Common Sense Sustainable Forestry: Barriers and Opportunities to Renewing Forests
Firth Maple Products
Spartansburg, Crawford County
Saturday, April 10, 2010
10am – 4pm
$15 PASA members, $25 all others; lunch will be provided.
Troy Firth & Guy Dunkle, Firth Maple Products
Susan Stout, USDA Forest Service
Pre-registration is closed. On-site registration is available.
Supported in part by the Foundation for Pennsylvania Watersheds
Join Troy Firth, Guy Dunkle and Susan Stout for some time in the woods looking at strategies for common sense sustainable forestry, including identifying and controlling interfering vegetation in a woodlot that was harvested last summer and then checking out an active sugar bush.
How can landowners manage their forests to ensure that there is room to grow for new seedlings of species they want to have in the long-term future? Natural regeneration is the heart of sustainable forestry, but deer, fern, and slow-growing, shade-loving shrubs and saplings can make the forest floor so dark that the seedlings you want just can't grow.
The discussion during the morning walk in the woods will be continued when we return to the sawmill for some classroom time before lunch.
After lunch at the sawmill, we’ll head off to another woodlot to learn about “worst first” tree selection, logging w/ horses and uneven aged silviculture. There will be opportunity to watch a couple of trees fall and see the horses work as the loggers skid some logs. This woodlot is tapped for maple syrup, too, and there will be discussion around that.
The material presented on this day will help you recognize problems and address them in manners that emphasize the long-term health, ecology and overall return of the woodlot as priorities.
Click here for directions, available on the Google Maps page.
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About the Presenters
Troy Firth owns and manages several thousand acres of woodlots in PA. In addition to timber management and forestry education, Troy, assisted by Guy Dunkle, also runs a sawmill and produces maple syrup. The Firth family has managed some sections of these forests for over a hundred years. Firth Maple Products is the second largest producer of maple syrup in the state, marketing over 5,000 gallons a year, primarily to the wholesale market where it is used as sweetener. Troy’s unique strength lies in his talent for conveying the integrative manner in which the various components – from tree selection and silviculture to the vital contribution of horse logging - work in synergy around forest restoration and stewardship.
Susan Stout is a Research Project Leader for the USDA Forest Service research group. She leads a team of 13 forest scientists in PA, OH, and NH who conduct research on topics from regeneration through forest fire physics to climate change. Susan has been in her current position for 18 years, and has worked on problems of sustaining Pennsylvania forests from the Forestry Sciences Laboratory in Irvine, PA for 29 years.
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