Category: Conservation & Environment

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Succession

Grassy wetlands
To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven. The more you observe in nature, the more sense that old wisdom seems. Last time on the farms I found the value of the devil’s walking stick, for which I never had much previous use. Last time, they pollinators were swarming those plants and the rattlesnake masters. Today I found that pollinators had moved on to the joe-pye weed. The joe-pye is a perennial plant that loves full sunlight and perpetually moist soil.

The cycle and the swerve
In the shade of the thickly planted 22-year-old trees, these herbaceous plants could not prosper. They waited. When we harvested the 22-year-old loblolly last year, they suddenly had a bonanza of sunlight and water, as the pine trees no longer blocked the sun or sucked up the water. The harvest has created temporary wetlands, temporary because they will dry up again when the forests regrow and demand more water.

Impermanence
Everything is transient and their wonder lies in their impermanence.  I am sure the joe-pye were were present but suppressed. Now they burst forth in glory and will do for maybe another 5-7 years. How many times has this cycle repeated?

It was an interesting day weather-wise today. I arrived at the farms around 8am. It was partly cloudy and already hot and humid. I got through two rounds of cutting and was taking a break with my can of Coors when I notice the wind was cool. I heard the thunder and noticed the storm clouds rolling in. It dripped for a few minutes and then poured down a Noah-level cloudburst. This lasted for around 45 minutes, followed by intermittent rain for maybe an hour more. After all that, we got more glorious sunshine.

Dog fennel – What is it good for?

I spent the last hour of the day, and my last tank of gas for my cutter, going after an obnoxious patch of dog fennel. It was thickly covering several hundred yards of former fire break. I know that dog fennel must be good for something, but I don’t know for what. It smells bad. It is of no use to pollinators. Birds don’t like it; deer won’t eat it. It is kinda the a-hole of the plant community, and it grows profusely enough to block paths. It gets 7-8 feet tall in one season. At least it doesn’t have thorns. I cut a path through on Brodnax it for our next fire run. I expect it will grow back next year.

Quail forever
After the day’s work was done, Adam Smith invited me to a meeting of a local Quail Forever meeting. People who love quail love quail with real passion. Quail used to be very common in Virginia. They are not endangered now, but there are not as many. A couple reasons for that. One is a “good” reason. There is less disturbed land. Quail thrive in early succession habitats. As our forests have matured, there is less quail habitat. The other has to do with the culture of agriculture. Used to be that farms were messier. There was a lot of tall grass and weeds along fence lines and roads. Quail like this mess. More mowers and chemical herbicides have changed that. Maybe just let it go. Sometimes doing less is better.

I have fallen & I can’t get up
One last little story. When I was working among the joe-pye and the cypress, I wore my knee-high rubber boots, since there was a lot of mud and water. There was more than I thought. I stepped onto what I though was marshy grass only to sink into water above my boots. I awkwardly stood with my cutter strapped to my shoulder as my boots filled with water. I had to laugh. I kept on thinking of that commercial, “I have fallen, and I can’t get up.” For a little while I thought that might be me.

First two pictures are the joe-pye wetlands. Next shows the storm rolling into my longleaf, followed by looking the other way at the loblolly. Last is the bald cypress on Diamond Grove. That is one of my “personal” trees. I planted it in 2007 and have tried to protect it from the vicissitudes of fortune. It is getting big enough not to need that protection. I thought the picture was cool. It has a primeval character.

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Forest work July 2019

Devil’s walking stick
I never much liked the devil’s walking stick (Aralia spinosa) because of the thorns that can rip your clothes and grab your skin. It hurts. I suppose that is how it got the name. They are common on the Freeman place, although not present on the others. But I have a new respect for the thorny little tree because it is evidently beloved by     pollinators. I saw swarms of bees & butterflies (all different sorts of them) wherever the devil’s walking stick was flowering. See the picture below. In fact, in honor of the new respect, I am going to start calling it by its other common name – Hercules club. Sounds better.

Cutting lanes
I was down on the farms to cut lanes for the prescribed fires we plan in late fall. It is nearly impossible to push through the briars, brambles, sumac and devil’s walking stick … sorry Hercules club, and that really interferes with fire starting.

