January 2022 snow cover has again brought the local deer into my yard and they are devouring our American Holly and Ivy we have planted for landscaping. It always amazes me how local wildlife do whatever it takes to survive the harsh winter weather and limited food supply.  Thankfully most of us have no problem keeping warm and have food on the table every night. We can even manage to go about our lives with the luxury of seeking enjoyment even in the long dark winter conditions.

The PA Farm Show this year was again conducting a live show with a theme of "Harvesting More". Attendance was down from previous years but considering that we are all still battling Covid restrictions it went off pretty well. I want to thank the Hardwood Development Council for all their hard work preparing the displays for this year's show. I also want to thank the PFA members who stepped up to man the PFA booth. We had positive interactions with many of the attendees and dignitaries, but we are going to need more help in the future to interact with such a large agriculture-oriented crowd.

PFA Executive Committee authorized the formation of the Association Management Company (AMC) Search Task Team in November 2021. Co-chairs Richard Lewis and Ken Manno have done a great job researching and getting proposals from Association Management firms. The Committee has reviewed the proposals and has narrowed them down to three for interviews which are scheduled mid-February. They will have a recommendation for the Executive Committee meeting to be held on February 17, 2022. The selected firm will be contracted and join us along with Versant Strategies at our Conservation Banquet.   With Versants guidance we anticipate a smooth transition to the new firm in March 2022.

The Conservation Banquet "Raising Funds for Forestry Education" will be held on March 5, 2022, at the Ramada Inn and Conference Center in State College. The banquet and auction will be at the new location and the meal will be buffet style which will give attendees more options and faster service. The PFA depends on this event to finance its forestry conservation mission and invests generated dollars directly into forestry education in Pennsylvania Please join us for an evening of games, drawings, live and silent auctions, and a chance at winning $10,000.00. Only 350 tickets are available for $100.00 each. Get yours today by contacting the PFA office at 800-835-8065.

Thank you to those who purchased a ticket for the upcoming Pennsylvania Forestry Association Conservation Banquet on March 5, 2022 at the Ramada Inn and Conference Center in State College, PA. This year is another sellout year! If you’ll be attending, we look forward to you joining us! Come prepared to bid on in the Live and Silent Auctions. Many of these items come from PFA members and are of great value to those who have an interest in Forestry and the outdoors. There are practical as well as whimsical items: books, tools and historical items. Of greatest interest are the items of art and handmade wood items such as carvings, turned bowls, box calls and furniture.

 

All PFA MEMBERS and SUPPORTERS are asked to scour their garages, attics, basements, offices, bookshelves, walls, storage units, sheds, vacation homes, woodlots and fields for items to donate for the auctions. No items are too small or too large. Contact your local businesses and ask if they can support the PFA with a donation to the auction. Please give your utmost thought, concentration and action to this very important aspect of the event of the year! Tired of that old Ned Smith Signed print of the wall? Donate it! Fed up with that old shotgun that can’t seem to hit the broadside of a turkey? Donate it! Signed letter from Gifford Pinchot appointing your ancestor to the PA State Forest Service taking up valuable space in your home office? Donate it! Too much wild blueberry jam from a bumper crop in your woodlands? Donate it! Old band saw lumber mill you really don’t use? Donate it! You get the idea, now, please, get out there and find things to fill the auction tables!

 

State College Borough does require that masks be worn indoors in public settings unless eating or drinking.

 

For those unable to attend, be sure to watch the drawdown online! We will be broadcasting via Facebook Live (www.facebook.com/paforestry). Be sure to watch to see where your lucky number lands!

 

If you have any questions, please contact the PFA office at 800-835-8065 or via email at [email protected].

 

Sincerely,

Mark Ott

Event Chair

The Pennsylvania Forestry Association’s Forest Heritage Discovery Center located in the Caledonia State Park near Fayetteville, Pennsylvania is seeking to contract for the services of a part-time assistant to staff and help manage the Discovery Center. The work will be on Fridays from 2:00 to 6:00pm, Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays from 12:00 to 5:00pm, from Memorial Day weekend (May 27th) to Labor Day (September 5th), 2022. The compensation for the services supplied is $17.50/hour.

