Site Discussions

Oaks can grow really fast compared to other hardwoods, in the right conditions.

Your final paragraph is incorrect.  The current official surface wind record-holder is Barrow Island, Australia at 113.2 m/s (253 mph), during a cyclone.  (If the 10m mast used at barrow island disqualifies it as a “ground-mounted gauge”, then so does the fact that the Mt Washington anemometer was mounted on the roof of the observatory.)

I’m not an expert on what sick foxes like to eat, but a fox with mange might eat any of the foods you mention. So will skunks, raccoons, stray dogs and assorted rodents, so be aware that you can’t control what animal helps itself to this food.  You could attempt to trap the fox using a large Havahart trap, with the same caveat.  Good luck.

A good question, Mike. I think the answer is no, but i’m at peace with that fact. One of the things that so impresses me about woodcock management is the way it reaches across “party lines,” so to speak. The way it unites hunters and naturalists and birders, all striving for a common cause. What’s next—hunters joining a campaign to protect rare songbird habitat? Let’s hope!

If a fox with mange visits my property daily is there something I can feed it, such as Natural Way dog food, lamb&rice;? Chicken raw or cooked? How would I trap it so as to get it to The Lincoln County Animal shelter?

I wonder if there would be such keen interest in the woodcock, if it were not such a joy for some to shoot?

Hello. I´ve noticed a few times that some of the new leaves on the European common ash tree (Fraxinus exelcior) are red, but only in young specimens that are 2 or 3 years old. I´ve never seen it in older trees. So why does it happen, I wonder?

It would be a lot simpler if those were the only parasites to worry about. Unfortunately many people contract what are called co-infections, sometimes with Lyme sometimes without. Anaplasmosis, babesiosis, bartonella, Rocky Mountain spotted fever (even in NH), and tuleremia can all be transmitted by ticks. Over 70% of ticks in NH have been tested and found to carry some pathogen. Wearing gaiters sprayed with permethrin, soaking pantlegs, and spraying DEET from the waist down have all worked well for me, but not before contracting anaplasmosis and babesiosis last summer.  Don’t take tick parasites lightly - it’s not worth it.

This comment came in as a Letter to the Editor for the printed magazine.

Irwin Post’s excellent article in Autumn 2010 issue brings a most useful message to Yankee tree farmers. I grew up on 600 acres of excellent sites with abundant weeds in northwestern Windham County, Vermont, not far from Post’s place. 53 years ago, I began work at Oregon State University College of Forestry leading a research program to meet the needs of western foresters with weed problems. Plants take up space. Space is crucial for any photosynthesizing organism, so desirable plants tend to grow much better if undesirable trees, shrubs or herbs are prevented from overtopping them. If one has to do it by axe, saw or bulldozer, the energy and maybe cost may be huge, and one faces the prospect that disturbance will simply beget more weeds. Chemicals are tightly controlled by law, and those registered for use in forests are safe, economical and effective for many uses to promote wildlife forage, timber species composition or control of cull trees. Over a dozen different chemicals may be used in forests, each providing a different array of results. Timing, application rate and dosage are crucial in their selectivity. Nearly all of those useful in the Northeast will persist in the environment for more than a month or two, and none are as toxic as coffee by a long shot. County Agents are excellent information sources on how to control weeds. Many in Yankee Land are unaware of technology pertaining to forests, but there are Extension publications that are very helpful. I write the Forestry Chapter, revised annually, in the Pacific Northwest Weed Management Handbook. You can get it on-line (http://uspest.org/pnw/weeds) if there is nothing closer to home. The links are available from Oregon State University Cooperative Extension Service, where publications list Pacific Northwest Weed Management Handbook, Ed Peachy, Editor. Individual chapters can be purchased on-line. Thank you, Mr. Post, for introducing a most valuable topic!

Mike Newton, Professor Emeritus
Oregon State University College of Forestry
Corvallis, OR

Just for reference, we have found ticks on us, or our dogs, every month of the year except January and February.

