Tri-State Forestry Conference Scheduled

Timber landowners and managers interested in learning how to better manage wooded land are encouraged to attend the Tri-State Forest Steward Conference scheduled for Saturday, March 8, 2003 at the Sinsinawa Mound Center in Sinsinawa, Wisconsin. This conference is one of the largest of its type in the country.

People are recognizing that woodlands are becoming more valuable for many reasons and products. Woodlands provide a host of benefits including aesthetics, alternative crops, wood products, wildlife habitat, woodland edibles, alternative crops and many others. This conference offers landowners six concurrent workshops to choose from.

For landowners interested in growing timber as a crop, the conference will focus on management aspects to improve the woodland resource and the economic returns from products harvested from the woodland. Topics include directional felling techniques, carrying out a timber sale, oak regeneration and management, understanding forest certification, and more.

For landowners with non-timber interests, the conference includes presentations on chronic wasting disease of deer, production and marketing of shiitake mushrooms, small mammals, pond management, wildlife damage, and many others.

Programs of interest to both groups include presentations on why the oaks are here, creating digital forestry maps, butterfly identification, invasive plants and many others.

The conference registration fee is $35 per person or two for $65 and includes a continental breakfast and a luncheon. Landowners interested in attending the conference must register by Feb.28. Registration information is available by writing or calling Paul H. Wray, Extension Forester, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50010, (515) 294-1168 or e-mail at phw@iastate.edu.

Information is also at: http://www.ag.iastate.edu/departments/forestry/ext/fep.html.

The conference is co-sponsored by Extension and the Departments of Natural Resources in Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin; the Departments of Forestry at Iowa State University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison; the University of Illinois Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, and the Natural Resource and Conservation Services of Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin.