Category: Non-Timber Forest Products

Are Black Cohosh Harvests Sustainable?

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
In Southern Appalachians forests, harvests of non-timber forest products—plants used for culinary, floral, medicinal and other purposes—just keep increasing. Though overharvesting seems to be a major cause for population declines in plants such as American ginseng, black cohosh, and other medicinal plants, forest managers have lacked methods that would allow them to measure the extent…  More 

Forest Service Co-Sponsors Minority Landowner Magazine Conference

by Perdita B. Spriggs, Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center  • 
The annual Minority Landowner Magazine conference is a favorite among small and limited resource landowners. This year’s seventh anniversary conference in Greensboro, North Carolina, themed “Keeping Your Farm Productive, Profitable and Yours,” engaged more than 250 participants, including federal, state, university, and private agencies and organizations sharing information to help maintain family farms. What keeps…  More 

Community Forest Monitoring in Ghana

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
We celebrate the FAO International Day of Forests with a story from Ghana. U.S. Forest Service scientists are playing a role in restoring and conserving African tropical forest land in Africa by training local communities to monitor their own forests. According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), deforestation in Africa occurs at roughly twice…  More 

SRS-Funded Forest Project Wins National Award

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
The Western North Carolina Forest Project, funded with a $1.97 million American Reinvestment and Recovery Act grant through the Southern Research Station (SRS), helped retain or create 164 jobs among 15 small businesses and organizations in Western North Carolina. Now the Land-of-Sky Regional Council, the local administrator of the project, has received the 2012 Innovation Award…  More 

Upcoming Webinar: Forest Farming with Non-Timber Products

by Claire Payne, Science Delivery Group  • 
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…  More 

Ramps: In Abundance or In Trouble?

by Bryan Mudder, SRS Restoring Longleaf Pine Ecosystems unit  • 
Eleven years of monitoring ramps populations Southern Research Station (SRS) research plant ecologist Joan Walker has been monitoring populations of ramps (Allium tricoccum) in the mountain coves of western North Carolina since 2000. Also referred to as wild leeks, ramsons, or wood garlic, ramps are among the first ephemeral greens to emerge during the spring months of March…  More 

Growing American Ginseng on Forestland

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
Science You Can Use Planting alternative crops such as American ginseng is increasingly popular among forest landowners. Ginseng, a native medicinal herb prized throughout the world, can be deliberately cultivated under a forest canopy. As landowners in the southeastern and mid-Atlantic regions of the United States become more aware of possible income opportunities from American…  More