Chrissy jokes that I talk so much about my brush cutter that I like it better than I like her. Of course, that sure is not true. You can see all the pictures of Chrissy that I proudly post on Facebook. However … the cutter is looking good and I did take it down to the farms, bought it several drinks, gas not beer, as you see in the first two pictures.
I spent the day cutting paths and cutting around the longleaf that I could find on Brodnax. There are lots of them on the slopes facing north and east, likely because the dirt there did not dry out as much, but there are not many in some sections. Besides the drier conditions, I think that the bramble over topped some. As I wrote elsewhere, I learned a few things from this experience and will apply them on Freeman. On the other hand, I cannot go back in time, so I have to adapt from now. I plan to fill in with loblolly and oak. As I wrote, first two pictures are cutter related. Next is the 2016 loblolly at end of the day, followed by the scene of the longleaf field. I took both from the ten foot tower that the hunt club put there. Last is some of the places were there are lots of longleaf. If only it was like that more generally.
Keeping up with our plans for our forests. Tract 1 Acres: 20 Forest Type: Longleaf pine Species Present: Loblolly & longleaf pine, ailanthus, American sycamore, sweet gum, yellow poplar, eastern red cedar, hackberry, shortleaf pine, Virginia pine, mockernut hickory, white oak, chestnut oak, black oak, green ash, mulberry, sassafras, black cherry, persimmon, holly, black locust, blackgum, and red maple. Age: Longleaf pine planted 2016. Volunteers of other species same time. Size: Planted 2016. Currently small Quality: good. IMO a little thin with longleaf. Trees/acre: Thinly stocked for our management objectives, but enough, since we want to allow growth of grass and forbs. Growth Rate: excellent. Recommendations: The vegetative nature of this parcel provides benefits to wildlife due to the diversity of ground covers and understories. We plan to:
Do understory burns every 2-4 years. This will over time make the stand more exclusively longleaf
Create field borders on this parcel
Maintain and enhance diverse and native ground covers
2019 observations and actions Tract became overgrown with brambles and hardwood brush, a lot of redbud very aggressive. I made paths with my cutter and looked for longleaf. I found that the site is insufficiently stocked with longleaf. My guess is that it results from too low survival rate after planting and competition, even though we did release spray and burning in fall of 2017. The task of trimming around the extant longleaf is labor intensive, but I had the tool and time, so I did it. It is, however, clear that even if all the longleaf survive, there will never be enough of them to dominate the site. My new plan is to diversify the tracts with oak and super loblolly. The oaks will be a mix between natural regeneration and an experiment with 150 acorns I gathered under a magnificent bur oak near the Capitol. I have cleared brush and planted the acorns. See if they grow. I am also letting the nearby oaks seed in. I have ordered a thousand “super” loblolly and I will put them in the rows where longleaf woulda/shoulda been. I figure that the longleaf head start will make them about the same size at first thinning. Tract 2 Acres: 30 Forest Type: Loblolly pine planted 2016 Species Present: Longleaf & loblolly pine, sumac, some oak, ailanthus, American sycamore, sweet gum, yellow poplar, eastern red cedar, hackberry, shortleaf pine, Virginia pine, mockernut hickory, white oak, chestnut oak, black oak, green ash, mulberry, sassafras, black cherry, persimmon, holly, black locust, black gum, and red maple. Age: Planted in 2016 Size: Tallest around 8 feet high in 2018 Quality: Excellent Trees/acre: Adequately stocked. Trees are widely spaced on purpose to allow wildlife and understory growth Growth Rate: Excellent Recommendations: Parcel will be burned o/a 2021, a cool season fire to clear hardwood and thin volunteer loblolly. Density will be maintained low enough to allow growth of forbs and grass for wildlife habitat. 