News from the Issue 14 | Fall 2019 Quiet Corner brought to you by the yale school forests About the Quiet Tri-Lox: designing with northeast forests Corner Initative Jessica Lloyd, Assistant Forest Manager, MF '20 The Quiet Corner Initiative (QCI) supports On a cool Fall weekend in October, the Yale local livelihoods, sustainable forest School Forests hosted the Fieldworks summit management, and rural economic development in collaboration with Tri-Lox, a design by building relationships between local firm from Brooklyn that offers sustainable landowners, conservation and forestry wood products. The event brought together professionals, and the students and faculty of students and professionals from fields that the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental don’t often get a chance to interact – foresters Studies. Thank you to our alumni and the rest and designers - but work on opposite realms of the Yale community for their support. of the wood production cycle. Architects, foresters, landscape designers, engineers and craftspeople were there to share their industry A Note from the experience and further understand how each of us can advocate and use the decisions we QCI Manager make in our respective fields to make our work Happy Fall! with wood more sustainable. As always, it's been a busy season for QCI. The event started with a tour of the Yale- We hosted former CT DEEP Commisioner Myers Forest led by the Director of Forest Robert Klee in October for a talk on state- and Agricultural Operations, Joe Orefice, based responses to climate change, and and the Forest Manager, Frank Cervo. The then continued our climate change series participants were guided through the layers with a field-based forest management of history that have shaped the forest - from workshop led by Mark Ashton. We indigenous land use in the region, to the early also hosted a very successful Women's colonists that cleared the land for agriculture, Chainsaw Safety Training in partnership and the current regeneration techniques used with the Forest Stewards Guild. by the present-day management to ensure the harvesting practices leave the forest in a better There have been some changes to our condition. A saw mill demonstration followed team here at the School Forests. Former that highlighted the special characteristics of QCI Manager Jess Wikle started her PhD a black birch tree. We watched as each piece in applied silviculture for climate change was cut and revealed new designs in the wood; at the University of Vermont – we miss each knot and stain telling a story that the Dr. Joseph Orefice points out texture of black birch her but are so proud of her! I took over in designers could retell to their clients about life Photo Credit: Irina Anisimova September and have loved getting to know in the Quiet Corner of Connecticut. all of you. Frank Cervo, who completed The designers began to make the connection the Master of Forestry program with me in In the evening the group gathered in the about where the materials they use in their May, is our new Forest Manager. camp classroom to learn more about Tri-Lox’s building projects come from and what to We have lots ahead, including a wildlife innovative approach to building local wood consider in order to source these materials tracking workshop and a continuation economies. The presentation highlighted more sustainably. However, as a forester I was of our climate change field series. Check the ways in which designers can collaborate surprised to find how little thought I had given out our save the dates for those events in with local forests to drive positive social and to what might become of the logs after leaving this newsletter. Also stay tuned for a new environmental change. The night culminated the school forest, when I had been so mindful digital map of the interpretive trail at our with a feast hosted by the Highlands Dinner to select which trees to harvest. Conversations Red Front lot, coming this spring (see the Club, with food sourced from the region with the designers helped me envision the Research Spotlight in this newsletter to and foraged from the Yale-Myers forest, array of possibilities that awaited – the new learn about Red Front). I look forward to further highlighting the many ways to think shapes they would be carefully crafted into, the seeing you around the forest! about sustainability. The summit ended many ways in which the wood could be pieced with a roundtable discussion to think about together to take on new structure and forms, Rosa Goldman sustainability and to answer questions like - and the stories they would tell of the forest Quiet Corner Initiative Manager what is sustainable wood, and how can we go they came from. Yale School Forests beyond sustainability? An Introduction to Silvopasture Dr. Joseph Orefice, Director of Forest and Agricultural Operations, Ph.D., MF '09 Research Spotlight Caroline Borden, Yale College '20 I spent the month of July counting