Forestry Best Management Practices

Your woodlands are important. They are a valuable resource for your family’s enjoyment and their future, and for the environment. The University of Maryland Extension now participates in the “Call Before You Cut” program. The program provides Maryland woodland owners with free information to ensure that they harvest their timber in the most efficient, cost-effective, and ecologically-sound manner possible.

Paula Whyman ʼ87 and her husband bought 200 acres on a peak in the Blue Ridge Mountains, where she undertook the daunting task of clearing invasive plants and encouraging native plant life on this long gone-to-seed cow pasture and orchard—an experiment she's written about in her new book, “Bad Naturalist: One Woman's Ecological Education on a Wild Virginia Mountaintop.”

Publications to help you better manage your woodlands.

We are surrounded by plans, either those that we make for ourselves or those that have been created by others. While a New Year’s Resolution is a plan for action, if you are a land owner or manager, you don’t have to wait until January. Now is a good time to assess the property and make a plan.

In this issue: Help us learn more about our readers and subscribers by taking our short survey. Read about a potential ally in the fight against hemlock wooly adelgid, and how Marylanders can get a rebate for planting native trees. There's information about our spring session of "The Woods in Your Backyard" online course, plus our regular features: the "Woodland Wildlife Spotlight" looks at the American beaver and "Invasives in Your Woodlands" looks at Princess tree. And don't forget the events calendar and the Brain Tickler challenge.

Read about our upcoming online courses for the fall and about this year's Maryland-Delaware Master Logger. There's also the News and Notes summary about stories you might have missed, as well as our regular features the Woodland Wildlife Spotlight, Invasives in Your Woodland, and the Brain Tickler challenge. 

The News and Notes roundup for this issue features a way to get caught up on this fall's Woodland Wildlife Wednesday webinars, a way to remove adult Spotted Lanternflies using an empty water bottle, how to have your business listed in our new Natural Area Management Services Providers Directory, and how to order seedlings for spring planting projects from the Maryland State Nursery.

Occasionally, the two roles I have with UME intersect, and I find I can use a mix of old and new skills to move projects forward, just as forest managers have learned it's good to have a mix of new and old growth to keep woodlands and wildlife healthy.

The consulting and industrial professional foresters listed in this publication are willing to work with small acreage woodland owners to encourage healthy and sustainable woodlands.