2019 observations and actions The trees are doing very well on most of the tract. In some places, however, they are overgrown with hardwood competition, especially gum, poplar and redbud. The redbud is a surprising competitor. I just never thought about it, but it has formed tight thickets that are shading out everything else. I have been doing “touchup” with my cutter, knocking down the thickets. I figure this will give the loblolly the advantage they need to get above the redbud, which can then form the pleasant understory. Tract 3 a, b & c Acres: 45 Forest Type: Loblolly & longleaf pine. Species Present: Loblolly and longleaf pine, ailanthus, American sycamore, sweet gum, yellow poplar, eastern red cedar, hackberry, shortleaf pine, Virginia pine, mockernut hickory, white oak, chestnut oak, black oak, green ash, mulberry, sassafras, black cherry, persimmon, holly, black locust, blackgum, and red maple. Age: Loblolly planted 1992. Longleaf pine planted 2018/19 Size: chip and saw to sawtimber, loblolly; longleaf are seedlings Quality: excellent Trees/acre: Adequately stocked, although purposely thinner than standard management due to our desire to maintain wildlife habitat. Growth Rate: Excellent Recommendations: Tract a, b & c will be burned in alternatively to create and maintain wildlife habitat and maintain a fire regime more like pre-settlement patterns in Virginia. This tract also includes pollinator habitat planted in 2018 along the edges. We hope and expect this to seed into the sunny forest. 2019 observations & actions The growing season fire of May 2018 on tract 3a killed about two dozen trees. I left them as snags for wildlife and planted some longleaf underneath. I have also been in with my cutter, knocking down hardwood except for oak. The fire did a good job of cleaning up the understory. The dormant season fire on February 2019 on 3c was nearly perfect. I have some oak regeneration in the understory and will be on the look out to protect them, but I have done nothing besides observe. Mixed results with pollinator habitat. We planted around five acres along the edges in 2018. Some came back in 2019, but not as profusely as I would like. I will plant in some patches in spring 2020 Tract 4 a, b & c Acres: 24 Forest Type: Loblolly pine. Species Present: Loblolly and longleaf pine, ailanthus, American sycamore, sweet gum, yellow poplar, eastern red cedar, hackberry, shortleaf pine, Virginia pine, mockernut hickory, white oak, chestnut oak, black oak, green ash, mulberry, sassafras, black cherry, persimmon, holly, black locust, blackgum, and red maple. Age: Loblolly planted 2007 Size: mostly pulp; some chip and saw Quality: excellent Trees/acre: Adequately stocked, maybe even a bit too tight. Shade does not allow much to grow on the ground under the trees. Growth Rate: Excellent Recommendations: Tract a, & c will be burned in alternatively to thin in lieu of pre-commercial thinning. Track 4b will be left unburned as a control plot 2019 observations and actions I walked around the tract but saw nothing useful to do. There are some vines growing into the trees and if I have extra time (unlikely) I can do in and knock some of them down, but the site is well stocked, and the canopy has closed. Wait for first thinning. PARCEL SMZ Acres: 18 Forest Type: Mixed hardwoods and pine. Species Present: Loblolly pine, ailanthus, American beech, American sycamore, sweet gum, yellow poplar, eastern red cedar, hackberry, shortleaf pine, Virginia pine, mockernut hickory, white oak, chestnut oak, black oak, green ash, mulberry, sassafras, black cherry, persimmon, holly, black locust, blackgum, and red maple. Age: 40 to 80+ years Size: Various sizes including significant saw timber. (10 to 18 inches in diameter) Quality: Good to excellent Trees/acre: Adequately stocked Growth Rate: Good to excellent Recommendations: This parcel is in place to protect water quality and to provide wildlife corridors. We will periodically examine the SMZs for invasive species and treat as appropriate. Beyond that, this area will be generally left to natural processes, with interventions only in the case of some sort of disaster, such as fire or particularly violent storms. 2019 observations and actions I walked through the stands several times. The forests look healthy. Our February 2019 dormant season prescribed fire backed down through the adjacent SMZ, cleaning up some of the brush and litter and resulting in a little “thinning from below.” We plan to back fire down the other side of the SMZ in winter of 2020. Periodic burns should have beneficial effects over time.
Timeline Year Tract Activity 2018 —3a Growing season burn – Done –3a Understory plant longleaf – Done 2019 –3c dormant season burn – Done 2020 –3b & 4a Winter burn 2021 or 2022 depending on conditions –1 & 2 Winter burn, maybe whole property 2022 –SMZ Remove invasive species 2023 –3b & c Clear cut harvest –3a Harvest leaving 8 seed trees per acre –4a, b & c First thinning to 80 BA –3 & 4 Spray 2024 –3b & c Plant with Longleaf pine 400/acre –3a Seed tree regeneration 2025 –1 Winter burn 2028 –1 & 3b & c Winter burn 2030 –4a, b & c Thinning to 50 BA –3a Harvest seed trees –1, 2, 3b & c Winter burn
This schedule may need to be adjusted depending on financial needs, timber markets, timing of actual harvest, and availability of contractors.
