News from the issue 12 | fall 2018 quiet corner brought to you by the yale school forests
About the An Introduction from Joseph Orefice, Ph.D. quiet corner our new Director of Forest & Agricultural Operations initative Greetings residents and friends of Connecticut’s beef cattle herd, sold the farm, and moved to The Quiet Corner Initiative (QCI) supports local Quiet Corner. I am excited to have joined the Connecticut. The cows are now happily grazing livelihoods, sustainable forest management, and rural Yale School Forests and Faculty as of August. on 133 acres of land I purchased in Union; while economic development by building relationships between I am also thrilled to be joining all of you as a my partner, Lindsay, and I are working hard local landowners, conservation and forestry professionals, resident of Connecticut’s Quiet Corner. to get our new farm up and running. We are and the students and faculty of the Yale School of Forestry My position with Yale is new and my directive building a working farm from the ground up & Environmental Studies. Thank you to our alumni and the is to oversee operations on our school forests that specializes in grass-fed beef, agroforestry, rest of the Yale community for their support. while also providing forestry and agricultural delicious vegetables, and maple syrup. On-farm related education opportunities for our students, research and education is a passion of mine, and and neighbors in the Quiet Corner. I think there I am confident that Hidden Blossom Farm will A note from the is incredible value in providing students with be a resource for agroforestry innovation and Quiet Corner a world-class curriculum that dovetails with education right here in the Quiet Corner: www. practical experience. My teaching philosophy hiddenblossomfarm.com. Initiative Manager has been that the best education occurs when The heart of the Quiet Corner is the people in Greetings! students are able to apply what they’ve learned. the community and the heart of Yale University The Quiet Corner Initiative is a shining is our students; I could not be happier to join We are pleased to announce that the School Forests example of this philosophy as is the summer our team in connecting these two groups. The has decided to fund a full-time QCI manager in an immersion of Yale students into our school forest Quiet Corner Initiative has nearly a decade of effort to expand the impact of QCI. I was excited to management and research. While my new role history linking the people and resources of our step into that role in June after graduating from FES includes the day-to-day administration of many working landscape, and I hope my background with an MFS degree. As a student, my research focus of our school forest programs, it is the teaching in practical forestry and agriculture will serve was here at the Yale-Myers forest, exploring how and community extension component that I find an important niche in the years to come. My forests regenerate following timber harvesting. I came most rewarding. contact e-mail is [email protected], and to FES from a career as a consulting forester with a I come to the area most recently from the I would welcome input from the community on focus on western Connecticut and the Berkshires of ’17 Terry Rebecca Photo: Adirondack Mountains of New York where I how my new role and the Yale School Forests Massachusetts, and have a forestry degree from the wore many hats. For the better part of a decade can best support Connecticut’s Quiet Corner. University of New Hampshire. I chose to return to I was on the forestry faculty of Paul Smith’s school so that I could expand my career in forestry College, and I am proud to recall that many of to one with a stronger emphasis on outreach and our top students came from this education, and I’m very excited to strengthen and area of Connecticut. Most recently increase what QCI has to offer. I served as the Director of Cornell’s Updates from the Forest: Uihlein Maple Research Forest and Northern New York Maple This past summer at Yale-Myers marked the first Specialist in Lake Placid, NY. I summer season with full use of the new camp conducted research and extension buildings, as well as the new research lab. The Yale- efforts related to all aspects of Myers Forest Camp housed one of its largest groups maple and birch syrup production on record, with 12 students on forest crew, a team while running Cornell’s 6,000 tap of 8 undergraduate field ecology interns, as well as commercial sugarbush. staff, Ph.D., and Masters student researchers from FES. We also hosted five research seminars, four I also left behind my first farm environmental films, and four summer workshops, in the Adirondacks. It was there wrapping up with a game bird management that I researched and practiced workshop in conjunction with CT DEEP, the Ruffed agroforestry, most specifically Grouse Society, and The National Wild Turkey silvopasture, in addition to Federation. This fall also marked our 5th annual producing high tunnel vegetables. Harvest Festival (see some photos below!). However, it was far from where my siblings and parents live in Check out the save the dates section below to see what Harwinton, CT, and the additional we have lined up for the winter and spring! pull of my alma mater (Yale Master of Forestry 2009) brought Jess Wikle Quiet Corner Initiative Manager me home. This past July, I pulled Yale School Forests up what roots I could, loaded the most docile animals in my the qci newsletter is brought to you by Content by layout by The Yale School Forests Jess Wikle, Quiet Corner Initiative Manager, MFS '18; Yale School Forests 360 Prospect Street Joseph Orefice, Ph.D., MF '09;
issue 12 | fall 2018 12 | fall issue New Haven, CT 06511 Laura Green, Naturalist Program Fellow & Research Coordinator, MF ’18; Kimi Zamuda, MESc '19;
Rosa Goldman, MF ’19.
