DNR, Washington State University Extension team up for Forest & Range Owners Field Days

Forest & Range Owners Field Days give participants hands-on, ‘in-the-field’ education presented by experts in forest and land management. Photo: DNR

Whether you own a “home in the woods” or many acres of land, Forest and Range Owners Field Days can help you accomplish your forestland management objectives, reduce risks, and protect your financial investment. These low-fee educational events are co-sponsored by DNR and Washington State University Extension. Each Field Day features classes and hands-on workshops led by experts in forest and range health, wildlife habitat, grazing, soils, fire protection, forestry skills, and timber and non-timber forest products.

The next Field Day is June 22 at a private ranch near Tonasket (register by June 14). More Forest and Range Owners Field Days are coming up, including a Field Day in Sumas on July 27 and one to be held in Forks on August 27.

Keep informed about these and other educational, landowner assistance events, courses and workshops in DNR’s Small Forest Landowner News, a bi-monthly e-newsletter that’s free and chock full of information articles for anyone who owns forestland or, really, any land.

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Happy National Arbor Day!

Healthy trees have endless benefits for cities.

Today is National Arbor Day, and it’s a great time to think about the care and maintenance of trees around you. Are the trees in your yard healthy? Are the trees in your community healthy? The benefits that trees give us are endless.

Rain refreshes the land and nourishes the green landscape. But as houses, stores, schools, roads and paved areas increase and natural tree cover is lost, so is the absorbing effect of vegetation and soil. With no place to soak into the ground, the welcome rain can become costly stormwater runoff.

Without the benefit of trees and vegetated infrastructure, waterways become polluted as oils, heavy metal particles, and other harmful substances run into them. Fish and wildlife suffer, drinking water becomes expensive or impossible to reclaim, property values are reduced, and our living environment is degraded.

Planting the right trees in the right places conserves energy and reduces your energy bills, while helping to fight climate change. See how properly placed trees save energy by providing summer shade, winter warmth, and winter windbreaks. Trees also absorb carbon dioxide, give off oxygen, and store carbon.

Try out the benefit calculator! All you need to do is enter information about a street-side tree and learn about the benefits it provides. Street-side trees are typically located in front yards, medians, parkways, planting strips, or other common planting areas adjacent to streets.

Learn more about the benefits from trees on the Arbor Day Foundation webpage.

DNR’s Urban and Community Forestry Program is working with communities statewide to care and maintain urban forests, and you can find out more about the care of trees by talking with a certified arborist or visit DNR’s website at www.dnr.wa.gov/urbanforestry.

 

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Additional landowner assistance foresters to offer advice to family forest owners

New to DNR’s staff is Ken Bevis, who advises small forest landowners on wildlife habitat management issues. Photo: DNR.

Need advice and access to resources to better manage your forestland? Small forest landowners across the state turn to Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR) for onsite forest management consultation. Now, we have more professionals to provide you with more assistance.

The Small Forest Landowner Office (SFLO) at DNR recently welcomed two highly experienced professionals to its Forest Stewardship Program staff. The Forest Stewardship Program helps family forest owners manage and care for their lands. DNR’s foresters offer consultation and advice to landowners on timber harvests, resource protection, leaving trees for wildlife, reducing wildfire risk, attracting waterfowl, and many other topics.

Meet the new foresters  

Opportunities to learn about trees, forestry and forest health

Douglas fir killed as a result of beetle attack. Beetle populations increase following fire, blowdown, or harvest as a supply of inner bark becomes more available. Under such circumstances, beetle populations can increase to the point where otherwise healthy trees can be killed. Photo: Robert Van Pelt/DNR.

Do you own forestland? Hope to own a small parcel of it someday? Or just want to learn what goes into owning and caring for a wood lot of your own? DNR and the Washington State University Extension team up next month for a ‘Hands-On Forest Health Workshop’ in Glenwood. The Saturday, May 11, workshop will teach you the indicators of forest health and how to assess your forest’s health risks. You’ll even get out in the woods (rain or shine) for some learning in the field… or woods, to be precise. Course instructors will include entomologists from DNR and WSU, and a DNR forest health specialist. Hurry. These workshops fill up quickly. (Glenwood, Washington is 25 miles northwest of Goldendale, or 32 miles northeast of White Salmon)

Prefer to get your education online? WSU Extension’s ‘Forest Stewardship University’ offers online learning modules designed for forest owners in the Pacific Northwest. The courses are low-cost and you can try out a few free sample modules before purchasing to see if online learning is for you.

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Study shows brain gains benefit from a walk in the park

Photo: International Society of Arboriculture/Bugwood.org

We’ve always felt that visiting green spaces like parks and forests reduces our stress and makes us feel more creative, but now an innovative study from Scotland indicates that you really can ease brain fatigue by strolling through a calming natural space. An experiment using volunteers hooked to lightweight, portable electroencephalograms—devices that measure brain wave patterns—confirms that even a short walk in the park lessens brain fatigue.

But what if you don’t live in soggy western Washington? That’s why we encourage well-planned and tended trees in urban spaces and other communities. And that’s also why we celebrate Arbor Day all month-long in April. Citizens, governments, educators, organizations and others are working to make greener spaces through trees.

For those of you who want to read about the scientific methods and conclusions of the researchers in Scotland, here’s a link to an abstract of their study (‘The urban brain: analysing outdoor physical activity with mobile EEG‘) published last month in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

For the rest of us, this New York Times blog about the study breaks it down into plan talk; namely, take a walk.