I had not planned to stay overnight, but I felt too tired to drive home, so I stayed at Fairfield in Emporia. Not planning to stay, I didn’t have my computer, my phone was almost out of power & I didn’t bring a book, so I just went to sleep at 9pm and got a good night’s sleep. Early today, I could go out to the farm and work all day w/o getting very tired. I got a lot done, but there is a lot to do.
I looked for and cut around the longleaf on Brodnax. Chrissy says I am praising my cutter too much, but it is great. Unfortunately, there are large areas where the longleaf are just absent. Too few longleaf
As I have written before, I think they were planted too late in the year, so survival was not great. I think others were killed by the brambles. Anyway, I learned a few things I should have done. Not able to go back in time, however, I have two options and I will exercise both in part. Oaks fill in First is to allow oaks to fill in and then favor oaks. I want to have more oaks on the land, so I am cutting around the oaks where there are not many longleaf. Super trees The second option is to fill in with “super” longleaf. I ordered 1000 Varietal Loblolly Pine from Arborgen. These are supposed to be the best genetics. I figure that the longleaf have a three-year head start. If these loblolly grow as they say they should, they should end up at about the same in ten years. No matter what, I can see how well they grow. First picture shows some of the longleaf where there are enough to them. Net is a little longleaf near a burned stump. I just though it was a good picture. Also indicates that the longleaf survived the fire. Picture # 3 is one of the oaks I found and trimmed around. Next is the 2016 loblolly on one side and the 2016 LL on the other. Longleaf are harder to grow. Last are tracks I made w/o noticing on the way to Burger King. I noticed only when I got inside. I guess the clay was on the bottom on my boots and it got loose when I walked across the wet parking lot.
My right arm and hand, left shoulder and both legs hurt today, but I had fun and did some useful work cutting corridors for the fires we plan this winter. The weather was cool on Saturday and not hot on Sunday, so the work was easier.
I love my new cutting head. It can take down decent sized brush, does wonders on brambles and still get at the grass. The other new thing I got are those ear protectors you see in the picture. I can put the earbuds in under them and listen to my audio books – much better than using earplugs.
My bald cypress are my big concern. They survived the fire of 2017, as I confirmed when I see the black marks on the bottom of their trunks. But conditions have changed in that we harvested the nearby loblolly. This gave the cypress lots of sun, and they are responding wonderfully. It also gave more sun to the grasses, sedge and forbs. They have also grown wonderfully and I am afraid that they will provide more fuel for the fire than the cypress can tolerate. With that in mind, I am cutting corridors and cutting around individual trees. There are only a few dozen of them, so I have the capacity. I plan to set this part of the fire from the corridor, so that the fire will be “tame” here. I am afraid if it picked up momentum, it would be too hot.
You can see the corridors in the pictures below. The big asters are examples of the growth of the wildflowers since the harvest. They are about seven feet high.
The longleaf are supposed to be able to handle the fire. Still, I worry about them. My longleaf are so wonderful, as you see in the picture below. I don’t want to lose any of them, so I am cutting corridors there too, both as places to set off the fire and to provide calming for the fires that hit them.
A big danger is where two fires come together. They shoot up a hot plume that can singe the trees enough to kill them. The corridors should help mitigate this.
I have been consulting with Adam Smith about the fire. We agreed that we can back the fire into the stream management zones. It will be cool enough and probably go out in the SMZ. If it makes it to the water, it will stop there. In any case, it will not be likely to harm any big trees, but will clean up the brush.
After the fire, we will plant longleaf in the clearings.
I was also cutting on Brodnax. I am looking for longleaf we planted in 2016. I am finding some, but not as many as I would like. In the spirit of adaptive management, I am going to plant acorns I recently gathered and see if I can have some oak regeneration. There are also some big white oaks on the edge, so I expect that they will contribute too. I hope to get an oak-pine mix. I think it will be interesting. Still a lot of work to do. I was happy to have Chrissy along this weekend, but I will probably have to go down alone a few more times before the fires.