The Center will follow Covid-19 safety protocols.

The successful assistant will:

• Become familiar with the Discovery Center’s displays and exhibits

• Open and close the Discovery Center

• Clean the Discovery Center as needed

• Greet and welcome all the Discovery Center visitors

• Help Discovery Center visitors learn about and understand the information presented on displays and exhibits

• Work with PFA volunteers

• Liaise with DCNR State Parks personnel

• Other duties as necessary

Please email a one-page cover letter and brief résumé by March 15th. Applications will be accepted until the position is filled. Send materials to Peter Linehan ([email protected]) PFA Forest Heritage Committee Co-Chair. For more information, email or call 717-440-4348.

Photo: Headwater stream at Bald Eagle Tree Farm called Lick Run where macroinvertebrates were collected January 26, 2022 2022.

Last week I met with Suzy Yetter of Clearwater Conservancy in State College to review some data on the small Lick Run that flows through my tree farm in Centre County. She offered to assess life in the stream which I thought would be difficult considering it was only 10F and had been below freezing for at least a week or longer. I was amazed at what was not only alive but very active in January. I asked her for a brief write up that could be shared with other people interested and forest landowners. We tend to focus on the things we can see, but there is another world that benefits from our forest management efforts that we don’t see.

At first glance, a stream may seem empty of life, but for every insect you see hovering above the water, there are many more living underneath the surface. Just as a frog begins its life as a tadpole in the water before changing into an adult and moving to land, many of the insects you see flying near streams and wetlands spend their early life stages in the water. Some even take years to mature in the water, only to live a few days or weeks on land.

These insects are part of a large group of organisms called aquatic macroinvertebrates, which is a fancy name for an extremely diverse and adaptive group of freshwater organisms that lack internal skeletons and can generally be seen with the naked eye (~>1/2 mm or 500 microns in size). Through competition for food and space and predator avoidance, aquatic macroinvertebrates have become a highly adaptive group that can be found in nearly every type of aquatic habitat from flowing streams, still ponds, saturated soils and even tiny pools of water. Even a mug of water left out over time can become habitat for macroinvertebrates, especially mosquitoes.

Aquatic macroinvertebrates form a crucial part of aquatic food webs and play important roles in breaking down organic matter and nutrient cycling. The number you can find living in the gravel beds of a stream are truly astonishing. Even in winter when ice covers the top and water temperatures can drop below freezing, unpolluted headwater streams in Pennsylvania are teaming with life. Running water does not typically freeze when the temperature drops below freezing (0°C) and acts as an incredible insulator for the critters within it. Although the surface of the stream may appear frozen, this layer of ice is only a few inches thick and provides additional insulation against freezing temperatures. Not only does the stream bed emit geothermal heat, but the subsurface where surface and groundwaters meet also provide a freeze-free refuge for organisms.

It may surprise you to know that very large numbers of stream insects are more active in the winter than in the summertime. This is because forested headwater streams in Pennsylvania are typically cold-water streams and the communities within them not only adapt to colder water temperatures in winter, they prefer them. In fact, warmer temperatures are more troublesome for these organisms, especially most stonefly species, which is why their aquatic life cycles coincide with cooler months, with many species emerging from the water as terrestrial adults in late spring before the summer heat begins. Larger stoneflies that require multiple years to develop as aquatic larvae are often limited to forested headwater stream environments where waters tend to stay cool year-round.

The winter, even under freezing conditions, is a period of great activity and growth in temperate streams, and this ability to continue activity at very low temperatures is carried out of the water and onto the land for some insect species. A good example are the winter stoneflies (Family Capniidae). After they emerge from the water, adult winter stoneflies travel across snow and ice where they mate and deposit their eggs while the weather is very cold. Flying adults are always black (which absorbs the maximum amount of radiant heat from the sun) and become active as soon as the sun shines.