The idea is to make short fires, so that the flame length does not get too high and kill the good trees. The longer the fire can run, the stronger it gets, hence the advantage of being able to move fast enough to set backfires.

I spent about eight hours just doing that. My cutting tool now fixed, so I could use the power. It was pretty hot today, not as hot as it was last week, but it still got to 90. My system was to work until the cutter ran out of gas, and then rest in the shade and drink Coke or water.

Reedy Creek Hunt Club
On my way out, I stopped at the Reedy Creek hunt club, since I saw some of the guys setting up. They were going to have a fish fry.I could not stay for the because I had still to do some things on the Brodnax unit, but Mike Raney offered a beer. Never turn down beer. Miller light is not one of my favorite beers, but it sure tasted good today. As you can see from my picture, I was still a little flushed from the day’s work.

Picture notes
The other picture of me is an inadvertent selfie. I was trying to take a picture of the butterflies and bees on the Hercules club that you see in the fourth picture. You have to dress like that when you use the cutter. It is very loud, but with those ear muffs, you can listen to an audio book with ear buds inside. Usually I do no more than 5 pictures, but I have a couple extra today. Notice all the bees on the Hercules club. The pollinators also like the rattlesnake master.

It does not have showy flowers, but I guess it tastes good to the bees and butterflies. I also included a picture of my cutting tool and the pines growing out of the brambles, and last is blue sky and the brim of my hat. My excuse is that it is hard to use the camera when you have the wacker hanging from you making noise.

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Fire in oak forests – day 3

I wonder if I have less to write each day of the conference because I am finding less or maybe just getting tired.

Did I get tired, or did I just get lazy?

Understory dynamics
Todd Hutchinson talked about understory dynamics in eastern oak ecosystems, and the seed banks. Seed and plants can persist for many years. Sometimes you can bring them back to life by opening the canopy. Fire alone is not usually sufficient, and neither is thinning alone. Together they do a better job. Disturbance is important. There is not much longitudinal research available on seed banks, but there is a comparison from Wisconsin a study done in 1950 and again in 2004 of an undisturbed oak forest. There was a 23% decline in species present. The seeds and plants persist, but they do need a periodic disturbance to grow and reproduce.

Barking up the tree
Heather Alexander talked about the differences in bark. Oaks have thick and rough bark. Maples, beech and poplar have smoother bark. Why does this matter? The thicker, rougher bark not only resists fire better, but it also absorbs water, making it less likely to burn. Another consideration that I did not consider was that rainwater runs down the trunks of trees. It runs down more easily on the smooth bark, making the ground and leaf litter wetter. All this means that the maples et al are less resistant to fire but also their characteristics make fire less likely.

All leaves are not the same
Marcus Lashley from MSU talked about the variables in how leaves burn. Oak leaves burn fast. Maple and beech tend to get wet and burn less well. They also decompose faster. What you have is differences in fire ecology.

History matters
I was thinking as they were talking about American chestnuts. They were once the most common tree in the eastern forests and then they were all gone. The extirpation of such a key species must have made a difference. It happened within the lifetimes of many of the oaks currently alive. Maybe that was the big change. We need to know the history of the land. This is history. Marcus Lashley’s study indicated that chestnut leaves are very flammable. What is the contribution of the loss? I asked three of the experts about this, hoping somebody will do research.

Chris Moorman from NC State talked about how fire can create diversity. Generally speaking, really hot and cool fires do not increase diversity. It is the middle sort that do a good job. Of course, sometimes we need a very hot fire to set things back.
Bats

Finally we had Carrie Allison from Fish and Wildlife talking about bats. Bats are a challenge for burning and forestry. Some are endangered and you cannot hurt even one. The dilemma is that bats usually thrive with fire. It is good for their foraging and they are attracted to recently burned areas, but while fire is good for bats as a group, it is very likely to harm some individual bats. It is a like missing the forest of trees.

I skipped out after lunch. Afternoon lectures were about extending the burn window. This is not a big issue for me. The weather in southern Virginia is okay for burning lots of days.

Small roads in PA
My pictures are from Orrstown, PA. I took that back way home and noticed the statue of James Buchanan. I guess he was born nearby. He was maybe our worst president, but I suppose a little statue makes sense. Rural Pennsylvania looks like Wisconsin.