Thanks for taking a special interest in Maine.  I have been on the roads here for 37 years and still find surprises around every bend.  May it always be so. You asked what your readers are up to so I will give you a brief snap shot of my time. 

I am an arborist in the Blue Hill area.  In my work, I meet folks at all levels of social strata. Having learned about the invasions of plant pests and diseases, I try to educate my contacts about their effects on their trees and the larger consequences on our forest community.  There is an active movement in Maine to preserve forest habitat that acts like a rising tide of interest in responsible stewardship.  However, awareness of the potential future onslaught of pests like the Emerald Ash Borer, Asian Longhorned Beetle, and the present incursion of the Hemlock Wooly Adelgid is sorely lacking.

Consequently, I took it upon myself to invite speakers from the U Maine Extension and the Maine Forest Service to talk about invasive plants and insects.  From the conversations I had with some of the attendees, I learned that, although they are very concerned, they were quite unaware of the potential scope of the looming disaster.  Word of Wooster has not yet made an impact here.  I just hope Blue Hill and other communities in Maine do not have to go through the same agony Wooster did with the ALB.  Unless we somehow raise awareness of the problem, it seems our fate is sealed.

Here is where you come in.  As an educational organization, please think about ways to reach more folks in our New England forest region to educate them about invasives.  I have one suggestion that I submitted some months ago to Northern Woodlands.  We have a wonderful community radio station here, WERU, 89.9.  You can easily find their booth at the CG Fair.  They are commited to producing shows on public affairs.  Please consider hooking up with them and other community radio stations across New England to produce the magazine or at least features from it on the radio. You will undoubtedly reach an audience already sympathetic to all the issues raised by NW, including invasives.

Thanks again for asking.

Tony Aman

Derek—

I agree with you entirely that turning this thing around is an enormous challenge, and I also share your concern that there isn’t enough grass-fed meat available to feed all 7 billion of us. (Though I’ve never seen a good analysis of this question - have you?)

But all environmentalism is local, so to speak, and we already have small-scale, grass-fed grazing here in northern New England. My farm is a good example. We grow vegetables on every flat acre that we own, pasture sheep on the moderate slopes, and keep the steeps in forest. Since we can’t grow vegetables on the slopes without creating undue soil erosion, the only way for us to realize calories from these acres is through meat. Since we can do this without contributing to climate change, surely we should, no? Especially since doing the opposite - foregoing the sheep and sending folks to the supermarket for vegetable-based protein that doesn’t grow in Vermont, would only be adding to the problem?

In a more theoretical framework, nearly all agriculture prior to the discover of fossil fuel was animal-based. Animals provided power for tillage, fertilizer for the soil, and calories for humans. I’m not sure I can envision a global, post-fossil fuel agriculture that doesn’t return in some way to this model. Industrial vegetable production as it is currently practiced, including organic agriculture, is enormously dependent on fossil fuel. Vegetable protein is more efficient than animal protein only on a per-acre basis; once you look at calories in (fossil) vs. calories out (food), our lowly sheep, wandering around the pasture under their own steam, start to look really good.

—Chuck

Of course, most people simply just need to read the headline—“see, there’s nothing wrong with meat!”—in order carry blissfully on as they were, occasionally grabbing some grass-fed beef from their local Whole Foods, thinking they’re “doing their part”.

The reality is, the demand for meat is so huge—and growing globally—that a return to small-scale, grass-fed animal farming is completely unfeasible, so it doesn’t really matter that local farming of this sort can be sustainable and “closed-loop”. With the global climate in crisis, we simply can’t have our cake—or meat, as it were—and eat it too if we actually care about turning this thing around. (In concert with a plethora of other changes, both institutional and individual, global and local as well.)

The following comments came in while our website was being retooled. We are re-posting them now for the authors.