Examples of macroinvertebrates collected at Bald Eagle Tree Farm on January 26, 2022 include:

There were also other and macroinvertebrates larger invertebrates active in the stream bed. This is a selection of what is under the rocks and debris in the stream. Suzy indicated lots of good stuff, with an IBI score of 81.2 (that’s out of a possible range of 0 to 100 with 100 the highest score possible) putting the stream in the highest tiers for biological condition and water quality.

John Hoover

PATF Committee Chair

The vast majority of landowners have small woodlots less than 10 acres in size. Woods in Your Backyard Series is designed specifically, but not exclusively, for smaller landscapes. Join us to learn how landowners can positively influence the environment by implementing simple stewardship practices.

(7:00 PM - 8:30 PM ET)

Wednesdays

Jan. 19 & 26, 2022

Feb. 2, 9, 16, & 23, 2022

Mar. 2, 9, & 16, 2022

Live Online, via Zoom

Landowners

Land Managers

Conservation Organizations

Why Manage Forests

Forest Ecology

Creating and Managing Wildlife Habitat

Identifying and Controlling Invasive Plants

Forest Health Issues and Management

Forests and Water

Selecting Native Trees for Various Sites

Establishing Meadows and Forests

Creating Plans for Your Property

The Woods in Your Backyard Manual

The manual used for this workshop, The Woods in Your Backyard: Learning to Create and Enhance Natural Areas Around Your Home, is a self-directed book. It will guide participants through the process of developing and implementing projects to enhance their land's natural resources.

Each participant will receive a complimentary, full color, 108-page copy of The Woods in Your Backyard manual (a $29 value).

The Advice from the Woods: Ask Our Experts event involves a panel of Forestry and Wildlife Extension Educators and Faculty tackling participant-submitted or commonly-asked questions and scenarios as a team. This is an opportunity to meet your whole team of experts at once, and for a given issue, hear discussion between multiple informed perspectives to help you gain a better handle on the many complex factors involved in addressing or solving an issue.

Wed., Feb. 23, 2022

(12:00 PM - 1:00 PM ET)

Live Online

via Zoom

Questions and issues related to forestry can sometimes be complicated. They may involve ecosystem science, past historical practices, economic factors, insect and disease epidemiology, herbicide applications, family dynamics, and even neighbor-relations to name a few--all at the same time!

The panel will be facilitated by a designated team member who pitches your questions or topics to the group and keeps the ball rolling. When possible, the discussion is kept general enough to apply to a wide audience of forest landowners and forest enthusiasts in Pennsylvania as well as the broader region.

Forest landowners

Forest enthusiasts

What will you learn?

Answers to commonly asked questions

New perspectives on scenarios and issues raised by registrants

After completing registration, participants will be given the opportunity to submit questions or scenarios ahead of time to have answered by the team during the event. This is a unique opportunity to put our entire team of experts to work in discussing what you most want to hear about. We want to use your specific input to guide the live program! Here's how it works:

We will also address new questions that come up during the live program - if time allows, but submit your thoughts in advance for the best chance to hear the team discuss them live.

This event is being offered at no charge to participants.

Registration is required to receive the link to access the webinar.

Registrants will also receive access to the webinar recording.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — In partnership with the Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry, Division of Forest Health, Penn State Extension will hold a conference focused on forest health in March, with options to attend in person or virtually.

The in-person version of the “Forest Health, Insect, and Disease Briefing” will occur from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 15 at the Penn Stater Hotel and Conference Center in State College.

Participants wishing to attend an abbreviated virtual event can join a live webinar either from 8:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. or 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Thursday, March 17.

The conference is designed for forestry and other natural resource management professionals.

According to organizers, the conference will review the status of Pennsylvania’s forest insect and disease problems and provide important forest health updates and information. This will be the 41st annual spring briefing.

Participants will learn:

— Valuable updates on current forest health practices and threats facing Pennsylvania’s forests.

— The impacts of insects, diseases, invasive plants and other health issues on forests.

— Management practices and control methods to maintain and improve forest health.

