Certification Recognizes Maryland State Forests as Sustainable
Independent auditors from the Forest Stewardship Council and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative recently reviewed Maryland’s Pocomoke State Forest and Chesapeake Forest Lands and recertified them as sustainable, meeting international standards for forest management. The audits consider ecological, social, and economic benefits of a responsibly managed forest.
Chesapeake Forest Lands became the state’s first certified forests 21 years ago; Pocomoke State Forest was certified shortly thereafter. The Eastern Shore areas have since been joined by four state forests in western Maryland: Savage River, Green Ridge, Garrett and Potomac state forests.
Among other aspects, certification helps allow responsible timber harvests, bringing environmentally friendly building products to market and assisting managers in providing age diversity in the forests.
Why Do Trees Drop So Many Seeds One Year, and Then Hardly Any the Next?
If you’ve encountered a woodland of oak trees generating enough acorns to cover the forest floor, you have witnessed “seed masting.” In this practice, plants drop most of their seeds in one year and then take years almost or completely off from seed production. Scientists have explained this with the “predator satiation hypothesis” (summarized here). But a recent paper by Canadian researchers in Current Biology advanced a new hypothesis for the evolution of seed masting: disease prevention.
Using mathematical models, the scientists found that seed masting creates many seeds that are capable of spreading disease to hosts, while slow seeding years may slow or starve the process.
Read a summary of the new research in this article from Smithsonian Magazine.
Wooden Surfaces May Have Antiviral Properties
Researchers have demonstrated that wood has antibacterial and antifungal properties, making it an ideal material for items such as cutting boards. Now, scientists in Finland are examining antiviral capabilities. As reported in a publication of the American Chemical Society, researchers studied how long certain viruses, including coronavirus and enteroviruses linked to the common cold, survived on six types of wood. Pine had the fastest onset of antiviral activity, reducing coronavirus’s ability to infect cells after as little as five minutes. Identifying exactly how a wood surface’s chemistry is responsible is the next step.
New Program to Plant Riparian Buffers in Virginia
The Virginia Dept. of Forestry has announced a new program to expand riparian buffers in the Potomac River Watershed. The “Riparian Forests for Landowners Program” covers all expenses related to site preparation, planting, and one year of maintenance of the new buffers. The program is open to private property owners, including HOAs, regardless of rural, urban, or suburban location.
DNR Trust Fund: $35 Million for State Ecological Projects
The Maryland DNR has awarded $35.8 million from the Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays Trust Fund for 34 projects to benefit water quality and habitat in the Chesapeake Bay watershed during the current fiscal year (through June 2025). In addition to projects with statewide impact, the awards will fund several local afforestation projects in Talbot, Washington, Worcester, Garrett, Allegany, and Frederick counties.
Read more about the specific programs here, and read the full list of awardees in a summary from the DNR here.
Branching Out, Vol. 32, no. 3 (Summer 2024)
Branching Out is the free, quarterly newsletter of the Woodland Stewardship Education program. For more than 30 years, Branching Out has kept Maryland woodland owners and managers informed about ways to develop and enhance their natural areas, how to identify and control invasive plants and insects, and about news and regional online and in-person events.