Chuck: Thanks for writing a thoughtful and informative piece. However, I would like to clarify an important point. In the statement I gave you I also said that if indeed there is a net flux of C to the atmosphere from woody biomass harvesting at landscape scales, it is compensated over time by offset fossil fuel emissions. The time lag over which that offset ultimately exceeds the C debt is currently the subject of intense scrutiny by researchers all over the U.S. and globally, including the Carbon Dynamics Lab here at UVM.

One additional clarification: the position of my quote in the article may be misleading. This statement was a response to the question of whether there is a fundamental difference between what some people are calling “biological carbon” and carbon emissions from fossil fuels. My opinion is that there isn’t if the ultimate concern is the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The source of the carbon is irrelevant as long as more carbon is fluxing to the atmosphere compared to the amount that is being taken out. Thanks for the opportunity to comment.

Bill Keeton
Burlington, Vermont
________________

I’ve heard much about the so-called ‘carbon neutrality’ of burning our forests to offset our burning of coal. But to claim that somehow improves or reduces CO2 in the atmosphere is insane. CO2 has no memory of how it got there. And to suppose future forests are going to increase/re-sequester the instantly released CO2 from bio-incinerators is so ridiculous a child would know better. Globally, the trend is the elimination of forests, not the reverse. North America once had forests from ocean to ocean. Look at it now! And burning what forests remain isn’t going to improve it. The better use of the underbrush, slash, and ‘rounds’ (young/non-commercial trees) is to allow them to enrich and maintain the forest soils rather than exposing bare soils to winter elements, leaching, erosion, compaction, and reduction of bio-diversity. Bio-incineration is a boondoggle much like corn ethanol was. We can’t get out of the hole we’re in by digging it deeper. We can’t eliminate climate change by burning our forests!

pinbalwyz

__________________

Pinbalwyz… It’s amazing how much you can learn just be observation! Now can we add another factor in here. Non-native invasive species. Weather it be beetle or barberry. If you want to see some great forested areas suffering from non-native invasives, stop down into Massachusetts! Very slow to no tree regeneration in in hot spots. We sometimes hear about the “tipping point.” The point in which we may let these species encroach, proliferate, and gain a strong foothold. The seed is there. If it’s not… someone who doesn’t know will be planting it! Matter of fact, UVM’s “Landscape Plants FOR Vermont” includes barberry and Norway maples! Not very useful biomass in my mind! Those should not even be considered as options! Just because we don’t have problems now… What happens when the Asian longhorn beetle makes it way around? In Massachusetts, there is not enough biomass to be burning. We need as much shade as we can get here! And please stop planting these non-native invasives. It may take a generation or two to see some serious ramifications. ... Isn’t preserving for generations what we want to do?

Paul Cysz

Chuck,
Thank you for a balanced and well written article. As a public policy educator it is a pleasure to read an article that examines a complex issue, like the debate over the role of biomass in our energy future, without spin or sensationalism.  Renewable energy, especially biopower and biofuels, are a major focus of our policy education program at Farm Foundation. Your article is one I will be referring to often.

While I now live outside of Washington, DC I remember planting thousands of pine and spruce seedlings on the eroding hillsides of my family’s dairy farm in central Vermont in the early 1960s, an experience that still reminds me that sustainable systems of farming and forestry don’t happen on their own.

Hi Sandy—

Your points are well taken and get right to the heart of the biomass debate. My goal in writing the article was to try to demonstrate a sense of what was possible and how a future might look if we started utilizing more biomass here in the Northeast. Throughout the article, I assumed that we wouldn’t ever want to cut more wood than was growing in our forests - not touching the capital, as you put it. Except for your home state, which currently cuts nearly all of its annual growth, the other six Northeast states are nowhere close to cutting at that level. As you suggest, cutting so heavily for biomass that we start reducing our overall forest cover would have many detrimental consequences, including the loss of oxygen production/carbon sink that you mentioned.

As an organic vegetable and meat farmer by day, I also agree entirely that we may want some of that ‘marginal’ land back in food production in the future. I certainly hope so. The specifics of the economy at that point - energy prices, property taxes, transportation costs - will help determine whether that land might best be used for food or biomass. It would be nice to have such options!

—Chuck Wooster

I found it a little disturbing that nowhere in the article on biomass as fuel was the value of the standing forest as O2 producer and carbon sink mentioned. It was my understanding of the article that biomass production could be achieved without touching the “capital” forest but until I see more evidence of that I remain skeptical.
And one other comment about marginal farmland. We might need that land for food production as global food become to expensive to access and local food production needs to increase.

Being an observer of the biomass discussion in Massachusetts, it is nice, and rare, to read a relatively unbiased article about biomass utilization in Massachusetts.

The Manomet Study is a remarkable document for something done in 6 months. Since it came out, there have been substantive comments made as part of the public record and it appears these comments will considered and lead to Manomet Study Volume 2.

In Massachusetts, home fuelwood could be a significant factor in the biomass debate.  During the height of the Arab Oil Embargo during the Winter of ‘78-‘79, a New England Fuelwood Survey was done.  The results in Mass. were summarized in Heating with Wood in Massachusetts Households published in l980.  It was based on over 2,800 phone calls.  It found that over 1,000,000 cords were burned.  Using the conversion factor of 2.5 green tons per cord, this converts to 2,500,000 green tons.  Sixty-two percent of this wood was self-cut, over 86% of that was hardwoods, and 65% of respondents cut the wood on their own woodlot.  The bulk of self-cut wood (69%) came from woodlots of 25 acres or less (and probably some commercially sold firewood also came from small woodlots).  The survey found fuelwood use saved 40% more home heating oil consumption than should have been the case.  They attributed it to the “Zone Heating Effect” and the “Timed Thermostat Effect.”  Most wood was burned in wood stoves.  The Zone Heating Effect was when the stove heated up the area around it and other parts of the house were much colder.  The Timed Thermostat Effect was that at night and when folks were not home, the fire would die down and the house would get much cooler.  Note that in those days, programmable thermostats were not common.  The net result of these two effects is that wood stoves (relative to replacing oil heat) can have “efficiencies” of greater than 100% in replacing home heating oil. We should not be surprised, if similar circumstances develop in the future, to see this scale of home wood heating. These circumstances would be high unemployment and high heating oil prices. Because selling firewood can be “under the table”, many unemployed men would prefer to cut and sell fuelwood than help with chores around the house or cut for their own use. When the price of energy increases significantly faster than household income, experience has shown that home fuelwood, either self-cut or purchased, becomes more attractive. 

Biomass for electrical generating is unique in having a horizontal demand curve.  These plants are for baseline electrical production, and the goal is to run them at better than 90% of capacity at all times.  This would appear to be a boon for loggers, who are always looking for a good, steady market.  However, when you overlay the traditional boom and bust sawlog market on top of that, the situation becomes more complex.  Biomass generally gets a free ride out of the woods on the back of sawtimber.  If the market for sawlogs is poor, would the biomass activities tend to flood the market with sawlogs which would further depress the market?  When sawlog markets are strong, and the mills can not get enough, will the need to produce biomass chips prevent a logger from optimizing profits?

As we look ahead, it is comforting to know, if 1978-79 is any guide, that most home fuelwood will be cut from lots that are not considered available for biomass harvesting because they are too small.

We have put together a presentation that rebukes these headlines and makes better sense of issue. You can see it at:
http://biomassfuelssummit.com/epa-biomass-ruling/

While I loved the piece, I was struck by the comment that clubmosses are mostly found “in the cool, shaded environment of the boreal forest.” This is factually incorrect. I have hiked the White, Green, and Adirondack ranges frequently and have actually never seen Lycopodium - my favorite understory plant - beneath boreal forests if I am to assume the definition of boreal is spruce-fir either entirely or intermittently. Rather you are more apt to find this beautiful relic beneath mesic to dry beech, beech-maple, and beech-birch-maple in the aforementioned mountain ranges. This is an important distinction and one your readership should understand if they don’t already. Lycopodium is truly a jewel of New England’s hardwood forests, not its boreal forests.