SilviCast

Garlic mustard blooms, panic ensues! Many foresters in the eastern hardwood forests of North America can appreciate this sentiment as they see yet another invasive plant, garlic mustard, colonize their woodlands and forests. Maybe they just make note of it on the inventory or maybe they prescribe an aggressive treatment plan of pulling and herbicides. But maybe there is a different approach… time. Join us on this episode of SilviCast as we talk with Dr. Bernd Blossey, Professor at Cornell Uni...

It’s hard to turn around these days without seeing or reading something about UAVs or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. Drones are becoming an increasingly important tool in many fields, including within the practice of silviculture. On this episode of SilviCast we explore the soaring use of drones for site preparation and release treatments. Join us for a conversation with Rick Hill, Regional Silviculturist and Reforestation Specialist with Michigan DNR and Kyle Schempp, Project Manager and Drone Pi...

German foresters sometimes named silvicultural systems after the region where the treatment was developed and practiced. So it is with the Acadian femelschlag, a locally developed gap-based system designed to restore species diversity and structure to the mixedwood Acadian forests of Maine and eastern Canada. Join us on this episode of SilviCast as we talk with Robert Seymour, Curtis Hutchins Professor Emeritus of Silviculture at the University of Maine, about what he has learned from over fo...

We’ve all seen it in the field… Aldo Leopold alluded to it… parts of a forest ecosystem are missing or changed. Now the forest doesn’t respond the same to silvicultural treatments that worked in the past. The forest is less predictable. In other words, the forest has lost memory, specifically ecological memory. Join us on this episode of SilviCast as we explore the concept of ecological memory with Chris Webster, professor of quantitative ecology at Michigan Technological University. Learn ho...

Most of us enjoying a little on-the-job foraging… some blackberries here, some morels there. But how often do we think about intentionally managing non-timber forest products? Forest farming is an agroforestry practice than involves the intentional stewardship of edible, medicinal, and decorative crops beneath a forest canopy. Join us as we discuss the integration of forest farming and silviculture with Eric Burkhart, Teaching Professor in the Department of Ecosystem Science and Managem...

It’s an all too familiar scenario to foresters…a new pest is introduced into another part of the range and slowly works its way to a forest near you. So it goes with the hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA) that was introduced into eastern North America over 70 years ago. HWA has not yet arrived in Wisconsin, but can we learn from the research and field experience of our colleagues in the east? Are there silvicultural approaches that can be used to make hemlock trees and stands more resilient, ...

It pays to be observant! Ogijewski, a forest scientist working in Russia in the early 1900s observed that oaks sometimes regenerated in small clusters where wild boars disturb the forest floor. From this simple observation he developed a reforestation method called cluster planting, the planting trees or seeds in tightly-spaced, small functional groups. The method caught on in Europe and is now practiced as a way to decrease planting costs and restore stand diversity. In this episode of...