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Fire in oak forests – field trip – day 2

Fire in oak forests – field trip – day 2  

The ecology of any place is contingent on its history and the oak pitch-pine barrens near State College, PA has an interesting ecological history. And every ecological history includes its human history.  

The history of the land matters  

We are not sure what the place was like before humans were here, since humans were here since the end of the last ice age. Native Americans used the land and fire was their main tool to change the landscape. Unfortunately, we can only speculate about the various regimes over the past 10,000 years. In the time just before European settlement, Native Americans did not occupy most of this area, although they clearly hunted and burned here. Scientists believe that it was mostly open, widely spaced pitch-pine and oaks, with an understory of scrub oak.  

European settlers cleared and farmed most of the land in the valleys. On the hills and the ridges, they cut timber and grazed animals. Most of the woods was cut off by the end of the 19th Century. Some was used for timber, but most was used for fuel, charcoal for steel smelting. We would be appalled if we saw the landscape at that time. The land was denuded and full of ditches used in iron mining.  

Bad human behavior past produces good ecological results now  

“Bad” human behavior is not always bad for the environment. The barrens is full of amphibians, some rare or threatened, because there are lots of vernal ponds where they can breed. The presence of these vernal ponds does not make sense, since the soil is sandy and drains rapidly – hence the barrens. The reason the ponds do not drain is because people exploiting iron deposits used the pits, which became lined with clays and sediment that hold the water. Ironically, had the environment been better protected in 1900, it would be less productive to the biotic communities today.   1900 was a transition period. It was when people stopped cutting on the barrens and the land began to recover. This ecological history still has great effect on the landscape. Most of the forests are even-aged. They all started to grow up about the same time and the trees are 80-100 years old. There are not many younger trees and no older ones. This produced a beautiful oak forest, but one that was very vulnerable to change.  

Being adaptive is more important to being adapted  

We visited a site of a beautiful oak forest with trees around 100 years old. The SITE of the forest, since the forest is gone. Gypsy moths in 2008-9 and a drought year killed nearly 100% of the oaks. Because of the even-aged nature of the forest and the deep shade the trees had produced, there was no successor generation. With the big trees dead and the no little trees ready to go, oak trees were almost extirpated from this site. The successors are red maples.   Oaks could come back, but not for a long time, since there are no seed sources nearby and acorns do not travel far. Even if they were present, the oaks would have trouble competing with the red maples. This is where fire plays a role. Oaks are relatively better adapted to fire regimes. Of course, if no oaks are present, none can come up, no matter if they are adapted or not to fire.  

My own particular plans  

One of the very good things about this field trip was that I had the opportunity to talk with Daniel Dey, who literally wrote the book on oak regeneration. I told him about my white oak regen plans. I am happy to say that he thinks it will work. He suggested that I protect my nascent oaks from the coming fire at first, maybe burn in anticipation so that they are not hit by hotter fire. He explained that oaks can sprout from roots for many years, even decades. The existing roots allow the stems to grow very rapidly if the stems are cut of top killed. On the Brodnax place, we can harvest the loblolly in maybe five years, burn and then allow the oaks to regeneration. They are there already. I will need to cut back the gum and poplar to allow the oaks to get to a “competitive stage”. That is a term I learned today. These are oaks that have passed the seedling stage and are above much of the soft competition. My current plan is to allow this regen on the Brodnax place on the first 1/3 of the thinned pines.  

My pictures. First is our group at the barrens. Next shows sprouting oak after the burn. Daniel Dey said this is what I should strive for with my oak regen. Picture #3 is s fern thicket. Ferns look nice and they seem pliable, but they can effectively smother and prevent growth of trees. I asked one of the researchers how long this could persist. She told me that absent disturbance, ferns could hold the ground for a very long time. Ecology is contingent. Next picture shows what in Wisconsin we would call oak openings. I love this landscape. Last is a pitch-pine savanna. I would not have recognized the pitch-pine. I just don’t know what they look like. In Virginia, they might be replaced by shortleaf. They looked like shortleaf to me.

