it, the crown is entirely bare and the tree starts to drop limbs.
So there's been an effort to try and contain it to the west coast here, but they're already finding it in the Midwest and back east.
Luckily, they're finding that the climate back there It might be the colder winters or the fact that it's just a different climate overall, but it's not affecting walnut there the same way it is here on the west coast, which is great because they have entire forests of walnut.
That's part of the reason why We're not leaving replanting up to just the squirrels or up to chance.
And we have a seedling program going where we're replanting five trees for everyone that reaches Gobi.
The best place to learn about our seedling program is either to subscribe to our newsletter, to follow us on Instagram.
typically we'll have an announcement and have a seedling party and some sweet seedling merch.
Here on the west coast, it actually grows pretty quickly compared to what you'd find in the Midwest or back east.
And it's when a tree contracts it, it's almost 100% of the time it's fatal.
Yeah, so it's, um, it's a fungus that travels on the back of a twig beetle.
And essentially what it does is it starts the tree of its nutrients from the top down.
And what does that mean? So if you're looking at a tree and you start to see bare spots in the canopy, usually up toward the top of the crown, that's typically a sign that the tree is starting.
And then before you know it, the crown is entirely bare and the tree starts to drop limbs.
So there's been an effort to try and contain it to the west coast here, but they're already finding it in the Midwest and back east.
Luckily, they're finding that the climate back there It might be the colder winters or the fact that it's just a different climate overall, but it's not affecting walnut there the same way it is here on the west coast, which is great because they have entire forests of walnut.
That's part of the reason why We're not leaving replanting up to just the squirrels or up to chance.
And we have a seedling program going where we're replanting five trees for everyone that reaches Gobi.
The best place to learn about our seedling program is either to subscribe to our newsletter, to follow us on Instagram.
typically we'll have an announcement and have a seedling party and some sweet seedling merch.
Here on the west coast, it actually grows pretty quickly compared to what you'd find in the Midwest or back east.
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