By Dan Buckler, DNR Urban Forest Assessment Specialist, Madison, daniel.buckler@wisconsin.gov or 608-445-4578
The United States features a diverse yet complex group of people and locations. The U.S. Census Bureau regularly undertakes an attempt to catalog those people and places.
Likewise, many communities and organizations survey the trees they manage to better understand and maintain their urban forest.
By Sara Minkoff, retired DNR Urban Forestry Council Liaison
Many smaller Wisconsin communities would like to expand their tree planting efforts but have limited budgets. One village in southern Wisconsin came up with a solution.
Rochester Commons Park has been working to create an arboretum using several grants from the American Transmission Company, an electric transmission utility that aids in promoting natural resources in areas separate from electrical utility service lines.
The western Racine County village of about 4,000 people is lined predominantly with maple trees in the public right-of-way along streets and sidewalks. The goals of the ATC-funded project are to exhibit a variety of species beyond the maples to encourage residents to plant and grow more types of trees and diversify and beautify Rochester.
Continue reading “Rochester Creates Arboretum To Encourage Species Diversity”
Governor Evers has declared this as Forest Appreciation Week in Wisconsin. Bookended by Earth Day and Arbor Day, Forest Appreciation Week celebrates Wisconsin’s 17-million acre forest resource and the bountiful ecological, economic, social and cultural values it provides every day. This week’s celebration encompasses all ages of trees, from seedlings to seniors!
Wisconsin has a long history of planting trees and the DNR’s reforestation program is proud to have supplied more than 1.6 billion tree seedlings planted in Wisconsin since 1913. And, for the past 40 years, DNR has provided tree seedlings to fourth-grade students throughout Wisconsin for their Arbor Day celebrations.
While the purpose of tree planting in the early 1900s was to reforest the cutover forestland, today’s tree planting focus is on using trees as a tool to mitigate climate change. In fact, the state of Wisconsin pledged in 2021 to work with public, private and non-governmental partners to plant 75 million trees by the end of 2030 and to conserve 125,000 acres of forest land.
This week’s celebration also includes the introduction of the revitalized champion tree program. This program, started in 1941, recognizes and celebrates the largest of each tree species in Wisconsin.
Join the celebration as you enjoy and honor Wisconsin’s urban and rural forests.
By Joel DeSpain, Division of Forestry Communications Specialist
“Each of us from birth to death is intimately connected with trees. On their beauty and longevity we hang our memories and beliefs, trusting trees to be symbols of our achievements and things we hold dear,” wrote renowned Wisconsin arborist, R. Bruce Allison, in his wonderful book Every Root an Anchor, Wisconsin’s Famous and Historic Trees.
Wisconsin is abundant with rich forests, many of them urban, and as Allison notes, we develop deep connections with individual trees, some of which are the largest of their species in the state.
Here at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR), we’ve been relying on community members to help us find and measure these giants since 1941 as we celebrate and recognize our largest trees through our Champion Tree Program.
This is an ongoing search, and we are actively seeking additional nominations – to document the winners and share them on our website via a recently launched interactive map that provides photos, information, and locations of the champs.
Champion Black Tupelo (located in the UW-Madison arboretum)
Some have been discovered deep in the Northwoods, such as our prize-winning, 108-foot sugar maple located in Forest County on the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. The sugar maple has been a Wisconsinite favorite dating back to 1893 when school children first selected it as our state tree, loved for its brilliant orange and red autumn colors and the delicious maple syrup derived from its sap.
You can find other champions in people’s yards or beautifying city streets. So loved is Wisconsin’s champion, 92-foot tall Northern Catalpa on the University of Wisconsin-Platteville campus that faculty and students banded together with tree experts to save it following summer storm damage last year. With its white, trumpet-shaped flowers, giant heart-shaped leaves and dangling bean-like seed pods, the Northern Catalpa is a showy beauty of mammoth proportions.
