Tag: Tennessee

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 

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 

Appalachian-Cumberland Meeting Addresses State and National Forest Partners’ Research Needs

by Teresa Jackson, SRS Public Affairs  • 
In early March the USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station hosted its first joint State Line and Green Line Meeting. Approximately 60 state and national forest partners attended the two-day meeting held in Johnson City, Tennessee to learn about a variety of SRS research topics relevant to their specific needs and the Appalachian-Cumberland region. SRS…  More 

Countering Thousand Cankers Disease

by Megan Bequette, SRS Science Communications Intern  • 
In recent decades, thousand cankers disease has become a concern for walnut growers and hardwood forest managers in the United States. A variety of measures have been investigated or developed to counter the disease. A study led by USDA Forest Service research entomologist Albert Mayfield and former University of Tennessee graduate student Jackson Audley looked…  More 

Oak Regeneration and Acorn Size

by Megan Bequette, SRS Science Communications Intern  • 
Oak regeneration is an oft-discussed topic in forestry. The trees aren’t sustainably generating in many upland temperate forests due to a variety of factors — including the fact that they are less competitive than other, more sun-loving species such as tulip poplar. One way that forest managers are responding to this issue is artificial oak…  More 

Can Southeastern Bats and Rock Climbers Share Cliffs?

by Jennifer Moore Myers, SRS Science Communications  • 
“Researchers haven’t really studied cliffs as foraging areas for bats,” says USDA Forest Service scientist Susan Loeb. “When so little is known about that habitat, it can be hard to gauge the impacts of different uses or management plans.” Rapid growth in technical climbing has put rock climbers in the same spots as bats. How…  More 

Post-Fire Mortality for Southern Hardwoods

by Jennifer Moore Myers, SRS Science Communications  • 
Drive down Highway 7 in northern Arkansas, winding through the Ozark National Forest, and you may glimpse evidence of recent fire: scorched grass, darkened tree bark, maybe even a lingering wisp of smoke. Traces of prescribed burning can be seen throughout the South. Prescribed fire is a critical tool for forest restoration. A new study…  More 

Protecting Hardwood Resources

by Sarah Farmer, SRS Science Communications  • 
Trees provide clean air and water, wildlife habitat, and beauty. Trees are also vital to local economies. “In 2015, Kentucky had 193 hardwood sawmills,” says USDA Forest Service research forester Tom Brandeis. “That same year, Tennessee had 226 hardwood sawmills.” Each state produced more than 700 million board feet of hardwood lumber in 2015. Higher…  More 

Carolina Hemlock Populations: Isolated and Imperiled

by Jennifer Moore Myers, SRS Science Communications  • 
Hemlocks are under attack. U.S. Forest Service scientists and their partners are working to save the native conifers from the hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA), an invasive insect from Japan. Carolina hemlock (Tsuga caroliniana) trees can survive HWA infestation for a decade or more but often die within four years. Carolina hemlocks grow in tiny, isolated…  More 

Unexpected Pest of Chestnut Trees

by Jennifer Moore Myers, SRS Science Communications  • 
SRS research entomologist Bud Mayfield was relieved to find that defoliation on an American chestnut planting site was not as severe as expected. Mayfield and SRS research forester Stacy Clark are coauthors on a paper in the Journal of Insect Science that describes a study they conducted with Ashley Case, an adjunct lecturer at the University…  More