New Haven, CT 06511 CT Haven, New
Street Prospect 360
Initiative Corner Quiet
Forests School Yale The Research Spotlight: Birds & Forest Management Laura Green, MF ’18, Naturalist Program Fellow & Research Coordinator Consider the peent of a woodcock calling 2009 paper found that shelterwoods hosted For birds like the prairie warbler and eastern from the edge of an old field, or the flash of a greater diversity of bird species than either towhee, which need low, shrubby habitat to a woodpecker as it swoops from tree to tree. canopy thinning treatments, or the mature breed, the past hundred years of reforestation Plants and birds are intimately linked, with forest. in New England have posed a challenge. vegetation determining where suitable nesting These species, which rely on early successional habitat is found, what food – both plant and To further investigate this, in 2016 a new group habitat, have seen their populations decline animal – is available, and where birds can seek of researchers published work looking at birds as the forest has closed in across the region. protection from predators. This suite of services across shelterwoods of varying ages to ask how Forest management that creates a more diverse broadly determines where on the landscape a bird diversity changed over time. The paper, landscape in terms of forest age and structure, given species of birds can forage or breed. What led by Dr. Marlyse Duguid and Hale Morrell, with patches of young forest, helps ensure role does forest management play in creating then an F&ES student, found different bird that these species will continue to have a place this landscape? For the last ten years, researchers species occupied shelterwoods at different to breed. Based on the research of scientists working at Yale-Myers Forest have been asking times since harvest. When they arrived at a working at YMF and in other temperate forests, that very question. shelterwood depended on when their preferred shelterwoods can create the more open habitat habitat – from dense shrubs to open ground needed by these species, while also retaining In 2009, a group led by Dr. Eben Goodale under complete canopy – was available. In canopy structure that allows species typically published a paper based on work at YMF the same year, F&ES student Juliana Hanle found in mature forest to persist. that showed a relationship between different returned to the same shelterwoods Duguid types of forest management and bird and Morrell had studied to ask a new question: Interested in learning more? Check out Foresters species diversity and abundance. One of the are these differences in bird occupancy related for the Birds, a program initially developed by management treatments they investigated was to the physical structure and composition of Audubon Vermont, which provides information, the shelterwood harvest. Shelterwoods are a forest vegetation? The resulting paper, which is field tours, and technical assistance on forest regeneration treatment which removes part currently being reviewed for publication, found management for bird habitat in several New of the overstory to create growing space for that a diversity of plants in the forest understory, England states. tree species that need some protection to get as well as a diverse and significant retention established, followed later by a removal of most of canopy trees, increases bird diversity and For links to the papers referenced, please email or all of the remaining canopy in order to let abundance in these harvests. Laura ([email protected]). those newly established trees take off. Goodale’s