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Fire in Eastern Oak Forests Conference – Day 1

Blame Bambi
Blame Bambi. The cute talking animals – a deer, a rabbit and a skunk – were agents of propaganda deployed against hunting and even humans in nature at all. But as John Stowe, one of the keynote speakers at our 6th Fire in Eastern Oak Forests Conference, pointed out, the propaganda was also deployed against fire in the woods. In fairness, this was during a time of war when our country’s leaders feared enemy sabotage in destroying forests. The Japanese did indeed send incendiary balloons toward America, in hopes of setting the woods on fire. It didn’t work, but the aversion to fire stuck.

Born to fight fire
It was part of a general campaign against forest fires, which included Smokey Bear. Again, let’s consider the times and the experience. The US Forests Service was born in 1905 and made its early name fighting terrible fires including the Big Burn in 1910. The science of ecology was not well developed, and it made perfect sense to try to exclude fire. I have no doubt I would have been on the side of the exclusionists, given what was known at the time. But we know more now and fire exclusion is no longer something we can do or should even strive for.

Blame southerners
Stowe talked about other targets of the anti-fire campaign. The only people who wanted to set fires in the forests were arsonists, Indians and southerners, none of whose ideas were respected the respectable scientists. There were even the Dixie Crusaders, who went around the South preaching the gospel of fire exclusion, with disparaging portraits of the “hillbillies” who just liked to set the woods on fire. It was nearly impossible to deny the fire exclusion dogma. Smokey big footed dissent. The great conservationist Herbert Stoddard has his observations in favor of burning ignored or suppressed. Since a picture is worth 1000 words, and I do not want to write 1001 words about this, please refer to the picture I have included. The cover of Harpers 1958. This is how the burners were portrayed. It was not until the 1960s that experience started to overtake the theory and even then, even today, it is hard to advocate for fire. It is much easier to see the flaming failure than the steady benefit.

Get science on the ground
Ben Jones, president of the ruffed grouse federation, was the other keynote speaker. He talked about the importance of getting science on the ground and rejoiced that so many of the 260+ participants at the conference were practitioners. We need knowledge in the mind to be actuated by boots on the ground.

Jones commented that fire is like an animal – maybe a keystone predator (my words) – and lamented that fire in upland oak forests is essentially extinct. Its extirpation is a blow to forest ecology and bringing it back will be useful.

To understand the situation, he recommended “The fire—oak literature of eastern North America: synthesis and guidelines” available as a free PDF from the US Forest Service. I will put the citation in the comments.

Engage
Jones emphasized the importance of engaging all stakeholders but mentioned in particular hunters. Even after all these years, some hunters still think that fire harms wildlife. The science is very clear that properly applied fire is the biggest boost we can give to wildlife, but not everybody has got the word.

Some new concepts and new words (who knew?)
Charles Ruffner from Southern Illinois University complained good naturedly that the earlier speakers had used up much of what he wanted to say, but he was correct. He added some details to the history and showed some charts and maps about pre-Columbian fire patterns. He mentioned that lack of fire contributes to acidification of water and soil, since fire produces acid neutralizing ash. He also referred to two reports – a 1992 Bioscience on fire in the oaks and a 1993 GTR about oak regeneration.  Ruffner also mentioned that they are using fire now at Gettysburg, on the round tops, among other places. I will have to inquire.

He also introduced me to two new words. I was familiar with the noun forms, but had not heard them used as adjectives. The first is “mesification” – this is when shrubs shade out grass and forbs and trees shade out the shrubs. This is the deep and dark woods – wonderful in their place, but their place is not everywhere. They are not very productive for wildlife. The other word was “Clementian” succession. I think this is a made-up word. It comes from Frederic Clements, the American ecologist who came up with the linear view of ecological succession that many of us old guys learned in school. It has since been superseded.

I know this is getting way too long, but I need to “memory dump” before it all goes into the “memory hole.”

Mismatch
Next speaker was Ellen Schutzabarger from Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry. She was more interested in organizational and social mismatches. For example, she pointed out the forestry departments were set up to fight fire. It is hard to transition to use fires. She mentioned other challenges, such as lack of capacity, scale problems, built landscapes and that timber, recreation and ecological benefits may not always be in harmony.
Interesting point. She said that public support for fire is broader than we might suppose, but it is not very deep. Among the chief benefits perceived by the public is that they think fire kills ticks. Everybody hates ticks, but there is some doubt that fire is effective against them. Sure, it kills all the ticks it reaches, but they quickly repopulate.

