Photo Courtesy of Kevin Doran This fall, students of Mr. Glenn Evans’ sophomore Honors Biology class at Mt. Ararat High School in Topsham, Maine conducted an analysis of forest growth using community science protocols established by Maine TREE. Mr. Evans and his students are long-time contributors to what is now known as the Forest Ecology…
On Thursday, September 24th, Maine TREE hosted an informational webinar is to share information about an upcoming research timber harvest at the Holt Research Forest in Arrowsic. Jack Witham, Holt Research Forest Scientist, provides background on the history of the Holt Research Forest, and Maine Licensed Forester, Barrie Brusila, gives an overview of the planned…
By Joe RankinForests for Maine’s Future writer Forests aren’t static. They’re dynamic. Since trees colonized the rubble left by the glaciers’ retreat 12,000 years ago, the forest has shifted and reshaped itself many times. Jim Shaffer examines a pineNow the planet is heating up and scientists are trying to anticipate how things will change. Some…
“Outdoors” people, even those that don’t consider themselves naturalists, can identify trees, at the least common species. And the common wildflowers. But, when it comes to ferns, well, ferns tend to look alike. Sort of lacy and delicate and . . . green. That is unfortunate, say fern lovers and fern experts. Ferns are a…
It’s not easy being a whitetail deer in Maine in the winter, especially northern Maine. The snow piles deep, the frozen winds howl down out of Canada and food is scarce, especially foods that provide the necessary calories to help you cope with the harsh weather. Enter the deer wintering area. Or “deer yard” as…
Travel the rural roads in this part of the country and you’ll see them along roadsides and driveways and in yards. Green in summer, a painter’s palette of orange, yellow, and red for a few glorious weeks in the fall. These giant sugar maples are New England’s signature trees, now that most of the old…
There’s no question that old growth forests are fairly uncommon, especially in the eastern parts of North America. In a handful of generations European settlers turned tens of millions of acres of old trees into beams and boards and a thousand other things and the land that had grown them to corn and potatoes and…
Human-caused climate change is THE environmental issue of our times. Alarming reports point out that we’re already seeing the effects of a warming planet and predict dire consequences if we don’t get a handle on our fossil fuel addiction — and soon. But before climate change, there was acid rain. Back in the 1980s and…
A thinned white pine stand photo courtesy of City of PortlandTwo years ago, logging crews spent the first three months thinning the woods surrounding Riverside Golf Course along the Presumpscot River. Not unusual, this is Maine, after all, the most forested state in the country. But it is noteworthy because it occurred in Maine’s largest…
By Joe Rankin, Forests for Maine’s Future Writer Editors Note: This story was originally published in 2018. In 2021, researchers from the University of New Hampshire identified southern pine beetle for the first time in Maine. Sometimes the name of an organism carries weighty meaning. For instance, that of the southern pine beetle, Dendroctonus frontalis….