This meeting is approved for Pennsylvania pesticide recertification credits, both category and core. In addition, participants can earn Society of American Foresters Continuing Forestry Education credits, International Society of Arboriculture Continuing Education Units and Sustainable Forestry Initiative Training Units.

Virtual participants must attend one full live session to receive credits. No continuing education credits will be available for viewing recorded sessions.

Participants can register for the in-person conference through March 7 at $72. More information about this workshop is available on the Penn State Extension website at https://extension.psu.edu/forest-health-workshop.

The registration deadline for the webinar is 8:30 a.m. Thursday, March 17. Registration, which includes a $25 fee, is required to receive the link to access the webinar. Registrants will also receive access to the webinar recording. More information about the webinar is available on the Penn State Extension website at https://extension.psu.edu/forest-health-insect-and-disease-update.

###

EDITORS: For more information, contact Dave Jackson, extension educator, at 814-359-7480 or [email protected].

Alexandra McLaughlin

Penn State Ag Sciences News

The NIACS team of Climate Adaptation Specialists has hosted over 50 Adaptation Planning and Practices courses since 2013. This year, we are offering several specialized online Adaptation Planning and Practices trainings for natural resource managers. These courses provide virtu training in considering climate change information and identifying adaptation actions for natural resources management professionals working in natural ecosystems. Participants receive coaching and feedback while using the Adaptation Workbook to develop their own real-world climate adaptation project! You can see examples of past and ongoing projects on our adaptation demonstration projects page.

NIACS is partnering with the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, Midwest Climate Adaptation Science Center, Michigan Department of Natural Resources, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the USDA Climate Hubs to offer this training focused on wildlife management and conservation.

The Wildlife Society has approved 10 Continuing Education Units (CEUs) in Category 1 of the Certified Wildlife Biologist Renewal and Professional Development Certificate Program for completion of this course.

In this training participants will identify adaptation actions that support their unique forest-carbon management, conservation, and stewardship goals. Learn more about carbon storage, sequestration, integrating carbon considerations into forest management, and the synergies between adaptation and mitigation actions. This course will have a regional focus on forest ecosystems in the Midwest and Northeast.

The Forest Health, Insect, and Disease Briefing will once again be conducted as a face-to-face meeting for 2022. A live webinar will also be offered for those unable to attend the in-person event.

Pennsylvania pesticide recertification credits (Category and Core), Society of American Foresters continuing forestry education credits, International Society of Arboriculture continuing education units, and Sustainable Forestry Initiative Training units will be available. Virtual participants do not need to attend both webinars, but they must attend one full live session to receive credits.

Session topics and registration for the in-person and virtual event will be available in January 2022.

Who should attend?

This meeting is designed specifically for forestry and other natural resource management professionals.

This in-person conference includes the day-long program of the full briefing, including a Core credit pesticide session, the DCNR insect and disease update, and five additional forest health presentations.

Date: March 15, 2022

Time: 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Location:

The Penn Stater Hotel and

Conference Center

215 Innovation Blvd.

State College, PA 16803

The virtual event is an abbreviated update of the full briefing. These live webinars will be presented in the morning and repeated in the evening. Each session will include the insect and disease update from DCNR and a Core credit pesticide session.

Date: March 17, 2022

Times:

8:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. or

6:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Location: Live Webinar

Are you a Green Industry professional interested in expanding the suite of services offered to your clients to include creating and enhancing woodlands and meadows? If so, then the Natural Area Management Services Series: A Case Study three-part series is for you! Developed by The Woods in Your Backyard Partnership, this program aims to inform and equip green industry professionals with knowledge and skills to provide additional services to clientele while improving ecosystem health. Small-scale natural area management services include wildlife habitat enhancement, forestry practices such as thinning and chosen tree management, tree planting, and invasive control. A resource manual and specialized checklist tool complement the training and help Green Industry professionals determine which enhancement practices suit a given property.