Working with others
Tom Dooley talked about need for partnerships. He sounded a lot like we used to in public diplomacy, emphasizing that we need to find shared aspirations and look to what we can do together instead of the differences we might have.
What we really need is more boots on the ground and how we can get them is through working with others.

Adaptive management
John Wakefield from Pennsylvania Game Commission talked about the need for adaptive management. Conditions will not be what we anticipate, and they will change, often because of our efforts.

He said we need general goals and then try to reach them in adaptive ways. For example, research indicates that pre-settlement forests were about 12% new forests (almost clear) 7% early succession, 10% early closed, 57% late closed and only 14% dense. Today, the dense forests predominate. He talked about how burning can change (restore) some but how it does not work out as they thought. A light fire, for example, does almost nothing to change the dense forest. They need to adapt.

Well that is about all I can recall for now. I know I learn more from conferences that I attend in person than from those I just watch online, but there is a lot to take in. We have a field trip tomorrow.

Presentations – http://www.appalachianfire.org/past-workshops-and-webinars/2019/8/26/presentations-from-the-2019-fire-in-eastern-oak-forests-conference?fbclid=IwAR2M57gjfYcwu9vWrcuTywEui7HcdLKopDH_lrFyx-nbCylCBM1NkS2vcNE

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Pine beetles

Turpentine beetles
A few problems in the forest. Looks like we have some turpentine beetles. As far as I can tell, only two trees are affected, but no reason to not to react quickly. I called Adam Smith from Virginia Dept of Forestry and we will go and inspect them tomorrow. The trees affected are in the SMZ with lots of hardwood around and some distance between them and other pine trees, so I think we can control the outbreak. Will see what Adam recommends.

Otherwise things are good on the farms. We will do brown and burn in fall and winter and then plant longleaf in the quarter acre openings we made last year. Right now they are full of brush, hence the brown and burn. I took some pictures.

Burning

We will also burn under the longleaf. This is their second burning. I noticed that there was a greater variety of flowers int the burn year. Hope to get that again.

My first picture is the beetle tree. Next is one of the 1/4 acre plots were will burn and plant this winter. Picture #3 is my prickly pear and rattlesnake master, more garden for me than forestry, but interesting. Next is the longleaf-loblolly border. I assert that the natural boundary of longleaf goes exactly through my land in Freeman at exactly that stop. It’s science.

For longleaf enthusiasts, notice that the longleaf are as tall or taller than the loblolly. They were all planted at the same time, i.e. 2012. Longleaf have more variety of sizes. Some are still small and some are tall, but it is a myth that longleaf all grow slower than lobolly. IMO, site prep is the key. That area was browned and burned prior to planting and then burned 4 years later. We will burn again this late year or early next.

Last shows the longleaf stand with a shiny sumac understory. They are getting big.

Update on the beetles
 Well, we confirmed that we have an infestation of black turpentine beetle. Only a few trees are affected. I don’t know how the bugs got here, but this is as far as they are gonna get. They infest only about six feet up, so I can get them. According to the experts, I need to spray the affected trees and any nearby pine. They gave me the particulars and I ordered the required stuff. We will then burn under the trees to knock out any residuals. We got them soon, so I think we can set them back. These beetle are endemic in Virginia. They probably would not kill too many trees, but if I can kill them first, I am content.
First picture shows Adam Smith checking out the trees. Next are happier scenes – the bald cypress I planted this spring (I put in 200, not sure how many will survive) and some wildflowers near the new longleaf.

Update on treatment
Went down to spray the trees today in hopes of stopping the turpentine beetles. I sprayed the affected trees and the nearby pine trees as precaution. The hardwoods are not susceptible to the pine beetles.
I tried to limit the spraying. I want to kill the beetles but with as little collateral damage as possible. I didn’t want to do too much but I hope I did enough. I used Bifen XTS, one of the formulas recommend by DoF.

I used the blue dye (Liquid Harvest Lazer Blue Concentrated Spray Pattern Indicator) so that I could see what I did. According to what I read, you have to spray up only about six feet. The blueish trees are kind of pretty. The blue shows up more on the trees actually infested, because there is lighter color sap and sawdust on the surface. It was supposed to be a hot day, so I was not as enthusiastic about going, but it was not bad. I did almost all my work in the shade. It took about 4 hours to get it done. Had to drive 3 hours each way, so it was a long drive for a short work, but I wanted to get at it as soon as possible.

