When powerful storms move through the state, we get a lot of questions about damage to trees and what folks can do about it. I put together some information on how trees are affected by high winds and snow/ice loads, how they respond, and what you can do to try and get your trees back […]
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Category: Forest Health
Deer and Woodland Stewardship
By Jamie Nack, Extension Senior Wildlife Outreach Specialist Chances are deer play a significant role in how you evaluate the success of your woodland stewardship. Whether that’s because deer and deer hunting are the primary reason you own your woodland property or because deer have the ability to significantly impact forest regeneration and species composition of your woodlands….or perhaps it’s both! When it comes to managing deer, the key to […]
Leaving Wood for Wildlife
If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is there to see it, does it make a mess? On a recent trip to my in-laws, I took a walk with my dog in their woodlot. It was a crisp fall day and the wind whistled through the open under-story. Most of the leaves had […]
What is wrong with my tree?
Most phone calls I get start with “I think my trees are dying”. No one likes to look up and see something wrong with their trees. I usually start by reassuring people that there are varying degrees of unhealthy trees and they don’t all end in tree death. However, in order to diagnose anything, we […]
Mushrooms – Not all of them are created equal
In a previous article, I discussed insects that are attacking our trees and I wanted to follow up with a discussion of the common fungi or mushrooms growing in our woods. Just like the insects, some of these are very harmful to our trees and the rest aren’t. What is different from the insects is […]
Native Insects Damaging our Trees
If you have spent any amount of time in the woods, you have undoubtedly noticed damage to trees caused by insects. The damage could be in the leaves or the stem, under the bark or in the roots. It may seem alarming to you, but, to a tree, this is an everyday occurrence during the […]
When Is Fire Good?
Fire in forested settings is a tricky subject to broach. Recently in Wisconsin, we’ve been experiencing the effects of smoke from wildfires in Canada. We’ve seen headlines about wildfires blazing out West. Locally, once the trees start to lose their leaves, Wisconsin experiences a higher than normal risk of wildfires. With all this information, it […]
The soil between your toes
I have had the pleasure of working in forests on a wide variety of soil types. The ones I have the most experience on are the clay-loam at the family farm and the sand that makes up our home soil. What I have learned is that you can’t ignore what is under your feet when […]
Strategies for controlling invasive plants
I, and the rest of our clan, spend as much time as we can in our woods. Our time is split among harvesting trees and other forest products from the woods, having a good time, and keeping an eye on trees and property boundaries. Every time we are in the woods we watch for changes […]