Mountains of the Heart: Revisiting the Appalachians, Presentation by Scott Weidensaul

The Dauphin County Woodland Owners Association is pleased to host a presentation exploring the history of the Appalachian Mountains given by Scott Weidensaul on Thursday, October 13th, 2016, at the Dauphin County Agricultural Extension office located at 1451 Peters Mountain Rd., Dauphin, Pa.

The 2,000 mile-long Appalachian Mountain system is one of the oldest and most remarkable ranges in the world, stretching from the wildflower-spangled hills of central Alabama to the ice-choked edge of Newfoundland where caribou and even polar bears roam. Join naturalist and author Scott Weidensaul in an exploration of these ancient hills, based on the newly revised and expanded 20th anniversary edition of his award-winning book "Mountains of the Heart: A Natural History of the Appalachians." Weidensaul will examine the conservation challenges and successes that recent decades have brought to these seemingly timeless hills, and what the future may hold for them.

Scott Weidensaul is the author of more than two dozen books on natural history, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist "Living on the Wind," about bird migration, "Return to Wild America," and "The First Frontier: The Forgotten History of Struggle, Savagery and Endurance in Early America." His latest book, "The Peterson Reference Guide to Owls of North America and the Caribbean," has just been published.  Weidensaul is a contributing editor for Audubon and writes for a variety of other publications; he lives in Schuylkill County, and studies the migration of owls, songbirds and hummingbirds from Alaska to Maine.

Anyone interested in forest related topics is encouraged to attend this free program open to the public.  Doors will open at 6:30PM for a social gathering, and the program will begin at 7:00 PM.  Light refreshments will be served. A brief business meeting will precede the program. 

The DCWOA is an organization dedicated to forestry education and service to private landowners in Dauphin County. Emphasis is placed on the ecological aspects of our forests, and the diverse benefits that our forests provide including wildlife habitat, air water filtration, and storm water control. The fact that 59% of the land in Pennsylvania (16.58 million acres) is presently covered with forests and 71% of that land is privately owned makes forestry topics particularly relevant today. 

For more information contact the Penn State Extension – Dauphin County at 717-921-8803 or Andy Brought with DCNR at 717-362-1152.

New Forest Science Fact Sheet on Fern Impacts and Control

Penn State Forest Resources Extension has just released the third in a series of Forest Science Fact Sheets. The latest in the series, entitled Controlling Understory Fern Competition for Regeneration Success, provides in-depth practical information on issues surrounding understory fern abundance. The fact sheet, written by Dave Jackson, Penn State Forest Resources Educator, and Jim Finley, Penn State Professor of Forest Resources, provides research based information from numerous Forest Service based studies.

The latest U.S. Forest Service forest inventory and analysis data indicate that rhizomatous fern species, hay-scented, New York, and bracken fern, now comprise over 20% of Pennsylvania’s forest understories. In 2007 fern-dominated forest understory was estimated at 5,800 square miles (3.7 million acres) in Pennsylvania. Dense fern understories are often biological deserts, lacking plant and wildlife diversity and providing little wildlife food or cover. Research has also shown that fern understories interfere with hardwood forest regeneration, threatening their sustainability.

Hay-scented, New York, and bracken fern are referred to as “interfering plants” since they inhibit the establishment and growth of desirable tree species. A series of comprehensive field, greenhouse, and laboratory experiments evaluating how ferns interfered with tree seedling regeneration concluded the quantity and quality of light to the forest floor was the most limiting factor. Dense fern groundcover can reduce the number of desirable seedlings by 50-90 percent and inhibit seedling height growth by 40 to 65 percent.

U.S. Forest Service researchers began looking at herbicides to control fern in the mid-1970s and found herbicides to be an effective, practical, economical, and safe means of controlling fern understories. Researchers looked at fire and found it stimulated the spread of fern and mechanical weeding was nearly impossible. This work led to the prescriptions commercial applicators use today for fern control.

Sustaining hardwood forest species diversity and timber value requires recognizing when interfering plants, such as fern, are or will become a problem. When fern covers 30 percent or more of an area it is likely to dominate the understory following a harvest or other disturbance. It’s important to recognize and treat fern problems prior to performing timber harvests. Not every site that contains an undesirable fern understory is a candidate for herbicide treatment. Whether your goal is to increase plant and wildlife diversity or regeneration success it’s important to consult with a professional forester who can help you recognize and treat fern problems.

This fact sheet is available online at the link below or in hard copy by contacting the Penn State Extension Ag Publications Distribution Center at:

Phone: 814-865-6713 or E-mail: AgPubsDist@psu.edu

http://extension.psu.edu/natural-resources/forests/private/tools-resources/publications/forest-stewardship/controlling-understory-fern-competition-for-regeneration-success/extension_publication_file  

Describing Sustainable Timber Harvesting: What Do Words Mean?

