ForestBytes --- December 2003 Volume IV, Issue 44 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ http://www.americanforests.org AMERICAN FORESTS People Caring for Trees and Forests Since 1875 To subscribe to ForestBytes: Visit http://www.americanforests.org/ If you find this information valuable, please pass it on to friends and colleagues. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Announcements ¤ Everything You Need to Know About Your Holiday Tree ¤ Kiss Your Trees Away? ¤ Thieves Chop the Tops of 20,000 Trees ¤ A Million Trees to Restore California Forests II. What's Happening? ¤ Cottonwood Controversy ¤ NPR Covers Big Trees ¤ Poplar Trees Popular Among Pig Farmers? III. Activities and Links ¤ American Forests' Feature Creature: Gray Wolf ¤ Tree Trivia ¤ ENS and ENN News Links == ANNOUNCEMENTS ================================================ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Everything You Need to Know About Your Holiday Tree ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Did you ever think that by using a cut Christmas tree in your house that you were actually helping the environment? Although millions of trees are bought every year, millions more are planted, helping the environment from the time they are planted until after the holiday season when they can be recycled. While they are growing for up to 16 years, Christmas trees support life by absorbing carbon dioxide and other pollutants while giving off fresh oxygen. Every acre of Christmas trees planted gives off enough oxygen to meet the needs of 18 people. Today in America there are enough Christmas trees planted that 18 million people a day are supplied with oxygen. Also, the farms that grow Christmas trees stabilize soil, protect water supplies, and provide a refuge for wildlife. Often, Christmas trees are grown on soil that will not support any other crops. And when one Christmas tree is cut down, two or more are replanted in its place. After the holiday season is over, the branches and trunk are biodegradable and can be made into mulch for the garden. American Forests recommends keeping and planting a live tree this holiday season, because of the many benefits planting trees has for the environment. If you have space for a "ball and burlapped" or containerized tree and can provide the extra care this type of tree requires, it's well work the additional cost and effort. To care for you living Christmas tree, keep the root ball of your replantable tree moist at all times. After no more than 10-14 days of indoor appreciation, move the tree to a protected place outdoors for several days to help it make the adjustment from a warm house. Your local nursery should be able to answer any other questions you have concerning the care of your tree. As soon as you can, plant the tree in the area you prepared earlier (if your area is frost prone). To plant your tree, you can visit http://www.americanforests.org/resources/howtoplanttrees/. In the event that you don't have a planting site, we suggest that before you buy, check with a local tree-planting group to see if they have a program to accommodate your tree. If you can't keep a live Christmas tree, there are a few helpful rules to follow for choosing and care of your cut tree: 1. Buy a fresh tree, checking the condition of the needles-fresh needles bend rather than break with gentle pressure. 2. Shake your tree gently to check for loss of needles. Losing needles may mean the tree is too dry and could be dangerous for your home. 3. Check the cut end of the trunk. A fresh tree should be sticky with sap rather than smooth and dry. 4. Trim the end of the trunk before placing trunk in water. This allows a fresh route for water to travel into the trunk. 5. Check the water level every other day, adding if needed. If the water level drops below the trunk, a seal will form preventing the tree from absorbing water. 6. Keep your tree away from heat sources such as a heating duct or television set. 7. Recycle your tree. Call your county disposal service for the best disposal route. Mulch your tree for the garden or place it in a corner of your yard for habitat. It's important to note: Never burn your freshly cut Christmas tree in the fireplace. The pitch content in the bark and needles can cause them to burst into flames from the intense heat. To learn more about the history of Christmas trees, click to http://www.americanforests.org/news/. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kiss Your Trees Away? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It’s a popular holiday decoration—a tradition that involves kissing and holiday cheer. However, mistletoe can sometimes do more harm than good. It’s one of the most ferocious weeds in nature, known for the way it worms into tree branches, stealing all the tree’s nutrients as it grows. The mistletoe uses bird feces as an accelerator to its growth. Even its name suggests this phenomenon. “Mistol” is the Anglo-Saxon word for "dung." And “tan” means "twig." So its common name means "dung on a twig." The scientific name of the common American species, Phoradendron, is not much better. It means "thief of the tree" in Greek. Once the mistletoe infects elm and oak trees, there is little foresters can do to stop it. "It's more difficult to control than an insect," says urban forester, John Watson, who teaches at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. "It's like those things in the movie Alien, it gets inside the tree." Job Kuijt of the University of Victoria in British Columbia has spent years studying and classifying the parasitic plant. So far close to 2,000 species of mistletoe have been identified and Kuijt believes there may be many more—some that may never be found. "Many of the colorful ones in the tropics and ones that we haven't even found yet in South America are likely going extinct," he says. "Once those forests go, they go too." This mistletoe's life begins within a seed, which is coated in a sticky film. Some varieties of a needle-leafed plant known as dwarf mistletoe have a spring mechanism inside its berries that shoot out seeds for distances up to 50 feet. All other kinds of mistletoe, however, rely on the voracious appetites of birds to spread their seeds. Although the mistletoe's berries are poisonous to people, squirrels, porcupines, chipmunks and several birds, including robins, bluebirds, mourning doves and grouse, devour the berries and then pass the seeds through their waste. They can also spread the plant's seeds by stepping in another's seed-filled feces and then flying or scurrying to another tree. Once a mistletoe seed reaches a tree (and the plant is not that particular about what kind of tree it infects), it penetrates the tree's bark using a combination of chemicals and mechanical pushing. Then it begins sucking the tree's water and nutrients. Mistletoe is not a true parasite since the plant still sprouts some leaves to conduct photosynthesis, but it steals most of its sustenance from the host tree. Using mistletoe to encourage kissing may be one of its best uses! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thieves Chop the Tops of 20,000 Trees -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In what seems like a tale combining the stories of the Grinch and Paul Bunyan, the tops of as many as 20,000 black spruce trees were stolen this month from an 18-acre tract of state land 40 miles north of Hibbing, Minnesota. State forestry officials suspect that they will be sold as 4-foot tabletop Christmas trees in New York and Chicago. No arrests have been made, but the investigation is intensifying reported the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "They're nothing more than thieves, is what they are," said Brian Buria, a conservation officer for the Department of Natural Resources in Bigfork. "This was not a mistake." The thieves spared a 50-foot-wide buffer of trees so anyone driving on Hwy. 65 wouldn't notice anything awry. The stolen treetops were about 1 inch in diameter and 3 feet to 6 feet tall, clipped or sawed from 16-foot trees and hauled off in bundles. Investigators are checking with Christmas tree wholesalers in the Twin Cities area and St. Cloud. The trees were part of a state plantation, seeded from the air 10 years ago, according to DNR spokeswoman Jean Goad in Grand Rapids. She said the trees eventually would have been auctioned to commercial foresters and probably used as pulp at paper mills. The proceeds of those state timber sales go to a school trust fund, an arrangement made in Minnesota's early days to earmark timber profits to help finance education. She said what's left of the trees now resembles bushes and has little commercial value. Theft of trees from forests across the United States—the case for these holiday trees—is what prompted American Forests to support the establishment of Christmas tree plantations in the 1920’s. For decades before the Christmas tree industry, people cut trees from the wild, sometimes illegally, and always with little consideration for the continuance of the forest. Ask where your tree is from before you buy! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Million Trees to Replant Millions Lost --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- According to the National Interagency Fire Center, this year more than 4.5 million acres of forest had burned across the United States by mid-December. Prolonged drought conditions in the West contributed to an above average wildfire season for many states, although the year was not as severe as those of 2000-2002. Wildfires burned a total of 6.5 million acres last year. This year was a wet year in many parts of the country, but the story was tragically different in California, which was hard-hit by wildfires driven by dry Santa Ana winds. In October and November, large fires broke out in the southern part of the state, especially in San Bernardino County and just east of San Diego. There were numerous fatalities and more than 3,500 structures were destroyed in the fires, which were fueled by dry conditions and large amounts of available fuel, including dead and dormant vegetation. The state’s largest fire since 1932—the Cedar Fire in San Diego County—consumed more than a quarter million acres on its own. In response to many requests from Californians and others across the country, American Forests launched a Wildfire ReLeaf for California program with a goal of planting a million trees in the state. In addition to many individual donors, businesses lined up to contribute, including Earthbound Farms, Marie Claire magazine, and TaoWarrior. Donations to American Forests’ Wildfire ReLeaf campaign are matched tree-for-tree by the United States Forest Service. For information on contributing to this campaign, visit www.americanforests.org. A special thanks to Mika Chandramohan, a middle-schooler in southern California who is raising support for Wildfire ReLeaf through the sale of tree-shaped holiday cookies and other sweets at her school’s bakesale. == WHAT'S HAPPENING =================================================== * Cottonwood Controversy Since 1971, a Rio Grande cottonwood tree in Fort Davis, Texas, has been listed on the American Forests’ National Register of Big Trees as the biggest. That Texas tree, most recently measured in 2001, has a trunk 30.6 feet around, stands 92 feet high, and has an average crown spread of 92 feet - statistics that earn it a Big Tree point score of 489. But in June, Matt Schmader and Bonnie Dils of Albuquerque Open Space, Jeff Hart of Albuquerque Park Management, and Suzanne Probart, executive director of Tree New Mexico, measured a big Rio Grande cottonwood growing on a ditch bank just a stone's throw from the Rio Grande Boulevard overpass. Their measurements made the tree a contender. However, a posse of disheartened Texans insisted on field verification and Oscar Mestas, an El Paso-based regional urban forester for the Texas Forest Service conducted his own measurements of the Albuquerque tree. Mestas measured and remeasured and remeasured again. His results, reluctantly agreed to by all observers, were that the Albuquerque ditch bank tree has a trunk circumference of 32.4 feet, its height is 64 feet, and its average crown spread is 88 feet. Total Big Tree points: 475, or 19 points less than the Texas tree's. (If it had come within 5 points, the Albuquerque tree would have been officially designated "co-champion" with the Texas tree.) Still, the New Mexico/Texas Big Tree competition isn’t over. The Texas tree might be a Populus fremontii, but not a var. wislizeni, and that would make it a Fremont cottonwood rather than a Rio Grande cottonwood—and the largest Fremont cottonwood is in Arizona. So Mestas is taking leaves of the Albuquerque tree back to Texas to compare with the leaves of the Fort Davis tree. In addition, there is also a report, as yet unconfirmed, of a Rio Grande cottonwood near Farmington that's even more of a Big Tree than the Fort Davis cottonwood. To learn more about the National Big Tree Register, visit www.americanforests.org. * NPR Covers Big Trees In a series of stories called, “Big Trees and the Lives They've Changed: A Look at Majestic Giants of Nature and their Effects on Humans,” National Public Radio writer Ketzel Levine tells the story of a few trees and a few people, in the hopes of capturing what makes them great and what leaves us awed. The series was inspired in part by the works of Kentucky poet, essayist and novelist Wendell Berry among others. You can listen to these stories by visiting NPR’s site at http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2003/nov/bigtrees/index.html. To find out more about The National Register of Big Trees, visit www.americanforests.org. * Poplar Trees Popular Among Pig Farmers? It’s been years since the struggle began. What can farmers do to dispose of sludge from hog waste lagoons? Researchers have come up with a possible green solution: poplar trees that suck up the waste like soda straws. If the procedure works well enough to be approved by state water quality officials, it could more than cut in half the cost of closing a waste lagoon, currently done with bulldozers and dump trunks. Studies have found the trees can absorb nearly 3,000 gallons of effluent per acre per day, ridding the ground of harmful ammonia and nitrogen by safely metabolizing the compounds in their woody