Several grandiose winners have borne witness to colorful histories, like our 108-foot Eastern Cottonwood Champion which sits next to Door County’s reportedly haunted Interstate Saloon, built in 1895.
More record-holders were planted in cemeteries in memory of loved ones, some of whom served in the Civil War. In Waukesha County, a massive, majestic burr oak dates to pre-Revolutionary War times.
No doubt, champs are all over the Wisconsin landscape. It would take quite the road trip to visit them all, and we firmly believe there are more out there, like buried treasure, undiscovered, each with a story to tell. We would love to find and document each one, even if it means dethroning a current champion.
We can’t do it alone. The program has endured because everyday people have been keeping an eye out for more than 80 years, ever since the program launched. So, without further ado, we invite you to honor and preserve Wisconsin’s natural resources heritage. Good luck finding the next champ, and remember, the search can be very relaxing and fun!
By Lauren Peterson, Reforestation Communication Specialist, Division of Forestry
What’s the most sentimental space in your home? For many families with kids, it’s often a wall or a doorframe used as a tried-and-true method of tracking growth. This little corner of the house is filled with chicken scratched names, jumps in ages, even greater leaps in height, and happy memories of the past. However, for some Wisconsin families, a measurement of years gone by grows just outside the window.
For 40 years now, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has encouraged all fourth-grade students to take part in planting a free tree seedling, distributed by the Division of Forestry’s reforestation program. Fourth-grade teachers and homeschool parents are eligible to submit their orders for seedlings from winter through early spring in order to receive their shipment by Arbor Day.
It’s hard not to get sentimental thinking about tiny kids planting tiny seedlings, right? After an arduous journey of bouncing around in backpacks and being forgotten at bus stops, with branches abused but mostly intact, these seedlings found their forever homes outside those windows. Throughout the years, these seedlings have mirrored the growth of the tiny hands that first placed them in the soil.
Much like the seedlings and the fourth-grade students, this initiative to get future generations excited about forestry has grown each year to become a tradition unlike any other. Introduced in 1982, the project really hit its stride in 1984. Within the last decade, the DNR has supplied an average of more than 38,000 seedlings annually with a high of 45,857 seedlings shipped out in 2021. DNR’s reforestation team estimates that around 350,608 seedlings have been sent out to fourth graders across the state in the last ten years.
Conifer seedlings growing at the Wisconsin DNR nursery in Boscobel, WI
Seedlings are often a species of pine, distributed with an educational brochure to assist in planting and a plastic bag to ensure backpacks stay clean. Conifers, specifically pine, are commonly used for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, it is relatively easy for children under supervision to plant. These little pines are green in early spring and grow well throughout the state on a variety of soils. Finally, nurseries often have a large quantity of pine from year to year in the quantities needed to distribute thousands across the state.
That said, on the 100th anniversary of the Wisconsin state nursery program in 2011, the nurseries celebrated by providing sugar maple seedlings instead. Sugar maple was selected as the state tree of Wisconsin in 1983 and the nursery program felt it was appropriate to use that seedling for their centennial anniversary.
This Arbor Day we celebrate not only the holiday, but the countless people who made this seedling project grow to what it is today and the children it has impacted. Through four decades of this endeavor, the DNR has had the support of countless teachers, principals, parents, volunteers and employees. For many fourth-graders, planting their seedling has been a fun springtime activity and watching it grow throughout the years is a memory to be proud of. To others, it sparked a fascination with forestry, natural resources, conservation, or science. After 40 years, one thing is still true; this was never just about planting seedlings.
Do you have a memory about planting an Arbor Day seedling? We welcome your stories and photos at Forestry.Webmail@Wisconsin.gov.
The legal requirements of the Managed Forest Law program have changed, allowing additional flexibilities to landowners and clarifying the administration of the program by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR).
Governor Evers signed 2021 Wisconsin Act 230 into law on April 8, 2022, putting the following changes to chapter 77, Wis. Stats. into effect:
*Changes effective as of April 16, 2016
The act also clarifies:
Read the updated statute, chapter 77, Wis. Stats., on the Wisconsin Legislature’s website.