I sense a subtle but important change of emphasis in the ICC reports on climate change that I think was evident in this “Deep Dive: IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate” I attended today. There was plenty of gloom about the projections of the future, and there is plenty to be gloomy about. The earth is warming at a rate unprecedented in human history. Oceans are rising both from thermal expansion of the water and lately from the melting of terrestrial glaciers (melting of sea ice does not raise sea levels) and there is danger that the Antarctic ice sheets could join in, something not previously anticipated in this century. The change in emphasis that I perceived is a more practical approach. There is more emphasis on trying to figure out what we can do, both to mitigate and adapt, and less of ultimately fruitless search for blame in the past. An iterative process is making the science better An important factor, IMO, is that projections are becoming more precise. Science is an iterative process and with each iteration we get better, never finding final truth but getting closer to usable ones. Introductions Introducing the day’s program was Ambassador David Balton, Senior Fellow, Wilson Center and Pete Ogden, Vice President for Energy, Climate, and the Environment, United Nations Foundation. They laid out some of the facts I mentioned above and talked about the value of the new report. This is the first one to emphasis oceans and the cryosphere. These two were put into the same category more as an expedient than a plan, but their pairing was fortunate, since they are intimately connected. Water flows between them. Ogden talked about the usefulness of IPCC reports. The scientists do not make policy, but they inform it. How the IPCC report function works Ko Barrett, Vice Chair of the IPCC, talked about how the IPCC reports are produced. This one involved 104 authors combining 6981 studies and encompassing 31,176 comments. The report documents the thawing of glaciers and permafrost. Barrett explained that changes are coming too fast of natural systems to adapt. Humans can help, and we will need to adapt, but we need to mitigate change to slow it down enough that we can adapt. The oceans have been absorbing much of the heat of climate change, but marine ecosystems have been harmed (consider bleaching of coral) and there is a question about how long this can continue. Things often do not develop uniformly. Rather, natural systems feature punctuated equilibriums with tipping points of significant change. This is a risk. Timely, ambitious and coordinated action are called for. In high mountains melting is evident. Smaller glaciers are shrinking, and some are disappearing. Glaciers and snow cover are reservoirs. Even if we limit greenhouse gas today, ¼ permafrost will be lost. This is already affecting arctic populations. Many low-lying islands will be under water. She mentioned something I had not thought about – oceanic heat waves. Of course, it makes sense. Oceans have weather just like the land does. And the extremes are the issue, not the average. The quicker and better we act, the better we will be able to address the issue Next up was a panel discussion moderated by Monica Medina, Founder and Publisher, Our Daily Planet. First to present was Mark Eakin, IPCC Contributing Author. He talked about oceanic heat waves that cause coral bleaching. There have been three big bleaching events in recent years: 1998, 2010 and a long one 2014-17. The distressing fact is that this is still going on. Once coral ecosystems are dead, they take a long time to come back, even if the heat is abated. We are currently looking at big bleaching events around Hawaii and the Caribbean. Robert DeConto, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; IPCC Lead Author, talked about his part of the report showing a set of charts, showing projections based on a low possibility, a blue curve with aggressive curbing of emissions, and a higher one, a red curve if current trends continue. We – and the world – probably can adapt to the blue line, red maybe not. Sea level rises – thermal expansion and melting of terrestrial glaciers There has been a change in why sea levels are rising. In the past, it was thermal expansion. Now it is more land-based melting. Greenland is melting from the top down. As it melts, it gets darker and absorbs more heat. There is more than 7 meters of sea level rise worth of ice in Greenland. An even bigger problem would be Antarctica. The danger here is sea level rise and the sea getting under the ice. Much of Antarctica is below sea level. It has been in the deep freeze, so it did not matter, but if water gets below the ice, it will be a bigger deal. Adaptations requires mitigation, not a choice between them Michael Oppenheimer, Princeton University; IPCC Coordinating Lead Author, picked up with what can we humans do about the problem. The big thing is to reduce emissions so that we are closer to the blue line. We might have a chance to catch up with this, to adapt. Adaptation will include retreating from the coasts and allowing for natural buffers. There have been buyouts after hurricanes. Those who do not want to move away might build higher off the ground. We can also build protections, like sea walls. We can even advance into the sea, as they have in Netherlands. But a precondition for any adaptation is to mitigate. Mr. Oppenheimer was very critical of subsidized flood insurance. This encourages building where it otherwise makes no sense. This is exacerbated by incentives that do not include preparations. The Federal government will help after a disaster, but fixing the system gets politicians no credit. People forget the last disaster and they don’t appreciate the disaster avoided. During the question period, Mr. Oppenheimer talked about adaptation. Some of our coastal problems are exacerbated by climate change, but climate change is not the primary driver. Conservation of coastal areas in ecosystems like salt marshes and mangroves could be very helpful. These systems are themselves adaptive. It is an ecosystem-based defense. But we tend to destroy these things as much as protect them. Developments in the high arctic There was supposed to be a second panel, but evidently the only one to show up was Ambassador Kåre R. Aas, Ambassador to the United States, Norway, so Moderator: Sherri Goodman, Senior Fellow, Wilson Center, interviewed him. Ambassador Aas gave practical advice. We cannot solve all the problems at the same time, and so need first to address the worst or the ones that pay off the most. Fix the problem not the blame. Norway is working toward a no net carbon future, but in the meantime is a big producer of oil and gas. The Ambassador emphasized that using gas is better than coal, even if the long-term goal is to use neither. The thawing arctic is opening up new opportunities and challenges. Shipping is become easier in the region. The Arctic Ocean is a kind of frozen Mediterranean Sea. If it thaws, ships can move. Resources are also an issue if the deep freeze thaws. The Norwegians are watching with some alarm the Russians on the Kola Peninsula. This is an old concern, made more current by climate change. But the Ambassador has observed that many people feel more threatened by the Chinese than by the Russians. China is no where near an arctic power, but they have strong interests in the region’s resources. Ambassador Balton and Rafe Pomerance, Chair, Arctic 21, closed the program. Mr. Pomerance emphasized the need to get lots of people onboard, to build consensus. These are big issues that affect everybody. Solutions imposed, even if they are objectively sublime, will not be as effective as those brought about by consensus. All things considered, an interesting discussion, encouraging despite the gloom of many of the facts. We have to continue our striving. You can download the report at this link.
I took advantage of jet lag and got up at 3:30am, so I got down to the farms about the time the sun came up. It is nice to drive in the very early morning, almost no traffic. I can listen to my audio book w/o having to concentrate on traffic.
Freeman and Brodnax are now officially Stewardship Forests. DoF Adam Smith did the necessary paperwork. The program recognizes that we are managing to increase economic value, while protecting water and air quality, wildlife habitat, and natural beauty. This is how I want to do things anyway, treat my land according to a robust land ethic, but it is nice to be recognized.
First picture shows me on Freeman with the sign and plaque. Adam came by while I was doing some cutting, making paths and trimming around some of the trees in anticipation of our prescribed fire that we plan to do in December. That is why I look a little disheveled. I should have taken off the harness, but just was not paying attention. The second picture shows the flowers in back of me. I noticed that they looked very nice, but that my body and the sign hid them the first time.
I fight invasive species all the time on my farms. It is an endless battle against ailanthus, multi flora rose and Japanese honeysuckle, among others. Invasive bugs are killing trees I love. This is another endless struggle.
Add in climate change and human induced landscape changes and we know it is a fight we will not win, but maybe we can finesse better solutions.
First, we need to accept the reality. The concept of “native” and invasive are now merely conveniences. Native means little when in the face of so many changes. We can never really “restore” the old world and really would not want to. The moving finger writes and having writ moves on.
Our task now is not to try to mimic the nature we found, but rather try to understand and use natural principles to help more appropriate systems develop. We will never get it “right” but then neither does nature. It is always a dynamic. There never was and never can be nature in static balance.
That does not mean we should not favor natives long established. In practice, we should give natives something akin to the right of first refusal. If a native species works well, go with the native. But if conditions have so changed that the native species is no longer appropriate, we need not go to radical means to make it appropriate. Ironically, the only way to “restore” nature in many cases would be with massive human intervention.
What we need now is an iterative approach, think-try-think again-try again. We are dealing with not with a complicated system but with a complex and adaptive one, which means that what we do will change basic conditions.
Our metaphors of nature are not always appropriate. I mentioned the idea of balance, more a religious than a scientific concept, but the one I am thinking of here is that idea of nature as a tapestry. We say that if we pull out one thread, the whole thing can unravel. This is true of a tapestry and for a complicated system. It is not true of a complex, adaptive system. Nature is not fragile. Nature is robust; we are fragile.
These were some thoughts as Chrissy and I walked through the Royal Botanical gardens in Madrid. The garden is packed full of species from all over the world, many grow well here in Spain. Many are not associated with each other anywhere except where humans have made it so.
I could catch a giant sequoia, palm tree & bald cypress in the same picture frame. It reminded me of a natural environment I visited in Arizona, a “sky island” near the border with Mexico. The warming after the last ice age made the area hot and dry, but cold adapted species persisted on higher elevations. But the species mix is odd. You find cactus & agave next to spruces, fir and ponderosa pine.
It is useful to recall that species were not always where humans initially found them and some thrive much better outside their native range. A good example is the Monterrey pine, isolated locally in its home in California but fantastically well adapted to parts of the Southern hemisphere. Or consider the eucalyptus, found only in Australia by the time humans came around, but a tree that developed in South America and now is common there again. What is native anyway?
Pictures are from around the garden. You can see a sequoia from California flanked by a bald cypress from the American Southeast and a sub-tropical palm – mixed and novel relationships. Another shows a zelkova. I noticed because the Japanese zelkova became common around Washington as replacement for American elms killed by Dutch elm disease. This one, however, was a central Asian native. Next picture is just one of my favorites of the southern pine forests and American plains – a rattlesnake master. And up top are some horse chestnuts. They are native of the Balkans, but planted very widely in Europe and North America. Unfortunately, they are also threatened by a leaf miner. They were lovely trees.
Just getting there Getting to the Moyers Tree Farm means driving for miles along twisty mountain roads, probably the most convoluted major roads in the Commonwealth of Virginia. They named it Highland County for good reason. If fact, Highland County has the highest average elevation of any county east of the Mississippi. This gives it a New England feel. If you were just set down here w/o orientation, you might think you were in New Hampshire, not Virginia, but Moyers were Virginia Tree Farmers of the year and they hosted their first Virginia Tree Farm landowner dinner at their place. It was worth the drive along those convoluted roads.
Virginia Tree Farmers of the year The Moyers are superb stewards of their land, as I have written elsewhere. All our tree farm members are good stewards. That is the ticket in. Moyers are a step beyond because of their exceptional commitment and outreach to the community. Ronnie Moyers and his daughter Missy displayed this during the program for about 30 landowners. Caring for your land is part science, part art & part experience, but all these parts are united by passion. We learn from books. We learn from courses (lots of good and almost free ones offered by Virginia Tech, DoF etc.) and we learn from experience. Most of all, however, we learn from the interaction of all these things with the land we love – think, do, reflect and do something better. There is no shortcut this understanding, but there are ways to get a head start. We can learn from the informed experience of others, and a good way to do this is to at landowner dinners. This one was especially useful.
Maple sugar We started out at the Moyers’ sugar bush. They have 35 acres of maple trees tapped for maple sugar. Ronnie rigged up a system of tubes that brings the sugar water to the sugar shack, where they boil it down to syrup. The Moyers use traditional methods, i.e. heat, and a traditional fuel source, i.e. wood. Wood is in local surplus these days because of the high ash mortality. Ash makes very good firewood and it is available to anybody willing to get it. Missy emphasized how much wood it takes to do the job. You have to boil 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. They have a lot of it stockpiled, as you can see in the picture. Ways to make syrup I was unaware that there were other ways to make maple syrup out of maple sap. The new was is by reverse osmosis. Who knew? Missy explained that it is important to them to make it in traditional ways for cultural and aesthetic reasons. How you make something can be as important as what you make. The traditions are important to the community. Virginia is not a big producer of maple syrup. We have plenty of red maples, not as many sugar maples and outside Highland County almost none of them are tapped for sugar. ¬¬little Highland County produces more than half of all Virginia’s maple syrup, but even here it is not major production for supermarkets. Rather, it is more related to what we might call agro-tourism. Missy said that during the maple syrup festival last year, around 4000 visitors came to the Moyers’ sugar shack. Oak regeneration & Microbiomes The Moyers farm features several different micro-ecologies short distances up or down the hills. The maples near the top of the hill quickly gives way to oaks a little down. As in many places in Virginia, there is concern about oak regeneration. We are worried about our oaks, and they suffer from oak decline. This is a non-specific ailment. It might be caused by stress of drought, soil compression, or maybe just old age. Trees live a long time, but they do not live forever and as they get older, their resistance to disease and bugs declines. There was a lot of disturbance and regrowth in Virginia forests 80-150 years ago and a lot of our oaks were born in those times. An oak might live hundreds of years, but just like humans, not all of them make it close to their maximum life spans. You have to know something