Fox River Valley Chpater

Report Date

For the third year in a row, the Fox Valley Chapter of SAF partnered with the Southern Chapter of the Great Lakes Timber Professionals Association (GLTPA), to host a joint meeting with a focus on Forest Health.

80 foresters and logging contractors meet at the River Rail in Shiocton on July 11, 2007 to learn about Wisconsin’s plan for dealing with the inevitable effects of the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) when it is discovered in the state.

Bill McNee, Forest Health Specialist for the DNR in the Northeast Region explained the biology of the insect, its current distribution in the United States and the State and Federal Plan for detecting and slowing the spread of this serious forest pest.  McNee also walked the group through the current guidelines for silviculturally preparing forest stands that contain ash species for future out-breaks of EAB.

DNR Field Silviculturalist and Forest Ecologist Joe Kovach provided an excellent overview of the silvics and Silviculture of Bottomland Hardwoods to set the stage for the afternoon field session.

Master Logger and GLTPA member Aaron Burmeister offered a Loggers Perspective on harvesting in Bottomland forests.  He had a list of issues common to all timber sales that provided great fodder for the lunch discussion between loggers and foresters. 

In the afternoon, the Mosquito Hill Nature Center in New London provided the perfect field site to discuss Bottomland Hardwood Management issues including preparing lowland forests for EAB.  The nature center is located along the Wolf River in part of the largest bottomland forest systems left in the upper Midwest.  The draught enabled the group to tour the forest without hip boots or bug dope – very unusual for July.

Ron Jones, DNR Area Forestry Leader in Appleton has been assisting the Nature Center with the  

Management of their Bottomland Forests for many years.  Several intermediate thinnings have been

completed and the tour included a discussion in one of them.  Issues with deer devouring the forest

reproduction were discussed at length.  A wonderful discussion on the order-of-removal in marking

bottomland hardwood stands in an improvement thinning generated great discussion. 

Carmon Wager, Forest Hydrologist in the Division of Forestry, provided an excellent refresher on Best Management for Water Quality in harvesting in Bottomland forests.  Much discussion focused on opportunities to summer log these sites in dry years versus waiting for a winter freeze that has been rare in recent years.

Tom Boos, Invasives and Exotics Specialists with the Division of Forestry covered the identification and control of reed canary grass on Bottomland sites.  Not all the answers are know at this point, but a statewide team is working on these issues.

Local DNR Wildlife Biologist, Kay Brockman-Mederas described the importance of the Wolf River Bottoms for wildlife habitat and travel corridors.  She encouraged foresters and loggers to leave large diameter den trees and plenty of large woody debris on the forest floor.  Maintaining a contiguous canopy was also one of her recommendations.

Workshop evaluations from the session were very positive and 100% of the participants encouraged SAF and GLTPA to continue to partner in the future with joint sessions that encourage conversations in the woods on common issues.

Specials thanks to Thilmany Pulp and Paper, for providing an excellent lunch of fried chicken with all the fixings.

A Fall Chapter meeting is scheduled for November 9, 2007 in Shawano.  The membership will tour a mechanized logging equipment manufacturing plant and spend the balance of the meeting finalizing the theme for the Fall 2008 Statewide SAF Training session that will be hosted by the Chapter.

At the summer meeting a list of 20 potential ideas was reduced to 3 topics to explore:

·        An Ecological Approach to Managing the Dwindling Jack Pine Resource in Wisconsin DNR

·        An Ecological Approach to Managing the Oak Resource in Wisconsin DNR

·        The Role of the Forester in the Developing Biomass Movement in Wisconsin DNR

The Wisconsin Wildlife Society would like to partner with SAF if we choose either of the first two on this list.

The ballot for FVC officers will be mailed with the meeting announcement for the fall meeting.  Results will be sent to the State Chapter chair in mid November.

Submitted by             Curt Wilson, Chair, Fox Valley Chapter of SAF

                                    Tony Deininger, Vice Chair

                                    Ron Jones, Secretary Treasure

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