Ice coating protects evergreen seedlings from freezing



Ice-covered seedlings in WA nursery

 I enjoyed these surreal photos of seedlings covered with ice.

For 34 hours in late November 2010, cold temperatures descended on Washington state's lowest elevations. At times it dropped to 13F.

Sweeping sprinklers gently showered acres of tender seedlings coating and recoating them with water that froze in layers of protection.

Crews worked day and night to keep sprinklers form freezing. They continued until 1:30 AM November 24th. Two shifts of crews did the continuous 24-hour job.

More backstory:

Icing protects trees at Webster Forest Nursery

and a great photo gallery:

Flickr gallery

Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) information

Happy Thanksgiving! Below is a note forwarded to me from NRCS about their CSP funding program.

This is a relatively modest program in terms of payments, and not the same as the more generous EQIP program that we're participating in, but perhaps CSP is a good introduction to NRCS for family forest owners.

You must have your application in before the cut-off date for the upcoming year's funding -- January 7, 2011. There's a fact sheet/FAQ at http://www.wa.nrcs.usda.gov/

Dear private forest landowner:


If you’re a private, non-industrial forest landowner who would like to address natural resource management concerns by implementing additional conservation practices on your land and if you’d like to improve or maintain existing stewardship practices, you may be eligible for financial and technical assistance to do so.

The Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) is administered by USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) which provides financial and technical assistance to help identify, plan and implement stewardship practices that will help conserve and enhance soil, water, air, plant, wildlife habitat and related natural resources on your land.

Private forest landowners may be eligible to receive average payments of approximately $10 per acre for five-years depending on enhancements implemented and (or) stewardship practices maintained.

In short, CSP encourages non-industrial private forest landowners to improve conservation systems by undertaking additional conservation activities and improving, maintaining, and managing existing conservation activities and the program will pay you for these stewardship activities.

I have attached a Question and Answer fact sheet regarding CSP for your information. I encourage you to consider this opportunity to help keep your forest healthy. Please contact your local USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service office today for more information.

The application ranking cut-off date for this year’s funding is January 7, 2011 so don’t delay.

We look forward to serving you in the future.

Sincerely,

CARRI GAINES, NRCS State Forester
Carri.gaines at wa.usda dot gov

Speaking to a forest stewardship class about our experiences

The lead instructor of WSU's forest stewardship extension courses in Everett WA invited me to speak, as a two-course alumnus, to his current class.

Slash pile, one of many we've created from thinning and
pruning our stands to make them healthier, safer in case
of forest fire, more attractive to wildlife, and
more aesthetically pleasing. 

I put together a slide show that serves as a virtual tour of our property, starting with pictures of the thick woods when we bought it, through today's thinned and pruned stands.

I told 20 minutes' worth of stories about our experiences, lessons learned, and advice for those starting out with private timber land.

It was genuinely fun to go back through photos to build the deck of 65 slides (they go fast), and even more fun to present it to the adult students and take their many, interesting questions.

Feedback from the audience was positive, which is always a nice ecouragement for me to speak again if the opportunity arises. The instructor, Kevin Zobrist, has asked me to record the presentation so other instructors can use it. Of course I will, but that does take the fun out of it for me.

The courses are Coached Planning for people writing their forest management plans, and Advanced Planning for people implementing their plans on their own. The first course is rich in information and well taught. I highly recommend it. The advanced course is unfortunately no longer offered. Both are the product of Washington State University Extension Forestry.

Fall 2010, the end of forest stewardship operations for the winter

When autumn descends on this place, the light and air are different. I always enjoy being outside, getting the place ready for winter.

When the sun hits the big-leaf maple trees deep in the evergreen forest, the golden leaves seem to be brilliantly backlit.

We're done with logging work for the winter. All we have to do until spring is burn piles of slash. And there are many of those, perhaps a hundred or more.

EQIP approvals for our 2010 forest improvement work

NRCS has inspected the last of our on-the-ground work for this season, and approved it for payment.

Greentree Reforestation crew prunes trees on our
property up 16'  as part of our EQIP-funded project.

That's a big milestone for us, because this is our first year of a 5-year EQIP agreement for thinning, pruning, and slash disposal.

We use Greentree Reforestation, a crew referred to us by our friend Doyle Burke in 2001. Greentree does very good work on understory thinning, tree pruning, and slash piling.

By "good work" I mean the limbs are cut within a couple of inches of the trunk, without otherwise damaging the tree. No long stubs, no stripped bark, no stray cuts.

Their piles are regulation 4x6x6 foot neatly stacked slash piles that burn very thoroughly. I'm most impressed with how they build a pile on a steep slope so it not only stays put, but it doesn't send burning logs rolling downhill.

Power pole saws work well on large
Ponderosa Pine limbs like this.
But for Douglas Fir, a simple pole
saw works better.

In one unit, 2 acres, we had the crew "lop and scatter" the slash for a more natural aesthetic and to supply nutrients to the soil. There are specific tolerances for how much debris can be on the ground, in tons per acre and in its height off the ground. The slash has to be pulled back from the base of each tree without creating an unduly large ring of fuel around it.

Pruning contractors in north central WA: Greentree Reforestation (509) 882-2900 Dick Schellhaas (509) 630-6486 Jim Jack (509) 548-1290