Thursdays

Mar. 10, 17, & 24, 2022

(2:00 PM - 4:00 PM ET)

Live Online

via Zoom

This 3-part series provides in-depth instruction related to the management of a small-acreage property from start to finish through our case-study scenario. We start with an assessment of the property with a standard checklist and proceed with plan development and finish with the implementation of various land care practices including management of existing tree canopies, invasive plant control, lawn conversion to trees, and deer impact mitigation.

Green Industry Professionals Interested in Providing Natural Area Management Services to Small-acreage Clients

Land Managers

Interested Landowners

The program will inform and equip participants with knowledge and skills to provide additional natural area management services to clientele while improving ecosystem health

Property assessment, with a standard checklist, and plan development

Implementation of various land care practices including management of existing tree canopies, invasive plant control, lawn conversion, and deer impact mitigation

A certificate of attendance will be provided to all “live” session attendees which can be used to obtain professional development credits. The course had been submitted to several organizations for prequalification so certificates will be accepted. No credits will be available for listening to recordings.

This webinar series is provided by The Woods in Your Backyard Partnership which includes the University of Maryland Extension, Penn State Extension, Virginia Cooperative Extension, Virginia Department of Forestry, and the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay Forestry for the Bay.

Registration is required to receive the link to access the webinar.

Registrants will also receive access to the webinar recording.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Since the 1990s, scientists have been predicting that North American tree species will disappear from portions of their ranges within the next 50 to 100 years because of projected changes in climate. A new study led by Penn State forest biologists found that when transplanted to warmer environments, ash trees can survive increased temperatures of 7 degrees Fahrenheit and sometimes even up to 18 degrees Fahrenheit, suggesting that these trees may be more resilient to climate warming than previously believed.

“We know that species distribution models based only on climate are biologically imperfect,” said lead researcher Kim Steiner, professor emeritus of forest biology in the College of Agricultural Sciences. “However, they are the best we have for predicting where species would be found in a climatically different future, and it is extremely difficult — especially with trees — to experimentally test and possibly refute such predictions."

Because trees grow slowly, it takes decades to draw accurate conclusions about their ability to survive in an altered climate, added Steiner, who recently retired as director of The Arboretum at Penn State. He explained that this study focused on an experimental test of what happens when populations of two eastern North American tree species were moved to warmer or colder climates for an average of 35 years.

Harrisburg, PA – Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding announced that the department has lifted a quarantine in place since August 2014, because Thousand Cankers Disease no longer threatens Pennsylvania’s black walnut trees. Pennsylvania leads the nation in production and exports of hardwood lumber, and the disease was once thought to be a significant threat to the state’s $36 billion hardwoods industry.

“Quarantines are excellent tools to help protect our agriculture industry and our economy from disease and pests,” said Sec. Redding. “When science demonstrates that the disease is no longer a threat, restrictions on commerce are no longer necessary. We remain vigilant against invasive species and disease threats, but the quarantine as a tool has done its job.”

Thousand Cankers Disease is caused when walnut twig beetles, which carry a fungus called Geosmithia morbida, tunnel beneath the bark of walnut trees, causing small cankers to form. Over time, repeated beetle attacks and resulting cankers disrupt the movement of water and nutrients throughout the tree, causing branches and limbs to die and eventually killing the tree.

Several peer-reviewed, published research studies have shown that despite the presence of the beetles and fungus, native black walnuts in Pennsylvania have been largely unaffected by the disease. Black walnut constitutes about one percent of Pennsylvania’s hardwood forests and is highly sought after for furniture and other valuable products, as well as the nuts it produces.

Efforts to control walnut twig beetles using parasitic wasps are still underway and the department will continue to monitor the presence of the insects, fungus and disease in Pennsylvania.

The quarantine restricted movement of materials from walnut trees, living or dead, including nursery stock, green lumber and firewood, as well as roots, branches, mulch and other debris. It applied to Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Lancaster, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties. Affected businesses in those counties will be notified of the action this month.

The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture also issued a quarantine in 2007 prohibiting the movement of firewood of all types and species into Pennsylvania unless it is labeled as "kiln-dried" and/or is USDA-certified. This quarantine, still in effect, is designed to help slow the spread of nonnative, invasive forest pests and diseases that are often moved long distances hidden in firewood.

