All Articles Page 4

Regional Participants Gather at the Fourth Experimental Forest Workshop

by Megan Bequette and Naomi Cohen-Shields, SRS Science Communications Interns  • 
About 30 USDA Forest Service scientists gathered in Raleigh, North Carolina this month for the fourth workshop in a series about reinvigorating the SRS network of Experimental Forest and Range sites. The group included 17 SRS scientists, in addition to FIA, EFR sabbatical recipients, university collaborators, and two partners from the Southern Region of the…  More 

Research for Mississippi and Beyond

by Sarah Farmer, SRS Science Communications  • 
Water defines the Mississippi Delta, an alluvial plain in northwest Mississippi. The Delta is sandwiched between the Yazoo and Mississippi Rivers, and a network of levees and pumps aim to keep the land dry enough for habitation and agriculture. In 2019, however, historic flooding left fields inundated for months. USDA Forest Service scientists have served…  More 

Promoting Forest Health in Kentucky

by Jennifer Moore Myers, SRS Science Communications  • 
Most bourbon whiskey is made in Kentucky, and federal law requires all bourbon to be aged in white oak barrels. USDA Forest Service researchers and partners are teaming up to advance the sustainability and restoration of white oak resources across the South. This research, along with forest health research on the American chestnut and other…  More 

Longleaf Pine on the Santee Experimental Forest

by Jennifer Moore Myers, SRS Science Communications  • 
In 1989, South Carolina’s Francis Marion National Forest lost close to a third of its pine and hardwood trees to Hurricane Hugo. USDA Forest Service land managers have spent the last thirty years recovering from that disturbance and working to meet the state’s growing needs for clean water, forest products, recreation areas, and wildlife habitat.…  More 

The State of U.S. Forests

by Sonja Oswalt, SRS FIA Forester  • 
The U.S. forest products industry accounts for approximately four percent of the nation’s total manufacturing GDP, producing over $200 billion in products every year. To keep tabs on the condition and status of America’s forest resources over time, the USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis Program compiles the official estimates for all public and private forest lands in…  More 

Predicting Fire Behavior with New 3D Fuel Models

by Diane Banegas, USDA Forest Service, Knowledge Management and Communications  • 
Land managers have a new tool in their firefighting arsenals that models forest fuels in three dimensions. These 3D fuel models developed by the USDA Forest Service have the potential to make firefighting and the management of controlled burns safer and less costly while helping to protect valuable natural resources. The 3D fuels modeling technique…  More 

Weather Conditions Inform Timing of Prescribed Fire

by Jennifer Moore Myers, SRS Science Communications  • 
Prescribed fires generate smoke, which can harm human health – especially in areas where humans and forests are close together. “Weather conditions are critical for prescribed fire, especially the effects of wind and humidity on smoke plume formation,” says Yongqiang Liu, USDA Forest Service research meteorologist. Liu is the lead author of a modeling study…  More 

Eucalyptus Freezes in the Piedmont

by Sarah Farmer, SRS Science Communications  • 
When a cold snap killed the Eucalyptus benthamii saplings, no one was surprised. E. benthamii is one of the most cold-tolerant of approximately 700 Eucalypts. Still, it is maladapted to the North Carolina Piedmont, according to a recent USDA Forest Service study published in Forest Science. “Winters are becoming milder,” says John Butnor, an SRS…  More 

Testing Blight Resistance in American Chestnuts

by Teresa Jackson, SRS Public Affairs  • 
The American chestnut (Castanea dentata) was a keystone tree species in the eastern U.S., once found in the forest overstory from Maine to Georgia. The loss of the “mighty giant” to chestnut blight (Cryphonectria parasitica), a fungal disease accidentally imported from Asia in the early 1900s, reduced the once dominant chestnuts to remnant understory sprouts.…  More 

How Tree Diversity Affects Invasive Forest Pests

by Jennifer Moore Myers, SRS Science Communications  • 
“Invasive insects and diseases pose both ecological and economic threats to our forest ecosystems,” says Qinfeng Guo, USDA Forest Service research ecologist. Guo is the lead author of a broad-scale study of U.S. forest data that examines the relationship between the number of native tree species and the number of nonnative forest pests. Across their…  More