tissue. However, according to the research completed by North Carolina and Oregon scientists, it could take up to 10 years before the trees clean the land well enough that it can be used again. There are 1,700 inactive lagoons in North Carolina waiting cleanup and 4,500 more lagoons in use. North Carolina ranks second in hog production at 9.6 million animals, behind Iowa at 15 million head. National Pork Board figures show one animal produces between 8,000 pounds and 64,000 pounds of waste a year, depending on its development. Cleaning out a typical lagoon could cost as much as $40,000 an acre, not counting the cost of land on which to spread the sludge. According to the research, the typical lagoon cleanup using the poplars would cost between $15,000 and $20,000 for a lagoon that is two to three acres. == Activities and Links =================================================== ----------------------------------------------------------------- American Forests' Feature Creature: Gray Wolf ----------------------------------------------------------------- Once feared and hated, today the gray wolf is a beloved symbol of the wilderness. In spite of all the stories, there have only been three recorded instances of wolves attacking humans in North America, and none of the attacks were deadly. However, wolves hunt in packs and can kill cattle as well as deer, caribou, and moose. Presently the gray wolf inhabits Michigan's Upper Peninsula, northern Minnesota and Wisconsin and a large geographic range in Alaska, Canada, Europe, Middle East and Asia. The gray wolf once lived in diverse regions such as Israel and Egypt. Now rarely seen, there are approximately 2,500 gray wolves in the lower 48 states and about 10,000 in Alaska. Gray wolves live in packs with 8 to 35 members. The leader of the pack is the alpha. Gray wolves mate for life. Usually only the alpha pair breeds. Pairs mate in the winter and about 9 weeks later 2 to 14 pups are born. People have changed their ideas and public policies about wolves many times. Today much research is being conducted to determine the best habitat for wolves. Recently, 30 gray wolves were re-introduced to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. Worldwide, gray wolves are coming back due to research and public education efforts. Gray wolves now live in Italy, Spain, France, Poland, Germany, the former Soviet Union, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. American Forests has worked in more than 20 Global ReLeaf projects in wolf habitats including the states of Minnesota, Wyoming and Michigan. To find out more about these projects, visit us online http://www.americanforests.org/global_releaf/projects/ Interesting Wolf Fact: Gray wolves communicate to each other through howling, body language and scent. Howling is used to assemble the pack, signal to other packs, assert territorial claims or as a source of pleasure. On a calm night, howls can be heard from as far as 120 miles away. Wolves use their faces and tails to indicate their emotion and status in the pack. A pack marks its territory by urine and feces. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Tree Trivia ----------------------------------------------------------------- What is the most popular species of tree displayed in American households during the holidays? A) White pine B) Ponderosa pine C) Scotch pine D) Douglas fir If you answer correctly, by emailing us at forestbytes@amfor.org, you will be automatically included in the monthly drawing to win a tree! One lucky winner will receive a Historic Tree (species depends on your local climate) from American Forests' Historic Tree Nursery. Make sure you include your phone number or email address please! Last Month’s Answer: Resulting winds from fire can top 120 mph; wind-driven flames leap from treetop to treetop is called... c) crowning. Congratulations to winner, Diane McMahon of New Jersey. ********************* ARE YOU A MEMBER??************************ You can do your part to help the environment today by joining AMERICAN FORESTS. Not only are 25 trees planted for you in a damaged ecosystem or forest restoration project, but you will also receive: - A free subscription to our quarterly magazine - A free Big Trees calendar - A window decal Join Today! Visit http://www.americanforests.org/ ***************************************************************** == ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS AND FEATURES FROM ENS-NEWS.COM and ENN.COM ================= * "Alarming Lack of Forest Protection in Europe" http://www.enn.com/direct/display-release.asp?objid=D1D1366D000000F4D5125C53A3D98FA4 ______________________________________ ForestBytes ______________ Don't forget to forward this information to friends or colleagues. 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