A beer in the hand
I finished in the middle of the afternoon in time to have my cold beer and relax before heading home. As you can see from my picture, got a little bit of blue dye on my hand. Last is the view from my beer chair.

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Turpentine beetles and grasslands

 A few problems in the forest. Looks like we have some turpentine beetles. As far as I can tell, only two trees are affected, but no reason to not to react quickly. I called Adam Smith from Virginia Dept of Forestry and we will go and inspect them tomorrow. The trees affected are in the SMZ with lots of hardwood around and some distance between them and other pine trees, so I think we can control the outbreak. Will see what Adam recommends.

Otherwise things are good on the farms. We will do brown and burn in fall and winter and then plant longleaf in the quarter acre openings we made last year. Right now they are full of brush, hence the brown and burn. I took some pictures.

We will also burn under the longleaf. This is their second burning. I noticed that there was a greater variety of flowers int the burn year. Hope to get that again.

My first picture is the beetle tree. Next is one of the 1/4 acre plots were will burn and plant this winter. Picture #3 is my prickly pear and rattlesnake master, more garden for me than forestry, but interesting. Next is the longleaf-loblolly border. I assert that the natural boundary of longleaf goes exactly through my land in Freeman at exactly that stop. It’s science.

For longleaf enthusiasts, notice that the longleaf are as tall or taller than the loblolly. They were all planted at the same time, i.e. 2012. Longleaf have more variety of sizes. Some are still small and some are tall, but it is a myth that longleaf all grow slower than lobolly. IMO, site prep is the key. That area was browned and burned prior to planting and then burned 4 years later. We will burn again this late year or early next.

Last shows the longleaf stand with a shiny sumac understory. They are getting big.

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Forest visit #2 June

Alex & I went down to the farms. Unfortunately, my cutter did not work. I tried all the mechanical skills at my disposal, i.e. I made sure there was gas and that nothing was obviously loose, and failed, so we had to spray instead of cut. That is easier physically, but less immediately satisfying. I also cannot use it everywhere. Don’t want to make my bald cypress or white oaks collateral damage, for example.

We also got to “inspect” more, and the pictures are from that.

The first picture is one of our big white oaks. I have been thinking about oak regeneration. I decided that I do not need to plant oaks. All I need do is identify patches and favor them. I started to do that by cutting the gum, poplar and red maples to allow the oaks more space and light.

When I was up at Aldo Leopold Foundation, I led a discussion on his essay “Axe in Hand,” and I have thought about it every time I make choices as the above. Leopold wrote – “I have read many definitions of what is a conservationist, and written not a few myself, but I suspect that the best one is written not with a pen but with an axe. It is a matter of what a man thinks about while chopping, or while deciding what to chop. A conservationist is one who is humbly aware that with each stroke he is writing his signature on the face of his land.”

Next picture is our open pine forests at Brodnax. Alex is in the middle for perspective. He is standing among the unattractively named dog fennel. I am not much fond of dog fennel. It is not pollinated by pollinators and it does not smell good. But it does grow fast and six feet high in a couple months.

I heard bobwhite quail the whole time I was on the Freeman place. I really don’t care that much about bobwhite per se, although I do enjoy hearing them. I care about bobwhite as an indicator species. Their abundance indicates the our land management is working.
The two pictures on the left show the open pine on Brodnax. Top is last year at this time. Bottom this year.  Next shows more of the open pine on Freeman. The last picture is a flowery slope on Brodnax. We plan ted pollinator habitat various places on the farms. We planted none of what you see in the picture. All you really need to do it burn it. The seeds and roots persist in the soil and given the opening, they burst out.

We did not stop at Diamond Grove today.

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June forest visits

Fire encourages flowers in the fields. I notice that our Freeman place has fewer flowers than it did the season after the fire. We have plenty of wildflowers, as you can see in my pictures, but some of the patches are those we planted for pollinators. Left alone, the fields come to be dominated by brambles and sumac. These are fine in themselves, but they form monocultures.

