Climate smart forestry: lots of planting this spring at Craftsbury!
What’s Going On Out in the Woods?
If you’ve been out on the paved loop recently, in the vicinity of Six Corners heading toward Dino Hill, you may have noticed some strange things…
On your left, it may look like a giant turkey was out scuffing the duff in some areas.
On your right, you’ll see a lot of little flags in a zillion colors.
And in various places near Six Corners and the Pines, you might see GRP skiers and rowers digging holes in the woods—lots of holes. Our foresters, Rick Morrill and Dawn Morgan, have also been out there a lot, laying out the grids for planting location. And County Forester Jared Nunery and our own Judy Geer have also helped.
Prescribed scarification.
Actually, the giant turkey was Keith Woodward and his excavator Peanut, doing some “scarification” under the supervision of Rick. The goal of the scarification is to clear some of the leaf litter away to give last autumn’s tree seeds a better chance to take hold and grow. We’re hoping to see some nice regeneration of pine, yellow birch and other species growing in the area. We’ll be putting up some deer exclosures this summer, to keep the deer from browsing the young trees and provide a visual comparison of protected vs browsed areas.
On your right, you will see at least 10 different flag colors out there. See if you can find them all in the image above. This is all related to a couple different tree-planting projects that we’re doing. One is to plant some “climate-forward” species—species that will be moving gradually into our forests as the climate changes, plus some that are already here and are expected to thrive despite the climate change. These include red oak, white pine, and American basswood.
The second tree-planting project focuses on red spruce, a species that was historically abundant in our forests but was over-harvested for the quality of its wood. The goal is to bring it back, as it’s a species that is expected to fare well in our changing climate. Our 800 red spruce seedlings will be monitored as part of a regional study being done at UVM to determine the best seed sources for red spruce. Our seedlings will represent 10 different locations ranging from Maine all the way down to the high elevation spine of the Appalachians in North Carolina. They’ll be monitored to see which ones do best in our location.
So far, 200 red oaks and close to 600 red spruce have been planted. That’s a lot of seedlings!
All of these activities and practices are aimed at increasing the diversity and climate resilience of the forest as part of our forest management program. Our management work also generates firewood (note the pile of wood cut this spring along Lost Nation Road) and other forest products while storing and sequestering increasing amounts of carbon in the forest and wood products.
Interested in reading more? Check out these links for more background.
Central Appalachian Spruce Restoration Initiative