Fall 2018 Harvest Festival Thank you to our Quiet Corner partners for making the Harvest Festival a success. Photographs: AJ Hudson, MEM '19 (top), Frank Cervo, MF '19 (bottom) MF '19 Cervo, Frank (top), AJ Hudson, MEM '19 Photographs: Student Research in Get a Management the Quiet Corner Plan for Your Land Consider working with Yale F&ES Kimi Zamuda's research at Yale Myers focuses forestry students to have a management on how land use, including timber and plan prepared for your property. The agricultural practices, impacts where certain plans include ecological and historical animal species occur. Her research focuses assessments of the forests of your specifically on mesopredator mammals backyard, and can be tailored to each land owner’s needs. Plans can include which are typically mid-sized animals that management recommendations addressing fall in the middle of the food chain--both sustainable wood lot practices, silvipasture, eating prey and being eaten by other animals. or other ecological activities. These include coyotes, bobcats, red foxes, Getting a management plan is an racoons and fishers. This research has direct opportunity to crystalize your land application to habitat conservation and will, management and conservation goals, and ideally, inform effective management practices have free professional-grade advice on ways to achieve them. It is also a chance for within Yale Myers and beyond. Yale F&ES foresters to put their educations Kimi's research is conducted in collaboration into practice. This fall, Yale F&ES foresters with a number of private landowners are currently engaged in preparing management plans for nine separate in the Quiet Corner and illustrates the landowners in the Quiet Corner. opportunity for FES students to work with local landowners to research the ecology interested, or have questions? and working lands of the region. Stay tuned Please contact Quiet Corner Initiative for our Spring 2019 newsletter for more Manager, Jess Wikle, at: information on Kimi's research. [email protected].
Forest Crew Summer 2018 Crew Recap Interested in conserving your land? Rosa Goldman, MF ’19 QCI is exploring funding opportunities to support landowners in the region inte- The new Yale-Myers Camp had its first screenings, presentations on topics from oak rested in protecting their land. For more summer season this year, and the extra-large regeneration to beavers, and workshops on information, contact Jess Wikle, QCI Forest Crew, led by Forest Manager Nick game bird management and trail design. Come Manager: [email protected]. Olson, was eager to break it in. Along with August, crew again split in two, with some ------save the date! ------a wonderful bunch of researchers, stellar headed to Yale Toumey Forest and some to a 2019 undergraduate Field Ecology interns, and private property in the Berkshires. The Toumey the best camp cook Myers has ever seen, the crew worked in the Humane Society Division January26, 2019 twelve members of crew – Asha Bertsch, and grew very familiar with Keene’s coffee Horse-Logging and Portable Sawmill Julia Calderon, Frank Cervo, Oscar Crespo shops. The Berkshires crew sampled permanent Workshop Pinillos, Mark Foster, Matt Gallagher, Rosa inventory plots, laid out an example harvest, Join us for our popular biannual Goldman, Yasha Magarik, Chris Martin, and joked a lot about sandwiches. And at the workshop where we'll have a demonstra- Ethan Miller, Tes Myrie, and Caroline end of the summer, they all returned to Yale tion highlighting horse-logging and the use of a portable sawmill. Scanlan – got to work making camp feel like Myers, where the new, lived-in camp still felt home. like home. Future Workshops Maple Sugaring The summer began with Game of Logging Wildlife and road maintenance. While half the group Climate Change tried to keep their thumbs in line on the Check your inbox for updates on future chainsaws, the other half got to work putting workshops. E-mail [email protected] their mark on the finest waterbar-and-ditch to sign up for our mailing list. system in the Quiet Corner. With that done, address the crew began scrambling up and down cliffs to mark the boundaries of the ridgeline- Yale-Myers Camp dominated Myers Division. They got to know 150 Centre Pike the interior of their division in a jam-packed Eastford, CT 06242 week of inventory, squinting through angle gauges at impossibly thick mountain laurel and gathering data that would inform five Stay Connected crown thinnings and two regeneration Contact QCI at: [email protected] treatments. For more information about the Yale School Forests’ Quiet Corner Initiative, please visit our It wasn’t all paint and biltmores, though. website at: environment.yale.edu/forests The crew joined QCI landowners for film Camp residents show off their hand-carved spoons. Or follow us on facebook at: “Yale School Forests”