Northeast Forest Resources Extension Council meeting

(NeFREC)

Dec. 3 & 4, Haddam, CT

Every year in early December, extension foresters from the USFS northeast forest service region (MN to the East coast, and south to WV) gather to discuss hot topics and areas of concern in forestry outreach, but most importantly, to steal good ideas from the successful programs of their colleagues! While traditionally held at Grey Towers, the Pennsylvania family home of Gifford Pinchot (chief of the US Forest Service upon its creation) the meeting has roamed since the COVID years. The 2024 meeting was hosted by Tom Worthley, extension forester at UConn, at the Extension Center in Haddam, CT. Many states were represented, some in person and some remote. The following are some highlights shared from various corners of the northeast.

• Tom Worthley of UConn discussed the need for oak regeneration (photo-AB) in research and in emerging climate-adaptive forestry practices, and efforts to identify and promote methods for regeneration that landowners can use in their own forests. CT’s Master Woodland Manager program was another exciting topic, running just three years, winning awards, and seeking to increase capacity to accommodate an otherwise years-long waitlist of participants. CT will be busy in 2025 participating in leadership for the NESAF meeting in March in MA, and the National SAF meeting in October in Hartford, CT.
• Allyson Muth from Penn State shared the successes of the James C. Finley Center for Private Forests at Penn State and plans for a 2025 statewide forest landowner conference. Also discussed was the Center’s upcoming research to identify accomplishments of Penn State’s Forest Stewards peer-to-peer network, map out Forest Stewards roles in communities, and consider needs and places to improve effectiveness of the program for continuation and upgrading of the program as turnover of leaderships begets changes for the future. Other highlights from Penn State include tree ID programs and mapping workshops for landowners to help them start conversations with foresters, and a panel-style session where wildlife and forestry educators and faculty answer pre-submitted questions, and it has seen a huge amount of participation and received excellent feedback.
• Peter Smallidge, State Extension Forester at Cornell Cooperative Extension, came with Brett Chedzoy, manager of Cornell’s Arnott teaching forest and director of the Master Forest Owner volunteer program. Cornell’s peer-to-peer forest owner network successfully transitioned its educational portion into a hybrid style combining online learning and a day-long session in the forest. They find the change has really expanded participation and demographics in participants. This sparked animated discussion of strategies to contact new landowners and bring them into the network, and also how to arm visiting volunteers with targeted information for their peers. Ethan Tapper and other masters of forestry social media were discussed. A number of new tools were discussed from short-form video to online discussion forums for supporting peer to peer networks to drones and LiDAR for forest inventorying. Hot topics in NY include forest pollinators, silvopasture, and of course slash walls which is something of a specialty of Cornell’s.
• On the subject of new tools, the meeting was joined by Matthew Richardson, science delivery specialist with the USFS. He has been reaching out to extension foresters in the northeast to improve partnerships, co-production of research, and to solicit feedback on the USFS toolkits. He shared a number of tools available from USFS, and other resources including the USFS science delivery platform Rooted in Research.
• Cotton Randall, A representative from the USFS State, Private, and Tribal Forestry was also present to share programs and opportunities of interest to extension foresters. USFS goals were highlighted, for example, the Forest Stewardship program, which supports states in supporting private landowners, is making a concentrated effort to support states in reaching out to underserved landowners specifically.
• Steve Roberge, Extension Forester in New Hampshire, shared experiences from their NH Invasive Academy, a program focusing on a different invasive forest plant each year. The Silviculture Institute project and Women in the Woods program were also successful stories shared. NH is updating its best management practices for foresters to include more use of slash and water bars and other strategies to deal with warmer winters and increased precipitation. Agroforestry, silvopasture, and white oak production are hot topics and the subjects of near-future grants, and also timber for CLT (cross-laminated timber) or “mass timber” buildings – Roberge and Forest Industry Extension Specialist Andy Fast gave a forest-to-sawmill-to-building tour introducing budding architects to supply chains and their raw building materials!
• Extension Forestry in Maine has been building up their capacity, expanding on a robust agriculture extension program in the State. Sean Horan was there to share his teams budding “micro-credentialing” program for the promotion of climate resilience in sugarbushes through diversity and methods of mitigating risk to extreme weather. A new invasive plant workshop is receiving much more interest than originally expected. The team hopes to double the times they run this for next year. The workshop focuses on 12 main invasive plants in Maine and provides participants with a waterproof flip book! The next year should be exciting as new Wood Bank coordinator starts working, and 2 American Climate Corps members extend outreach to forest owners in the northern counties.
• Christopher Riely of URI shared information on the university’s growing partnership with the RI office of the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service in which he offers forestry training to NRCS and Conservation District staff and assists them in providing technical assistance to forest owners. URI is working with UConn on the two-state Southern New England Exurban Oak Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change (ASCC) research and demonstration project, which has led to new RI extension publications for both landowners and natural resource professionals on managing forests for climate resiliency. URI also maintains the Rhode Island Woods website, which is intended as a go-to state resource for forest management and conservation information, and helps coordinate the Rhode Island Woodland Partnership.
• Bill Hubbard, Extension program leader at University of Maryland, tuned in to share an update on the overhauling of their successful Master Logger program, incorporating more videos and determining continuing education needs of forestry professionals in the state. Maryland Extension is developing harvest demonstration areas on University property, including prescriptions for warbler habitat, and maintains successful online short courses in forestry and back yard woods. They are also actively participating in the IUFRO Extension Knowledge and Exchange Working Party, which will be connecting with the Small Scale forestry Working Party in a September meeting in the US, and bring some novel international perspectives to our normally US-dominated discussions.
• Ali Kosiba tuned in from Vermont where she is the State Extension Forester with UVM. She shared their re-modeled Extension forestry website and new YouTube Channel and Instagram feed. UVM extension will also now be taking ownership of the successful Securing Northeast Forest Carbon website with is extensive resources. Ali highlighted an upcoming project where she and a student will be collecting short-form video for an interactive Storymap to showcase climate-adaptive forestry projects in the State, to help show landowners what they look like and what it’s like to do one. Hot topics in Vermont lately include agroforestry, supply chains, and of course maple sugaring, with many sugar operations interested in net-zero carbon recently – and offsetting emissions from reverse osmosis machines, trucking, etc. will require a hard look at the maple sugar supply chain!

Participants left the meeting both inspired and despairing, considering what time the realistically have to try out all the exciting new ideas. If they haven’t’ managed to find you, you can look up the extension services in your state. Extension Forestry is always listening for your questions and collecting all the latest information to share!