about the history of the land to understand the current biotic communities. The oaks moved in as farms were abandoned, but one of the biggest changes came when the chestnut blight wiped out the American chestnut. Chestnuts were a dominant – predominant – species in Virginia west of the Blue Ridge, making up as much as 25% of the total canopy cover. The bight was first detected in North America in 1904. It reached Virginia about ten years later and a little more than ten years after that had killed most of Virginia’s chestnuts. It was a disaster ecologically and economically. The end of the chestnuts and the start of a novel ecology It also created an essentially new ecosystem in the span of about two decades. Oaks, hickories and poplars filled in the gaps left by the chestnuts. This is the Virginia forest our generation knew. Maybe this is not equilibrium that will be established. Maybe the oaks are part of transition that, at least in wetter forests will be dominated by red maples, beech and poplar. These kinds of thing play out over decades or even centuries, and it will all be complicated by climate change. Speaking of chestnuts, they did not die out completely. The blight comes in through cracks in the bark and then kills the tree only to the ground. The roots survive and produce new sprouts, that can grow until they get old enough to get cracks in their bark and they die back. Ronnie found a sprout about 30 feet high. Who knows how long it will persist? The roots are at least a century old. A new hope for the American chestnut The blight is always present. It survives in beech and oak trees. It infects but does not kill them or cause them any significant harm in general. Beech, oak and chestnut are related species. Scientists have isolated the gene that allows for survival and researchers at State University of New York, Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY ESF) have developed a trans genetic chestnut that has all the characteristics of the American chestnut with the one difference in the gene that protects it from the blight. This gene will not encourage successful mutation of the blight, since it does not kill the blight, but allows the tree to survive. In some ways, it is arguably a “win” for the blight, since it can continue to survive in chestnut trees w/o killing them – the dream job for a blight. Golden wing warbler Our last stop before the tree farm dinner was to look at what the Moyers have done to reestablish habitat for the golden winged warbler. This once-common but now threatened species requires a mixture of openings and old-growth forest. Moyers got a grant from NRCS to harvest a stand of generally less productive chestnut oak and to allow for root sprouts and forbs. Ronnie said the he had hunted in that woods as a boy, decades ago. The trees were mature then and were not much bigger when they were harvested. NRCS grants allow for the harvesting of this sort of timber, which would be marginally profitable or not profitable at all. The unfortunate part of this initiative is that it may not work because Virginia is only part of the puzzle. The Virginia birds migrate to Columbia & Venezuela in the winter. The population of golden wing warblers in the Great Lakes is a little better off. They winter in the Yucatan. These two populations used to be mixed in North America, but now they are largely separated. How this will affect their genetics and survival is not known. On the plus side, these openings are generally good for wildlife and for regeneration of desirable species like white and red oak. While we hope, and scientists believe, that the initiative will help the golden winged warbler, it has all sorts of collateral benefits. Good food After the field day portion of the program, my colleague Glenn Worrell gave a presentation about tree farm and we had a wonderful dinner. Pulled pork is the standard fare at most tree farm and outreach dinners, and I am very fond of pulled pork. At this dinner, however, we had a catered dinner featuring a nice beef with mushrooms, green beans and potatoes, with a cherry cheesecake desert. People don’t appreciate free interesting permutation is that these dinners used to be free. We decided to charge $10 as an incentive to get people to come. $10 is not much, but when it was free, we got lots of no-shows. Now most people come. Human nature is funny. Sometime you can get more customers by charging more. People really don’t appreciate free. I had to get on the road before it got too dark. I failed. It was like playing a video game with the twists and turns illuminated only by the reflectors on the road. Unlike in the video game, however, I would not just come back if I drove off the edge. My first picture is the sugar bush, followed by the sugar shed with its wood supply. Picture #3 shows Ronnie and daughter Missy at the event. Ronnie’s love of forestry is inspiring. Missy did most of the organizing. Picture #4 shows the lecture on the golden warbler with the golden warbler habitat in the background. Last is a market tree, as least that is what we think it is. We estimate that tree is more than 200 years old. Native Americans used to mark trails and significant places, but bending trees to the ground. Sometimes they would continue to grow even in the supine position.
It is a lot farther from Baraboo Wisconsin to the Hoosier National Forest than I thought. Most of yesterday on the road. On the plus side, I got a lot of audio book done. On the down side, it was a long and not so interesting drive.
