Forestry Webinar Series Wins Two Chiefs’ Award

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Posted on May 16, 2012 by zhoyle

On May 2, USDA Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell and Natural Resources Conservation Service Chief Dave White announced the 2011 Two Chiefs’ Partnership Awards, which included a group award for the forestry webinars developed by the Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS) and Southern Region (SR), the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Southern Regional Extension Forestry, North Carolina State University, Texas AgriLife Extension, and North Carolina A&T State University.

SRS technical information specialist Claire Payne worked with other individual members to develop and coordinate the award-winning forestry webinar series.

The Two Chiefs’ awards highlight and acknowledge existing partnerships and projects where employees from the Forest Service, NRCS, State Forestry Agencies and Conservation District work collaboratively to support conservation and forest stewardship.

The partners in the forestry webinars project collaborated with scientists and managers to produce five webinars in 2011 designed to reach policy makers, federal, state, and private natural resource and conservation specialists, investment specialists, master gardeners, industry and conservation leaders, and landowners. Two webinars focused on the Southern Forest Futures Project, and three webinars addressed the identification, control, and management of invasive plants in southern forests.

In developing the webinar partnership, members stressed the importance of building relationships, finding common ground, and developing contacts in an effort to reach wider audiences, including people who work with small-scale landowners, minority landowners, and limited-resource farmers.

 2011 webinars included:

  • Dave Wear, SRS, and John Greis, SR — Southern Forest Futures Project;
  • Jim Miller and Erwin Chambliss, SRS, and Nancy Loewenstein, Auburn University — Most Prevalent Invasive Plants in Southern Forests —Woody Plants; and Most Prevalent Invasive Plants in Southern Forests — Non-Woody Plants;
  • Jim Miller, SRS, and Stephen Enloe, Auburn University — Management Guide of Invasive Plants of Southern Forests

Over 900 people participated in the 2011 webinars. Survey data indicate that an average of 90 percent of participants were likely to adopt knowledge gained from the webinars in the next 12 months, potentially affecting management of more than 49 million acres. Live and archived webinars enable participants to save travel dollars and fuel costs. Eligible participants can also earn continuing education credits for attending live and archived webinars through the Society of American Foresters and, for specific webinars, the International Society for Arboriculture.

Individuals involved in the award-winning project include:  

  • Claire Payne, Southern Research Station;
  • George Hernandez, Southern Region;
  • Bill Hubbard and Darryl Outlaw, Southern Regional Extension Forestry;
  • Bob Bardon, North Carolina State University;
  • Eric Taylor and Matt Bonham, Texas AgriLife Extension;
  • Gail Brant, Natural Resources Conservation Service; and
  • Josh Idassi, North Carolina A&T State University

The partners produced the webinars through the Forestry and Natural Resources Webinar Portal. The SRS Science Delivery Group supported the webinar project.

 To view upcoming webinars: www.forestrywebinars.net

 To view archived 2011 webinars: www.forestrywebinars.net/previous-webinars

 

 

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Refining Fire Behavior Modeling

Posted on May 15, 2012 by zhoyle

Prescribed fire in Georgia. Photo by David Moorhead, courtesy of Bugwood.

Assessing Wildland Fuels and Hazard Mitigation Treatments in the Southeast

Research by Southern Research Station mathematical statistician Bernie Parresol takes center stage in the special issue of the journal Forest Ecology and Management due out in June in print. Parresol is lead author of two of the five articles—and co-author of two more—in an issue that focuses on methods to incorporate fine-scale data into the tools Southeastern forest managers use to assess wildfire potential and plan mitigation treatments.

Fire is an important part of forest ecosystems in the southeastern United States, especially in the Coastal Plain. European settlers cleared most of the native longleaf pine forests of the region; industry later planted many of the same acres in loblolly pine plantations. Meanwhile, fire suppression policies broke the cycle of frequent low-intensity fires in remaining natural forests, causing the buildup of fuels that lead to wildfire.

