Forest Health

New from The Woods in Your Backyard Partnership, the Woodland Health Practices Field Guide provides the latest, research-based information on land-care practices.

The land care practices in "The Woods in Your Backyard" has helped hundreds of property owners and land managers. Our new publications, "Woodland Health Practices Handbook" and "Woodland Health Assessment Checklist," help green industry professionals apply these practices to their business services.

Publications to help you better manage your woodlands.

A non-native nematode is causing beech leaf disease in native Maryland beech trees. This article offers advice on identifying BLD in local beech trees and what to do if you find evidence.

Since its debut as a regular Branching Out feature in 2016, "Invasives in Your Woodland" has profiled a wide variety of invasive plant species that threated the health of Maryland's ecosystems.

In this issue: Thanks to those who took our reader and subscriber short survey; based on the results, we have some changes in store for the newsletter. Read about John Hooven, our new Forest Stewardship Educator, and about beech leaf disease; it's not been reported in Maryland yet, but it may be just a matter of time before it is. One of our regular features, the "Woodland Wildlife Spotlight," looks at the timber rattlesnake, and "Invasives in Your Woodlands" looks at Asian wisterias. And don't forget the events calendar and the Brain Tickler challenge.

There have been a few changes since the last issue of Branching Out.

A novel non-native microbe is locally impacting beech tree health and mortality throughout the northeastern United States and southern Canada. The microbe, Litylenchus crenatae mccannii, a subspecies of a nematode found in Japan, is causing beech leaf disease (BLD).

Chinese and Japanese Wisterias arrived in the U.S. in the early 1800s and have since spread to habitats across much of the eastern states. These twining and climbing vines can not only strangle and shade out trees, but can form dense thickets that suppress other native species.