Find out if your city is one of the 83 in Washington designated as a Tree City USA–-a national recognition for the cities and towns that go the extra mile to manage and care for healthy urban forests.

DNR assists local governments that want to improve the health of their urban forests. This spring, our Urban and Community Forestry Program has provided crews from Washington Conservation Corps (WCC) and Puget SoundCorps to help several city and county governments restore urban forests.

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How does the fish cross the road? We’ve got a program that might help

Before (left) and after photos show how a culvert replacement in Whatcom County opened up this tributary to Kendall Creek to more fish. Photo: DNR/DFW/RCO/Project Sponsors

Do you have roads with stream crossings on your forestland? The DNR Family Forest Fish Passage Program wants you to know there is funding available to correct your fish barrier.

Many miles of stream in Washington State are inaccessible to fish because of barrier culverts or other in stream structures. The program’s goal is to help restore declining salmon and trout populations by replacing culverts with new structures that allow fish to migrate upstream and gain access to quality habitat.

Since the program began in 2003, 232 fish barriers, usually road culverts, have been eliminated on non-industrial timberland, returning some 500 miles of stream habitat to migrating salmon and trout. The opportunity to get help with removing these barriers has been popular with many landowners. (Stop by DNR’s Facebok page to see what satisfied forestland owners are saying about the program.)  

Hooray for Arbor Day in Washington: Are you living in a ‘Tree City USA’ community?

Photo: Guy Kramer.

Today is Arbor Day, a celebration of trees and all the great things they do for us in Washington State. We celebrate Arbor Day through a special program called Tree City USA® which recognizes cities and towns that go the extra mile to manage and care for healthy urban forests. That extra mile includes planning the maintenance of vigorous city trees, now and into the future.

Now is a great time to properly prune your trees. As you do, be sure to never top a tree. Topping—radical removal of a large part of the tree’s crown—may get rid of a few problem limbs, but in the long run you will end up doing more maintenance each year. After a tree is topped, it grows suckers (weakly attached limbs); you’ll have a mess on your hands and a potentially hazardous situation. Learn to property prune now to lessen the damage next time storms hit.

Find out if your city is a Tree City USA–there may be special programs to celebrate trees in your community this month.

If your city isn’t part of the Tree City USA Program, contact your city officials to help them plan Arbor Day celebrations next year. Sponsored by the Arbor Day Foundation in cooperation with the US Forest Service and the National Association of State Foresters, Tree City USA® provides technical assistance and national recognition for urban and community forestry programs in thousands of towns and cities.

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Finding sweetness among the trees: Cambium can provide a spring treat

A stand of lodgepole pine. Photo: Dave Powell/US Forest Service/Bugwood.org

Imagine a time in the Pacific Northwest before the fur traders first offered those dry, hard, brown cones of sugar as part of their trade goods. European honeybees had not yet made their way westward after introduction decades earlier in the colonies. Sweetness would have been available from dried berries and roasted roots, but by this time of year, supplies were probably carefully rationed. For a more concentrated shot of springtime sugars, the cambium of lodgepole pines was almost universally treasured throughout our area. It still makes a fun treat to try, especially if you have some lodgepole pine on your property in need of thinning where removing the bark from a few trees will speed the process along.

(Warning: Harvesting cambium will scar the trunk of your tree. Since cambium is a living layer just under the bark, taking large amounts exposes this living layer and may leave the tree vulnerable to weather and disease. And please don’t harvest from pine trees on tribal or public lands, such as state trust lands, or from trees on private property without permission.)

Here’s how to harvest cambium 

Gain more benefits from your family forest; workshop March 23

Technical assistance is available at the Family Forest Expo.

Washington families who own forestland can get valuable information and expert advice on managing and enhancing their forests at the fourth Family Forest Expo in Auburn.

The Expo is an all-day educational event for forest landowners who cover a variety of forest stewardship topics. There will be several sessions focusing on Eastern Washington forest health issues. Plus, landowners will receive education, technical, and financial resources available.

Whether a novice to family forestry or longtime landowner for many generations, there is something new to learn for everyone who owns forest land in Washington. The Expo will be 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Saturday, March 23, at the Green River Community College.

To register, see the Washington State University Extension flyer for more details.

  

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Tree planting grants offered to local Tree Cities; first come, first served

Increasing the tree canopy is becoming a bigger issue for cities, as they plan for healthier communities.

DNR’s Urban and Community Forestry Program is excited to announce that funding is available for tree planting projects. Only cities who are one of our Tree City USA communities can apply. Nonprofit organizations, educational institutions, or tribal governments may apply in partnership with designated communities.

 The 2013 Tree City USA Tree Planting Grants provide financial assistance to communities working to achieve the goal of a self-sustaining community forestry program by properly planting trees to increase canopy cover. Applicants can apply for up to $10,000 for trees to be planted in their community to enhance urban forests. Although there is a lot involved when planting trees, the funding may not be used to buy the tree seedlings.Though not required, matching funds are encouraged as a demonstration of community commitment to the urban forestry program. Staff and volunteer time, tree planting materials, and other associated costs may be used as match. Projects must be completed by December 31, 2013.

Check out the grant resources webpage for more information on tree planting grants.

Funds for this project are made possible through the USDA Forest Service in cooperation with DNR’s Urban and Community Forestry Program. This is a one-time grant opportunity available to Washington’s Tree City USA Communities.

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