Browse Forestry Stories - Page 2

You took time to select and decorate the perfect live Christmas tree for the holiday. Now put a little forethought and time into recycling it. University of Georgia Extension offers suggestions on how to creatively recycle this year’s Christmas tree.

Container-grown or balled-and-burlapped Christmas trees can be planted as landscape trees after the holidays. This way of enjoying a Christmas tree is practical in Georgia, where the mild December or early January weather is ideal for tree planting. With care and planning, your Christmas tree will serve as a living memory for many years.

Before buying a pre-cut Christmas tree, put it through a few freshness tests, says University of Georgia Extension Agent Adam Speir. Christmas trees can be kept healthy and green through the holidays by following these tips.

Led by increases in forestry and livestock values, Georgia’s agricultural output increased by $484 million in 2014, making agriculture, once again, the largest industry in the state with a value of $14.1 billion. According to the most recent University of Georgia Farmgate Value Report, published earlier this month, the value of Georgia’s livestock and aquaculture industries increased by almost 36 percent from 2013.

Wood-rotting organisms can slowly nibble away at tree trunks and buttress roots. Many trees that topple look perfectly healthy before they fall. Afterward, it becomes clear that there were absolutely no structural roots remaining for support.

The transition of leaf color symbolizes an end to the growing season, but it is the best time of year to start trees in our landscape. When correctly sited and planted, a fall-planted tree will perform better than a spring-planted tree because the fall tree will establish roots before the warm summer temperatures draw moisture from and cause stress to the tree.

University of Georgia Cooperative Extension and the UGA Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources are teaming up to host a Southeast Georgia Forestry Field Day and Workshop. Georgia landowners, timber managers and forestry industry personnel are encouraged to attend the free event.

Controlling coyotes and clearing trees will top the list of popular topics at the Agroforestry and Wildlife Field Day on Thursday, Sept. 17, at the University of Georgia’s Westbrook Research Farm in Griffin, Georgia.

Landowners can learn how to care for their land at the 2015 Agroforestry and Wildlife Field Day. The tri-annual educational event is set for Thursday, Sept. 17, 2015, on the University of Georgia campus in Griffin, Georgia.

University of Georgia researchers are surveying landowners in Georgia to quantify the economic damage feral swine are causing the state.