I went down to Madison to meet with Paul DeLong, senior VP at American Forest Foundation and the one who does Tree Farm. We met for lunch at the Tipsy Cow, on just off the Capitol Square. We had a great talk about landscape management plans and ecological restoration.
Paul was the Wisconsin State Forester, and so his ideas are interesting and informed by experience. I have a lot to think about from talking to Paul, the guys at Aldo Leopold and Chrissy’s uncle Jerry Apps, who I also talked to. Jerry’s most recent book is on the CCC in Wisconsin. Got a lot of impression and information to make sense.
I walked around Madison, went down to the old lake trail where I used to run and walked up and down State Street. It was more than a mere walk down memory lane. Walking around these places stimulated a lot of thought. Wisconsin has great traditions in conservation & education.
One of the better things about Wisconsin was/is “The Wisconsin Idea”, a philosophy of the University of Wisconsin System that the university programs should be applied to solve problems and improve health, quality of life, the environment, and agriculture for all citizens of the state. This is in line with what Aldo Leopold did in Coon Valley and what Jerry Apps did during his career in UW extension. It was a boots-on-the-ground partnership of the people and the professors. I thought about that in its original context and how it works and might work now. Such a great tradition. It made such a difference, but it is not well known.
My first picture is the State Capitol and the statue of Hans Christian Heg. He was born in Norway, but when the Civil War broke out he joined up to fight for his adopted country and to set other men free. He led Wisconsin 15th, a Scandinavian regiment. He was killed in 1863 at Chickamauga, GA. One of Chrissy’s ancestors fought with the Wisconsin regiments in the Civil War. He survived the war, but his wife died while he was gone. Next is Bascom Hall and Bascom Hill. It doesn’t look that steep, but it is hard to walk up that hill when the path is icy. I did it hundreds of times. Studying at University of Wisconsin was great. Being born in Wisconsin was a great move on my part.
Picture # 3 is shows food trucks in front of Memorial Library. After my drunken student stage, I moved into the nerdy scholar stage. I spent many – many hours at that library, actually liked it. They did not have those trucks there in the old days. There was wagon where some hippies sold very good cookies, but that was about it.
The lake trail is picture #4. For a couple years, my life was studying at the library and running on that lake trail. Sometimes they were mixed. My method for writing papers was to read all the sources and then go run. I thought about it as I ran. It brewed. When I got back, I wrote everything in one sitting and then filled in footnotes and cleaned up the prose. I found it much better flow. The flow of the run complemented the flow of ideas.
Last is Geko Arts. The only reason I include that is because Cousin Elise has her jewelry line with the same name.
If we don’t plan now for the restoration of oak forests, our children and grandchildren will not have them. It takes 40-60 years to grow and oak tree and they are not regenerating fast enough.
It is easy to overlook this problem. Oaks are common trees. There are lots of oaks … now. But if you look under the big oak trees, you find very few little oak trees. Little oak trees don’t like to grow in the shade of big oak trees. That means that oaks need disturbance. Fire was much more common in oak forests in the past. We need it again.
I stopped off at Hoosier National Forests to talk to Travis Swaim, who is managing for oak regeneration. They recently burned 750 acres and I wanted to see what it looked like. I am doing oak regeneration on parts of my land, on a smaller scale of course.
Southern Indiana is an interesting ecology. It is hilly. Looks like western Virginia, not the Indiana we see in the flat north.
Travis talked about the differences on the Hoosier National Forest. They have relatively dry south facing slopes, where oaks can compete well and wetter northern slopes with deeper soils where the poplars and maples dominate. They also have karst landscapes, i.e. very permeable limestone soils.
These were and will be again hardwood forests. In fact, this is the heart of the hardwood. Settlers cleared these forests and much of what is the Hoosier National Forests was exhausted when the government acquired the land in the 1930s. CCC and others planted pine, longleaf and white pine. These are now mature and foresters want to transition back to hardwoods, including oak.
My pictures are from my walk in the woods to see the burn. They also thinned, leaving high quality oaks for regeneration. Travis says they may have to burn again, but maybe not. They will have to monitor and see how it goes. It is an art.
My pictures show the open oak forest. My second picture is rattlesnake master. I was glad to see this in the burned zone, since I extrapolate that my own rattlesnake master will survive the fires we plan to set in December. Last picture is deeper woods with beech trees. I was glad to see the beech survived. I like beech. These were near the road, where they first set the fire, so it was not that hot.
