By JOE RANKIN Forests for Maine’s Future writer Quickly now. This is a quiz. What is the most common tree species in Maine? You might have said pine. It is, after all the Pine Tree State. Or the iconic white birch, perhaps. But you’d be wrong. The most common tree in the state is…
It’s safe to say that things have changed since the 1970s and 1980s, when the spruce budworm last ravaged the northern Maine woods. The forest has changed hands, some parcels many times. The state’s woods products and paper industries have suffered severe blows — mills have closed and thousands of jobs evaporated. Then, there is…
By Joe Rankin, published August 2016 Much of the southern half of Maine is dry. Really dry. Lawns brown. Gardens struggling. Wells drying up. Things are bad on the rainfall front and in early August the forecasts weren’t looking good for rain. The U.S. Drought Monitor for Aug. 9 said the southern tip of Maine…
By JOE RANKIN You’re in a store, say, and you look around you at the other patrons. Can you tell who is healthy? For a few, maybe. For most, probably not. Light in the forest (Photo: Rankin file)Things are similar for a forest. Just look at the trees and it might be hard to tell…
By Joe RankinForests for Maine’s Future Writer It’s not every educator who sees a teaching opportunity in a forest-munching nondescript brownish-gray moth. But Susan Linscott does. And not just an opportunity to inform her students, but her community as well about the spruce budworm, a cyclical pest of spruce and fir trees that is now…
By Joe Ranki, Forests for Maine’s Future writer November 2013 When the emerald ash borer arrives in Maine everyone will lose, but the state’s Native American tribes have more to lose than most. The ash is a valuable hardwood: straight, tall, with a beautiful open grain; producer of prime firewood. The three ash species that…
By Joe Rankin Forests for Maine’s Future Writer It was a hot July day in the 1970s. Dave Struble was back home in Island Falls, on a day off from his job as a regional entomologist for the Maine Forest Service. But it was too hot to do much, and he suggested to his…
Fresh from the Woods By Joe Rankin Forests for Maine’s Future Writer June 2011 Around the turn of the last century a serial killer sneaked into the United States. An immigrant from Asia. It likely came over with a load of lumber from Europe. Like many serial killers it specialized in a…
Wabanaki ash baskets are displayed outside a tent at the Native American Festival at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor. (Photo by Ethan Andrews) By Ethan Andrews Originally published on Forests For Maine Future website on October 4, 2010. Updated February 13, 2022 The expected arrival of an invasive beetle that kills ash…
Fresh from the Woods To prove they are resistant, hybrid chestnut trees growing in Weeks Mills were inoculated with two strains of this fungus in late June. Nut enthusiasts attempt to breed blight-resistant American chestnut By Andrew KekacsThis is a story about staggering loss — the kind of loss that leaves a community or an…
