SilviCast Wisconsin Forestry Center and Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources

It’s not worth saying anything unless it’s worth taking a long time to say, to paraphrase Treebeard in The Lord of the Rings. And sometimes you need to play the long game if you’re a research forester too. Long-term silvicultural studies are surprisingly rare, but extremely valuable. That is why a recent paper on six decades of selection cutting results got our attention. The Cutting Methods Study is a long-term investigation of cutting systems in second-growth northern hardwood stands on the Argonne Experimental Forest in northern Wisconsin. Join us on this episode of SilviCast as we explore the somewhat surprising results with Christel Kern, Research Forester with the U.S. Forest Service’s Northern Research Station. 
To earn CEU/CFE credits, learn more, or interact with SilviCast, visit the uwsp.edu/SilviCast.

Sometimes foresters in eastern North America may feel as if they are in a Lemony Snicket novel, with chestnut blight, spongy moth, Dutch elm disease, and emerald ash borer creating a continuing series of unfortunate events.  Emerald ash borer or EAB is one of the most recent invasive pests with the potential to eliminate an entire tree species. And foresters have many questions on how to manage EAB impacted stands and what they can do to help maintain ash trees as a component of our forests. On this episode of SilviCast we talk with two of North America's leading researchers working on EAB genetics and ecology, Kathleen Knight and Jennifer Koch of the USFS Northern Research Station in Delaware, Ohio.
To earn CEU/CFE credits, learn more, or interact with SilviCast, visit the uwsp.edu/SilviCast.

As foresters we spend a great deal of time looking up, to evaluate forest composition, structure and growth. The story below ground is equally as interesting however, with complex interactions between soils, nutrients, water, roots, and a host of other flora and fauna. As they say in Vegas, what happens below ground, stays below ground! Everything here is more difficult to study. This is particularly true about a class of organisms critical to trees, mycorrhizal fungi. We know that mycorrhizal fungi play an important role in allowing trees to uptake more nutrients and water. But does it go further than that? There have been a huge number of popular media stories talking about this subject, but what is the current state of the science?  And what do forester need to know about how these fungi impact tree growth, or how we impact mycorrhizal fungi through management? Join us on this episode of SilviCast as we explore this subject with Justine Karst, Associate Professor and mycologist with the University of Alberta, and Marty Kranabetter, Regional Soil Scientist with the British Columbia Ministry of Forests.​
To earn CEU/CFE credits, learn more, or interact with SilviCast, visit the uwsp.edu/SilviCast.

No matter how you define it, old-growth forests are scarce as hen’s teeth in the eastern United States. More than 99% of our forests are second growth. While we can’t speed up time, we can speed up the development of old-growth characteristics through creative silviculture. Join us on this episode of SilviCast as we talk with Paul Catanzaro, Professor and State Extension Forester at the University of Massachusetts - Amherst, about a range of silvicultural techniques to restore old-growth characteristics.
To earn CEU/CFE credits, learn more, or interact with SilviCast, visit the uwsp.edu/SilviCast.

The official Society of American Foresters' definition of silviculture describes it as both an art and science. Are foresters both artists and scientists? What role does creativity play when developing a silvicultural prescription or setting up a timber sale? In forestry school we learn the foundational sciences of silvics, forest ecology, soils, wildlife, and water. And through experience and time spent in the forest we learn how to best apply that science to particular stands and site conditions. Join us on this season 4 finale of SilviCast as we talk with Marcella Windmuller-Campione, Associate Professor of Silviculture at the University of Minnesota, about keeping the creativity in silviculture and the importance of being a life-long learner.​​ ​
To earn CEU/CFE credits, learn more, or interact with SilviCast, visit the uwsp.edu/SilviCast.

If you're a whiskey enthusiast, you are probably aware of a lesser-known federal law that requires all bourbon (an American whiskey) to be aged in a “charred new oak container." And those containers or casks are made almost exclusively from white oak (Quercus alba). But white oak has been popular long before the recent rise in whiskey-sipping Gen Xers! It is simply hard to overstate the importance of this tree species to forest products, wildlife habitat, and ecosystem services. In fact, stakeholders from across eastern North America have joined forces to promote the long-term sustainability of white oak forests through the White Oak Initiative. In this episode of SilviCast, we talk​ with one of the White Oak Initiative founders, Dr. Jeff Stringer, chair of the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Kentucky, about this critical tree species and the efforts to sustain it. ​

To earn CEU/CFE credits, learn more, or interact with SilviCast, visit the SilviCast website.
To earn CEU/CFE credits, learn more, or interact with SilviCast, visit the uwsp.edu/SilviCast.