Over the last decades, southeastern land managers started adding prescribed fire to other forest treatments to reduce wildland fires, promote forest restoration, and improve wildlife habitat. Because of budget constraints and public concerns about fire and smoke, managers need to prioritize the areas where they will use prescribed fire. To do this, they use wildfire hazard assessments such as LANDFIRE and the Southern Wildfire Risk Assessment (SWRA), both of which use satellite images and other supporting data to represent fuels across a landscape. Although these tools work well enough at the state and regional levels, they sometimes don’t offer enough detail for land managers trying to decide which of their hundreds or thousands of acres should be burned first. 

Setting fire. Photo by David Cappaer, courtesy of Bugwood.

The special issue of Forest Ecology and Management focuses on a study conducted on the 200,000-acre Savannah River Site as representative of an actively managed forest landscape in the Southeast. Researchers used studies on the site to assess wildland fuels, potential fire behavior and treatments to reduce fire hazard. In his first article, Parresol and fellow researchers develop equations to describe fuel loads for both dead and alive materials on the site based on vegetation type, stand age, recent fire history and other aspects. As reported in the final article, these equations were then used to create custom landscape models based on the actual data from the site, then compared with results from LANDFIRE and SWRA to assess the effectiveness of those tools.

Most fire behavior analyses rely on sparse plot inventories and data from satellites, and often do not address the complexity found at the ground level where managers operate. For a second article, Parresol and fellow researchers demonstrate a statistical approach that can incorporate hundreds to thousands of fuel observations into models that managers in the Upper Atlantic Coastal Plains can easily use to prioritize areas to treat to reduce wildfire hazard.

“Taken together, the research reported in these articles shows that fine scale measurements repeated over time can be put into a manageable framework and reduced to create dynamic fire behavior models useful to managers,” says Parresol. “They can also be used to help address scientific questions and to evaluate the effect of management conditions.”

Access the special issue of Forest Ecology and Management.

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Upcoming Webinar: Forest Farming with Non-Timber Products

Posted on May 10, 2012 by zhoyle

Jim Chamberlain with galax leaves, which are used in the floral industry.

Opportunities to Share Information and Grow Resources

Jim Chamberlain, forest products technologist with the Southern Research Station, has carved out a niche in non-timber forest products. Chamberlain focuses on ramps, ginseng, goldenseal, galax, and scores of other non-timber products that flourish in the Appalachian forests. He’s devoted his career to finding and identifying plants, studying their historical uses, and learning about their ecological, cultural, and market values. On May 8 he spoke in New York City at the American Herbal Products Association Inaugural Botanical Congress about the valuation, conservation, and sustainability of wild-harvested herbs. Chamberlain next visited the United Plant Saver’s 360-acre goldenseal sanctuary in southeastern Ohio.

If you missed these opportunities to connect with Chamberlain, join us on Wednesday, May 16, at noon EDT for his webinar Forest Farming Non-Timber Products: Opportunities and Challenges.  Chamberlain co-leads teh eXtension Forest Farming Community, a collaborative effort of forest farmers, university faculty, and natural resource agency professionals that shares information about growing and selling high-value non-timber forest products.

“Gathering has been an Appalachian tradition for generations,” says Chamberlain. “Native Americans depended on non-timber forest products for subsistence, and by 1800 the Cherokee were carrying loads of ginseng to southern ports.” Appalachian people continued to collect forest products to eat such as blackberries, mushrooms, and chestnuts and others such as black cohosh and bloodroot for their medicinal value  and to generate income. Traditional medicine has blossomed into a huge industry, and more than 75 species of medicinal plants are collected from Appalachia. The total U.S. market exceeds $4 billion annually.

“Although forest farming was recognized as a potential land use practice in 1929, the forestry community has only started to promote the importance of non-timber forest products in the last 10 to 15 years,” says Chamberlain. “Forest managers often are unaware that these resources exist on their land, and they typically aren’t included in management plans.  If managers do know about their presence, they may not be aware of their economic, social, or ecological importance.”

Forest landowners are beginning to realize that it may be possible to diversify their income by selling these non-timber products while their trees are growing toward harvest or by focusing on the production of special forest products rather than timber. In his May 16 webinar,  Chamberlain will address production methods, yield estimations, market potential, and other topics. . Eligible participants will have the opportunity to earn continuing education credit. Visit the Webinar Portal to learn more. –Claire Payne

 

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