plants. Every morning, I'd drive five minutes down a winding forest road, stroll along a leafy path, and settle in a small clearing under the dappled sunlight, clipboard and measuring tape in hand. The site that I worked on is called "Red Front," an oak-savannah woodland plot in the heart of the Yale-Myers Forest. It has a complex ecological history, shaped by generations of Quiet Corner inhabitants. Originally an old field pine forest, the Cows grazing at Hidden Blossom Farm; Photo Credit: Dr. Joseph Orefice site was first cleared in the late 1700s and converted into a pasture. The pasture was The Quiet Corner Initiative branched emphasis of the first field session was to see eventually abandoned, and an oak-hickory out this August to co-host a field-based how managed cattle grazing techniques and forest began to grow in its place. The workshop focused on livestock production in timing can be used to alter the competitive stone wall that enclosed the livestock still silvopastures. This workshop was held on my dynamics of pastures to encourage forage stands today, a legacy of the forest's human property, Hidden Blossom Farm in Union, production, avoid soil damage to trees, increase inhabitants. But I was there to study a CT and was organized by the Quiet Corner animal welfare, and encourage soil health. different legacy, one that was introduced Initiative, Connecticut Resource Conservation to the site only recently: fire. & Development’s Soil Health Initiative, and The day’s afternoon was split into four the USDA Natural Resource Conservation sections. I led the first section of the afternoon, The Red Front site had its first run-in with Service (NRCS). The focus of the event was which showcased a destructive legacy of fire in 1996, when a research team led by on the agroforestry practice of silvopasture. livestock grazing and forest high-grading land my advisor, Mark Ashton, implemented a I am establishing silvopasture on the farm prior to current ownership and how Hidden small-scale, controlled burn and monitored because of its ability to simultaneously provide Blossom Farm will use silvopasture to restore the forest succession following the fire. shade and forage for cattle while also serving forest and soil health. Andrea Urbano, CT In the ensuing decades, the site has been to increase the health of the farm ecosystem. DEEP Forester, led a discussion in the woods burned several additional times, and its about silviculture and forest management. Jeff vegetation has been surveyed at intervals Silvopasture is the sustainable integration of Jourdain, Consulting Forester, complimented of one, three, and most recently, thirteen livestock, forage, and trees on the same unit this discussion with more specifics on years after the controlled burn. of land. It differs from the common (and managing trees within silvopastures. Jim In the coming months, I plan to bring destructive) practice of keeping livestock in Hyde, the CT State Agronomist with UDSA together decades of data collected by the woods because silvopasture is managed NRCS, demonstrated soil sampling techniques a generation of researchers to paint a so that light reaches the understory to allow farmers can use to assess the health and nutrient cohesive picture of the post-fire landscape. grass growth and in that livestock grazing dynamics of their forests and fields. The group My research explores the potential for fire is managed to ensure soil, forage, and tree then headed to see the fencing and planting to promote greater vegetative diversity and health. Silvopasture has gained much interest techniques Hidden Blossom Farm has set up investigates the longevity of this ecological in the last decade because of its potential to to demonstrate how trees can be established impact. It also tackles the broader question sequester significant amounts of carbon on and protected (silvopasture created) in treeless of how ecosystems respond to human- farmland while also creating resilient and pasture. The day wrapped up with an exercise induced disturbances. ecologically sound agroecosystems. However, on tree selection for silvopastures and in- farmer adoption of the practice is slow due field discussion of audience members actively The history of fire in New England to a number of reasons, including a lack of practicing silvopasture. forests is often framed as the coevolution knowledge on how to create and manage these of the land and its human inhabitants. systems. Hidden Blossom Farm has strategies Overall the workshop was a great success due Indigenous populations and later European in place to demonstrate and trial innovative largely to the enthusiastic engagement shown settlers used fire as a tool to shape their silvopasture practices in ways that contrast by the 60 attendees. Many farmers indicated landscapes to suit their needs, altering the damages left on the land from a century of that they plan to integrate silvopasture the floristic composition in the process.