Below is a great follow-up article to the April 27th post on "Why the Forestry "Profession" Should Harshly Criticize High-Grading" by Dan Pubanz.  The below article is written by Dr. Jim Finley at Penn State University.  Jim is the State Extension Forester and a Professor of Forest Resources.  Give it a read and let me know your thoughts.

Describing Sustainable Timber Harvesting: What Do Words Mean?

From a sustainability perspective, there are right ways and wrong ways to cut trees. A well-planned and executed timber sale focuses on two outcomes: What are you leaving to manage in the future (the residual)? Or, what will or have you done to establish or release regeneration (the next forest)?

If you own more than 20 acres of woodlands, you have likely received a letter or postcard soliciting an opportunity to talk about harvesting trees. The letter might refer to a “select” or “selective” harvest, or cutting only trees larger than a certain diameter. Somehow, they all sound good. These words seem to say the buyer will be careful and select the correct trees to harvest, right?

From a sustainability perspective, there are right ways and wrong ways to cut trees. A well-planned and executed timber sale focuses on two outcomes: What are you leaving to manage in the future (the residual)? Or, what will or have you done to establish or release regeneration (the next forest)?

Unfortunately, terms like “select” and “selective” focus on the trees to cut, rather than the trees to keep. The buyer will select the trees to cut using some criteria such as tree diameter. Where these are the criteria, the select cut becomes a diameter limit harvest and all trees above a set diameter are sold and cut. The logic is that big diameter trees are old and smaller diameter trees are younger. This logic of big and old vs. small and young, however, is most often far from true.

Sometimes the big trees are more likely of one or several species that from the start took advantage of light, moisture, nutrients, and space and jumped ahead. These trees were successful in getting their crowns into the developing canopy to snatch resources away from their neighbors. In essence, they were the winners in the race to gain the dominant position and have continued to exploit it. When you look at a maturing woodland, you will often see that some tree species are consistently larger in diameter. Even if you see a tree species with sizes across the spectrum, just cutting the big ones is almost always the wrong approach. Cutting them first is akin to “selecting” the best and leaving the poorer.

Why does this practice of taking the best and leaving the rest occur? When shopping for fruit, if you take the best looking, someone gets stuck with the rotten, misshapen apples, peaches, bananas. Who? Of course, it is the grower or the store owner. When selling timber, if the timber buyer, or sometimes the seller, picks the best and leaves the rest, who holds the poor quality trees? Obviously, it is the landowner, and those actions and outcomes may extend well into the future as that owner or a future owner tries to recover from a poorly conceived harvesting decision.

Why would woodland owners degrade their forest? There might be reasons. Maybe there is no choice – there is a compelling need for money and taking the best is the only choice. Sometimes, though, the logic of selecting the biggest and best is perceived to make sense. That logic connects to the past and extends into the future. “My grandfather cut these woods. He only took oak trees eighteen-inches and up, and look at it now. There are lots of oaks and red maples.” Those red maples or black birches were much less common when that earlier cut was made. Lack of seed source, herbivory pressure, and other competitive plants have changed the potential for species to succeed in many places. Sometimes woodlots can sustain one diameter or select cut, but the careful observer might note a subtle shift in species composition. The second select cut will shift species, and likely quality, even further from good to worse. That is the connection to the future. How many times can we select the best and leave the rest?

Good harvesting plans have their basis in science, research, and good observation. A good harvest plan concentrates on improving the quality of the woodlands and providing sustainable options for the future growth and management of the woods. Clearly, to practice sustainable forest management takes time – it is a lot more than picking the best or biggest trees to cut and hoping that those left will grow big and strong and represent the diversity of species that can and should grow in our forests. A well-planned harvest focuses on “selecting” the best to leave. Doing this ensures quality in the next harvest, retains species diversity, keeps good genetic and species diversity for regeneration, and results in a healthier and more resilient woodlot.

It is becoming increasingly obvious to foresters, researchers, and woodland owners that regenerating healthy and diverse forests is extremely difficult. Too often, decisions to harvest fail to consider whether tree regeneration is already in place and adequate. Every timber harvest should look beyond just the trees that are cut to assess regeneration and what will benefit from the new light resources reaching the forest floor. It is great when young seedlings are already there; it is bad when the cover near the forest floor is exotic invasive plants (think Japanese stiltgrass, bush honeysuckle, garlic mustard and a host of other species) or native invasive species such as hayscented fern, mountain laurel, beech brush, striped maple and many more. Recent research data from the US Forest Service inventory of Pennsylvania’s forests find that about half of our forests, having undergone sufficient canopy removal to start to regenerate the area, have enough seedlings of desirable species to replace the forest. Our mantra, therefore, should be “every harvest has to consider the future forest.”

