Woodlot Management: Maintaining Healthy, Productive Forests
Blue Rooster Farm - East Waterford, Juniata County
Friday, November 6
10:00am—3:00pm
$15 PASA Members, $25 all others. Lunch will be provided.
Come work in the woods at this hands-on, collaborative field day for people interested in integrating forest management into a small, diversified farming operation. Hosts Julie Hurst and Roy Brubaker will lead a brief tour of their operation where they manage to keep the cows & sheep grazing, the water flowing, and the fences shocking, even while Roy works full time as a forester for Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR).
We'll focus the day on the thirty acres of forestland that came with their farm. We'll work from a specific set of short and long-term objectives ranging from securing lumber for a materials list for a farm building project to encouraging the establishment of tree seedling regeneration and plant diversity on the forest floor. Then, together we'll learn how to cost-effectively integrate forestry work into whole farm planning. We’ll develop silvicultural prescriptions for a number of small sample areas, demonstrate safe and efficient directional felling techniques, skid logs to a yarding site for further processing using a horse and an ATV, and predict the yield of lumber in the logs we remove based on different bucking options. The day will conclude with a discussion on the challenges and opportunities inherent in farm woodlot management.