We will burn this winter in Freeman. I hope it will be fun.

I left home at about 4:30am, so I got to Freeman in the early (ish) morning. Lots of birds and I heard bobwhite quail all over the place. I am not managing FOR quail, but I consider quail a marker species for the type of environment I am working to (re) establish, so I am glad to see and hear them.

What I want is a patchwork diversity. We have thick mostly hardwood forest in the stream management zones. We have maybe 40 bald cypress in some of the damp lands and I planted 200 more anyplace my feet got wet. We are making pine savanna over the bulk of the Freeman and Brodnax places.

There is the story of the pond covered by lily pads. It seems to happen overnight. It happens in a month, but nobody notices at all until day 28. This is how exponential factors work, and this is how the Diamond Grove is going. “Suddenly” the canopies are close and the woods are dark.

Diamond Grove is ready to thin this winter. We had canopy close a couple years ago and now it is too dark, as you can see in the picture. This thick monoculture is a legitimate way of forest management, but I am not very fond of it. Diamond Grove features five wildlife/pollinator plots. My friends in the hunt club planted pollinator habitat last year, as you can see in the pictures.

An interesting permutation on Diamond Grove is that the roads are covered with lespedeza. Lespedeza (this variety called Chinese bunch clover) was introduced by government scientists in the 1950s. These days, some people say it is invasive and want to extirpate it. I don’t know about that. Lespedeza grows where other things will not, on the forest road, for example. Quail are fond of lespedeza. It is just right for the baby quail to hide under. Lespedeza is a nitrogen fixer and it does an excellent job of holding soil. I am glad to have it on my road, but I did not plant it. The story is that one of hunt club guys was moving the brush on the road right after he came back from mowing a field of lespedeza. The seems and stems came off and rooted. As I said, I am glad to have it. Nothing else has ever been able to stabilize that road. Not native? Who the heck cares? It fills a proper niche. Given time, it will be “native.”

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Forests and water in Virginia

I attended the Virginia Forest and Drinking Water Forum in Charlottesville today. Not sure if I learned anything truly new & significant, but it was good to get reminded of this important topic and I got to talk to a few people I know in the environmental community and meet a few new ones. You have to go to things and you often learn things that you think you knew but did not. After you learn something related to the things you knew already, you often fool yourself into thinking you knew it before.

I know that I do this because I have documented it. Sometimes I write what I think I will get out of a conference before going and then before reading what I wrote I write again what I thought I knew. It is enlightening. The easiest person for us to fool is ourselves.

Clean water is a forest product, and forests are the best ways to protect our water supply. One of the most famous examples of “green infrastructure” involved New York City’s water supply. Years ago, NYC bought up forest land upstream and protected it from development. They still benefit. That is why I was surprised when someone brought up a study saying that it was relatively simple to purify water and that it made only a 1-2% difference in cost. As I thought about it, I considered that the study may be true but that it missed the point. You can purify drinking water, but clean water is more than just what you drink after it is processed. I think the study is one of those that knows the price of everything but the value of nothing. Anyway, I just decided to dismiss it. Lots of studies say lots of things and if they think the only value of a forest is what they can put a price on, they are full of crap.
Among the speaker was a representative from Miller-Coors. They brew that beer in the Shenandoah Valley, near Harrisonburg. He credited the Coors family with a love of quality beer and a love of nature. He quoted the Coors patriarch as saying, “This is the best beer that I have ever made, but not the best that I will ever make.” Miller-Coors has their own waste treatment plant and they support clean water in Virginia and wherever they sell beer.
In Virginia they make Coors Lite, Miller Lite & Blue Moon. The ordinary Coors is made only in Colorado. I don’t like the Lite products. The ordinary Coors is my favorite to drink down on the farms, when I am working in the heat. It is a “lawn mower” beer, not one you drink in the evening.

I had a good discussion with Justin Barnes about land ethics and wilderness, what that means. Both of us are tying to figure this out. He may succeed. I am sure that I won’t. Or let me explain more precisely, I think that I am coming to an understanding of the land ethic, but that I will never be able to put it into words that I can explain to others. The trite but true idea is that it is the journey and not the destination.

Anyway, I enjoy these conferences. I think I learn a few new things and support the things I know already.