The Slow Storm: Tree and Stand Mortality in CT during 2018 from drought, insects and diseases.

by Thomas E Worthley, UConn Associate Extension Professor, Forestry

During the last decade most tree-related front-page-newsworthy stories resulted from disruptions related to severe storm events that caused power outages, transportation disruptions and property damage that folks will long remember. Such events are sudden and dramatic, are certainly newsworthy and result in visible changes in our landscapes and neighborhoods. Less sudden and dramatic, but perhaps more intensively and extensively altering our wooded landscapes visibly and ecologically, is the slow and relentless “perfect storm” of weather patterns, invasive insects and opportunistic pathogens the last few years causing severe and extensive tree mortality, most noticeably in eastern CT. We are witnessing a landscape-scale change in forest species composition, age structure and stand condition such as not been experienced in a generation. Continue reading →