All Articles Page 4

Remembering Glen Smalley

by SRS research foresters Callie Schweitzer, Stacy Clark, and Henry McNab  • 
On August 2, 2020, Glendon W. Smalley died at his home in Sewanee, Tennessee. He was 92. Smalley was an Emeritus scientist with the Southern Research Station. Smalley began working for the USDA Forest Service in 1953 on the Sam Houston National Forest in Texas, where he met his wife Mary, who passed in 2017.…  More 

Southern Forest Outlook: Synthesis of Regional Trends and Futures

by Jennifer Moore Myers, SRS Science Communications  • 
The USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station and Southern Region, in partnership with the Southern Group of State Foresters, is leading an update to the Southern Forest Assessment Library, with a new regional assessment called the Southern Forest Outlook, or SFO. The SFO update will inform forest sector decision makers, partners, and the interested public…  More 

Photo Guide to Fuel Loads in the Southern Appalachians

by Sarah Farmer, SRS Science Communications  • 
A new photo guide shows fuel loads in the Southern Appalachian mountains. A team of four experts wrote the guide: Adam Coates, a professor at Virginia Tech; Tom Waldrop, a USDA Forest Service research forester who is now retired; Todd Hutchinson, a research ecologist at the Northern Research Station; and Helen Mohr, an SRS forester…  More 

Upland Hardwood Silvicultural Workshop Goes Virtual

by Ivan Garcia and Sydney Marie Jones, SRS Science Communications Interns  • 
In July, state forest agencies, National Forest System managers, and others convened digitally for the Upland Hardwood Silvicultural Workshop. The virtual workshop, organized by the USDA Forest Service Upland Hardwood Ecology and Management Research Work Unit, consisted of half-day sessions in which natural resource practitioners learned the most up-to-date hardwood forest management practices based on…  More 

The Southern Pine Module Goes Virtual

by Jim Guldin, Southern Research Station Silviculturist  • 
In 2019, Janet Hinchee, the USDA Forest Service Regional Silviculturist for the South invited me to coordinate the Southern Pine Module, a ten day workshop for the Forest Service National Advanced Silviculture Program. The workshop is a key element of the agency’s program for National Forest land managers, especially district silviculturists, to obtain required silvicultural…  More 

Water Supply from Southern State and Private Forest Lands

by Jennifer Moore Myers, SRS Science Communications  • 
Forests provide the most stable and highest quality water supplies among all land uses. A report by the Southern Research Station of the USDA Forest Service quantifies the role of state and private forest lands (SPF) in providing drinking water supply across the southern United States. About half of the South’s land area is forested,…  More 

Assessing Surface Water Quality in the Mississippi Delta

by Jennifer Moore Myers, SRS Science Communications  • 
USDA Forest Service scientists are measuring surface water quality in the Big Sunflower River watershed of the Mississippi Delta to better understand eutrophication of the Gulf of Mexico. Extensive crop production contributes nutrients and suspended solids and leads to concerns about low dissolved oxygen and pathogens. Ying Ouyang, Ted Leininger, and colleagues monitored water quality…  More 

Wood-Boring Beetles Not the Primary Cause of Sugarberry Mortality

by Sydney Marie Jones, SRS Science Communications Intern  • 
In the past decade, sugarberry trees (Celtis laevigata) have been rapidly declining throughout South Carolina and Georgia. Alongside University of Georgia researcher Emilee Poole, USDA Forest Service scientists Scott Horn, Michael Ulyshen, and others studied the distribution and biology of the wood-boring beetle Agrilus macer to determine its role in recent sugarberry mortality. Using sugarberry…  More 

Impact of Fire Management on Breeding Birds in the Southern Appalachians

by Sydney Marie Jones, SRS Science Communications Intern  • 
To increase the prescribed “burn window” for reaching restoration goals, land managers are now burning during winter (the dormant season) as well as spring and summer (the growing season) and fall. Management goals often include fuel reduction, oak regeneration, habitat improvement for target wildlife species, and forest restoration to conditions once created by Native Americans…  More 

Student to Teacher

by Sarah Farmer, SRS Science Communications  • 
In Nacogdoches, Texas, a USDA Forest Service office is located on the campus of Stephen F. Austin State University (SFA). When not in the field, it’s where research wildlife biologist Dan Saenz works. Saenz works closely with SFA professors. As a guest lecturer in 2007, he met Erin Childress, who was an undergraduate student at…  More