Thank you for your interest in the Managed Forest Law program.
The Wisconsin Department of Resources (DNR) Division of Forestry’s Tax Law Section recently updated its Tax Law Handbook.
The Tax Law Handbook instructs staff and professional partners, including Cooperating Foresters and Certified Plan Writers, on implementing statutes and rules at a specifically technical level.
Program overview and reference information, compliance procedures for mandatory practices, and voluntary compliance agreements were updated, revised and posted for public comment for 21 days ending Jan. 19, 2022.
View the final updated Forest Tax Law Handbook.
The DNR considered each comment received and valued stakeholder input. As a result of stakeholder comments, no changes were made. Tax law staff sent a response email to each person that commented.
Fifteen written comments were received from 14 individuals. Most of the comments (13 of 15) were regarding the Mandatory Practice Compliance Procedures changes in Chapter 601, focusing on introducing a three-year limit for practices to have a status of services accepted, meaning professional forestry services are secured, and why it might be problematic due to difficult harvests and lack of markets.
Nevertheless, the comments received described instances and provided examples of DNR’s flexibility despite difficult sales and lack of markets. The DNR remains flexible in maintaining communicative and cooperative landowners in compliance.
There is a limit on how long practices could use a status of services accepted to keep remain compliant.
With an active cutting notice, there is no limit on how long practices can be compliant. A cutting notice is generally required when merchantable trees are cut on Managed Forest Law (MFL) or Forest Crop Law (FCL) land.
Information on cutting notices is available here.
The DNR will renew cutting notices as long as the landowner communicates with the department and has a credible plan to complete the practice in a reasonable amount of time.
Learn more about other Division of Forestry stakeholder input opportunities.
By Paul Cigan, DNR Forest Health Specialist
Paul.Cigan@wisconsin.gov or 715-416-4920
Emerald ash borer (EAB) has been discovered in Bayfield County for the first time in both the city of Bayfield and Bayview township to the south. This marks the 63rd out of Wisconsin’s 72 counties to have an EAB discovery since its initial detection in 2008.
Figure 1: First known infested ash tree in Bayfield County with characteristic woodpecker damage (i.e., flecking).
Photo: Wisconsin DNR
Several white ash trees (Fig 1.) were observed in and around a roadside park in the city of Bayfield, and larval specimens were subsequently lab-confirmed. In Bayview, a black ash swamp had several infested black ash (Fig 2).
After introduction, EAB populations remain low for at least several years as most larvae in newly infested, healthy ash require two years to complete their life cycle. The abundance of healthy ash at each site suggests EAB populations have remained low since their introduction at least three years ago. However, EAB will kill ash more quickly as beetle numbers mount and more larvae transform from egg to adult in a single year. Unfortunately, many ash in the area are expected to die within four to seven years based on detection-to-impact timeframes observed from the Superior and Duluth area and research conducted in midwestern states. Continue reading “Emerald Ash Borer Found In Bayfield County”
Each spring, Wisconsin State Forests develop Annual Property Implementation Plans (APIPs) and Monitoring Reports identifying the major scheduled and completed forest and habitat management treatments, recreation and infrastructure developments and other property management actions.
These plans are shared with the public online for review, questions, and comment; fiscal year 2023 APIPs are now available on the DNR website.
All planned treatments and developments in the annual plans are approved and consistent with the property master plans developed with additional public input. Annual Property Implementation Plans do not include routine maintenance or minor actions including mowing, building maintenance, inventory or field surveys.
Comments on APIPs can be directed to the property manager.
Contact: Paul Cigan, DNR Forest Health Specialist
Paul.Cigan@wisconsin.gov or 715-416-4920
As April brings a high risk of the often-fatal oak wilt disease, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) recommends not pruning or cutting oaks from April through July.
Do not prune, cut or wound oaks April through July.
Photo: Linda Williams