Campers and homeowners can help protect Pennsylvania's urban, suburban and forested areas from nonnative invasive forest pests and diseases by the following:

•       Buy and burn locally cut firewood,

•       Burn any firewood already brought from another area. Don’t leave it behind or take it with you.

The repealed Thousand CankerDisease quarantine order can be found in the Pennsylvania Bulletin.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Researchers in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences will use a newly awarded $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to work with 13 other land-grant universities in the eastern U.S. to create an education program that will help private forests owners adapt to and mitigate climate change.

The funding comes from the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture through its Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, the nation’s leading competitive grants program for agricultural sciences. The award is aimed atpreparing forest owners to take advantage of carbon market opportunities and prepare the forestry extension workforce to better serve their clients in forest carbon and climate issues.

Forests are the lowest-cost climate-change solution available, according to Melissa Kreye, assistant professor of forest resource management, who leads the research team. U.S. forests comprise more than 90% of the land sector’s carbon sequestration potential and offset up to 20% of total U.S. fossil fuel emissions. But forests also are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change due to increased risks from weather, pests, fire and other climate-driven disturbances.

“Those factors could reduce forests’ effectiveness in climate-change mitigation,” she said. “Despite very promising developments in policy, in the carbon market and in technology, forest landowner interest and participation in carbon-offset projects remains a major, unresolved bottleneck requiring much-needed change.”

The Penn State-led program is intended to address that critical bottleneck using an integrated, stakeholder-driven approach to developing and expanding extension activities that lead to increased inclusivity in the adoption of practical solutions and durable change, Kreye explained.

The project will address USDA’s priority area, Agriculture Economics and Rural Communities, she noted. The proposed work focuses on the eastern U.S., home to 82% of the country’s private forests. The future of forests and climate strongly depends on engaging forest owners in science-based climate-change solutions, Kreye pointed out.

“The scale and scope of this problem aligns very well with the Cooperative Extension System’s capacity, and the rapidly evolving nature of the topic is driving the need for new knowledge and program creation,” she said. “It is also driving the need for additional coordination among universities, federal and state agencies such as the USDA Climate Hubs, extension, and stakeholders to help make solutions actionable.”

The overarching goal of this project is to dramatically increase the involvement of private forest owners in climate-change solutions and advance a more inclusive carbon economy, according to Kreye, who called the objective “aggressive but achievable.” She explained that her team aims to achieve it by developing informative and widely accessible materials and programs that help forest owners make informed decisions about rapidly evolving carbon incentive programs and markets and managing forests under climate change in key regions.

To increase the quality and diversity of climate-change-related content in extension programming, Kreye plans to leverage existing networks among extension and outreach professionals in the universities and state and federal agencies, and partner with conservation and industry groups to provide professional-development training to extension professionals.

Also leading the research team is extension educator Calvin Norman, co-founder of the Carbon Markets 101 pilot project, to be rolled out in the research.

Penn State’s grant is one of six such awards given to universities around the country.

“These projects will work toward net-zero emissions in agriculture, working lands and communities adapted to climate change, [as well as] training a diverse workforce that can communicate and incorporate climate considerations into management and climate justice that is appropriate for unique U.S. agronomic conditions,” said Carrie Castille, director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

–Jeff Mulhollem, Penn State University

If you are thinking about joining a carbon program, there are some things that you, the landowner, should ask before signing on the dotted line.

Because of the requirements set by the California Air Resources Board for compliance markets, programs that sell your carbon on a compliance market (also known as a regulated market) often have long contracts (100+ years). Programs that sell your carbon on a voluntary market generally have more flexibility and have contracts that range from one year to 30 years. It is important to consider how the length of contract fits with your forest and your goals for your forest. For example, enrolling in a 20-year harvest deferral program could be inappropriate for an 80-year-old aspen forest, since the aspen are at the end of their life and will likely be dead within the next five years. Instead, the aspen should be clear cut to maintain a healthy diverse ecosystem.