Forest Health Workshops

Forest Health Workshops

Forest Health Workshops. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture.

What happens if you live in one part of a state but own land in another part that could be subject to invasive pests? Chuck Hersey, Forest Health Specialist with the Washington DNR talks about some landowner workshops.

HERSEY: The main purpose of them is they're focusing on Eastern Washington forest health issues. Eastern Washington forests, a lot of our forests are overstocked. Basically too many trees and a lot of times the species concentration has been altered so there's a lot more Douglas fir or true fir and the overstocking and the change in species composition leads to a host of insect and disease problem that anybody that's spent time on the east side over the last couple of years has seen plenty of evidence of the damage from western spruce budworm or mortality from pine bark beetles.

DNR and WSU Extension are hosting two workshops, one on May 19th and the other on May 28.

HERSEY: The focus of these workshops is to focus on private forest landowners, help give them a sense of what the issues are out there in terms of forest health that the main focus is getting the stocking on the site so reducing the density of the trees. So that they're better able to protect themselves. Also make people familiar with the common insects and the signs of damage and understand what their management options are and what resources are available to assist them.

That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.

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