It is easy to fall into the trap that all we have to do is harvest the big trees and believe that the next forest will be healthy, robust, and there for the next generation of owners. Practices that on the surface sound good – select, selective, or harvests based on diameter – are not the tools we need to use to care for the land. Good forest stewardship and sustaining forest values means that we have to look forward to leave the best and take the rest.

To learn more about how to avoid mistakes when planning to harvest timber, contact the Natural Resources Extension Office to request copies of Forest StewardshipNumber 7: Timber Harvesting an Essential Tool and Regenerating HardwoodForests: Managing Competing Plants, Deer, and Light.

Pennsylvania and the Chesapeake Bay Cleanup Effort

Interestingly enough I came across both of these related articles today and decided to share them with my readers. It seems we need to do a better job in our efforts at reducing the amount of non-point source pollution, predominantly from farms, reaching the Chesapeake Bay. As noted in the first article Pennsylvania needs to increase the number of farms under nutrient management plans and continue planting many more acres of forest and grass buffers along streams. In addition, the second article highlights a curriculum I use entitled "The Woods In Your Backyard." This curriculum is focused on landowner with 20 acres or less. It encourages them to begin managing their woodlots with a focus on getting rid of the mega-lawns in an effort to reduce pollution to the Chesapeake.

EPA Chief calls Pennsylvania’s Lagging Bay Cleanup “discouraging”

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy acknowledged this week that Pennsylvania had not done enough to control pollution flowing into the Chesapeake Bay, and said that her agency needed to coordinate with agriculture officials to change the course.

Pennsylvania’s lack of progress is “discouraging at the very least,” McCarthy told hundreds of environmental activists, government officials and foundation leaders attending the Choose Clean Water Coalition conference in Annapolis. “I need to talk to the USDA as well,” she added, to applause, “because there is work that needs to be done.”

EPA officials and the states involved in the Bay cleanup have known for years that Pennsylvania lagged behind. But a report released last June showed the Keystone State would need to double the number of farm acres under nutrient management and plant seven times as many acres of forest and grass buffers as it did in 2014 to meet its interim reduction targets under EPA’s Total Maximum Daily Load pollution diet.

Pennsylvania contributes a large share of the pollution loads to the Chesapeake Bay, and agriculture is the bulk of that. The state has 35,000 farms in the Potomac and Susquehanna watersheds, according to Richard Batiuk, associate director of science, analysis and implementation for the Chesapeake Bay Program. Many of these farms are small dairy farms, exempt from the Clean Water Act regulations of animal farms because they are too small to meet the thresholds. Some are also Amish and Old Order Mennonite operations, and those farmers are hesitant to take government funds to modernize their operations to control pollution.

Pennsylvania officials unveiled earlier this year a plan to “reboot” the state’s lagging Bay cleanup effort by vastly increasing farm inspections and finding new sources of funding.

For the rest of the story click here.

Small woodlots are a big deal to the Chesapeake’s restoration

The commencement of spring is always a significant moment in our Chesapeake forests. Buds swell, ready to break dormancy and add the first of the year’s growth to the canopy while green hues begin to emerge from the forest floor.

It is also significant for forest enthusiasts who, themselves, are breaking from the wintertime’s stupor. For me, spring always provokes an eagerness to get out into the woods just to be there.

It is no wonder that there are many springtime events honoring trees, from maple syrup festivals and the National Cherry Blossom Festival that recognize specific attributes of particular species to Arbor Day, which simply celebrates all of the services that trees and forests provide: cleaning our air, creating habitat, contributing to our economy and providing recreation.

There is little debate as to how crucial forest functions are to the quality of our streams, rivers and the Bay. The Chesapeake Bay Program model estimates that our woodlands prevent more than 180 million pounds of nitrogen from reaching the Chesapeake each year. Around 80 percent of these forests are owned by more than 900,000 private landowners or entities.

Since the 1980s, the region has been losing forest land at a rate of 100 acres per day to development. The forests that remain are more fragmented than ever and face new pressures: invasive plants and pests, diseases, browsing by deer, high-grade harvesting (cut the best and leave the rest) and air pollution. All of these reduce our forests’ ability to provide the vital ecosystem services we depend on to help us restore the Chesapeake.

Although total forest acres are decreasing throughout the Chesapeake region, the number of private forest owners is increasing as land is often divided or sold off in smaller parcels.

For the rest of the story click here.