Author Archives: Peter

Information for the 2013 CEFTS Meeting at the University of New Hampshire

Posted on by
Reply


Preliminary Schedule
Council of Eastern Forest Technician Schools (CEFTS) Annual Meeting
August 7-10, 2013
Thompson School of Applied Science

University of New Hampshire

291 Mast Road
Durham, NH

Wednesday, August 7th

Attendees arrive and check in to accommodations.

6 pm  –  Welcome and cookout followed by a quick meeting of the Executive Committee.

Thursday, August 8th

8 am  –  Leave UNH and travel to state capital in Concord NH.

9 am  –  Visit with the following agencies:

Noon –  Lunch on the Road

1 pm  –  Visit New England Wood Pellet for a discussion of wood heat and a tour of the facility

3 pm  –  Visit the Fox State Forest for a discussion on Forest Health

Return to UNH

6 pm  –  Dinner

Friday, August 9th

8 am  –  Leave UNH

9 am  –  Visit Sanborn Farm, living agriculture and forestry history

Noon-  Lunch on the Road

1 pm  –  CEFTS Business Meeting

3 pm  –  Visit Public Service of NH Schiller station for a discussion of wood to electric energy     and a tour of the facility

6 pm – New England Clambake Dinner

Saturday, August 10th

Attendees depart

Council of Eastern Forest Technician Schools Annual Meeting

August 7th to 10th  2013 

Registration Form

Attendee Name _____________________________________________________________

School Name _____________________________________________________________

City _____________________________  State/Province ____________

Zip ___________

Day Phone ___________________________

Cell Phone ___________________________

e-mail address _____________________________________________________________

 

 

 

The cost for the meeting is $30 per person.  Payment is due upon arrival.  We accept cash and checks in US Funds.

 

Return Registration Forms by July 15, 2012 to:

Matt Chagnon

47 Silver Street

Farmington, NH 03835

matt.chagnon@unh.edu

Housing

  • We have reserved a block of rooms at the Day’s Inn Dover Durham at 481 Central Avenue, Dover, NH 03820 which is about 10 minutes from campus.
  • The cost for the 3 days is $330.78 including tax and a continental breakfast.
  • Be sure to say that you are part of the CEFTS group and make reservations by August 1st  to get this rate.
  • You can make reservations by calling 603-742-0400.
  • There are a number of other hotels in the Durham/Dover/Portsmouth area where you could also stay.

Transportation

  • We will have a van to pick up and drop off folks at the Days Inn each day and for transportation to all CEFTS functions.
  • The closest airport is in Manchester, NH (MHT) which is about an hour from Durham.
  • We can arrange for you to be picked up there if you let us know ahead of time.

Questions?     Contact:

Matt Chagnon

603-828-5070

matt.chagnon@unh.edu

Download the Word version.

John Torunski

Posted on by
Reply

TORUNSKI, JOHN HANS – The passing of John Hans Torunski of Fredericton, NB, husband of Maxine (Hawkins) Torunski, occurred on Saturday, October 13, 2012 at the Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital. Born on October 17, 1934 in Montreal, QC, he was the son of the late Joachim and Margarete (Sturz) Torunski. John was a retired Director/Instructor with the Maritime Forest Ranger School. He was also an adherent of Greenwood Drive Baptist Church. John was actively involved in the Fredericton North Rotary Club, Fredericton Tree Commission, and the Canadian Forestry Association. Over the years, he was also very active in several other forestry and community organizations. He was an avid skier and also enjoyed gardening, woodworking, camping and spending family time at Davidson Lake. In addition to his wife, John is survived by his son, Stephen Torunski (Joni) of Hanwell, NB; daughters, Tara Cowan (David) of Rothesay, NB and Cindy Torunski of Fredericton, NB; brothers, Wilfred Torunski (Donna) of St. Stephen, NB and Peter Torunski (Denise) of Stittsville, ON; grandchildren, Jeffrey and Justin Cowan; Brandon, Brock, Brodie and Michael Torunski; several nieces and nephews. There will be no visitation by request of the family. A Memorial Service will take place on Tuesday, October 16, 2012 at 2:00 pm from Greenwood Drive Baptist Church with Pastor Gordon Cook officiating and Rev. Jim Cowan assisting. Reception to follow at the Church. Interment will take place at Douglas Rural Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, remembrances may be made to the Greenwood Drive Baptist Church Building Fund, Chalmers Hospital Foundation, or a charity of the donor’s choice. Special thanks to Dr. Gordon McDonald, Dr. Debra Gowan, Extra Mural staff and Palliative Care nurses. Personal condolences may be offered through www.yorkfh.com.

Pest Control Presentation at the 2012 Meeting

Posted on by
Reply

Thursday afternoon found us refreshed from an excellent lunch, and back to the Charlotte, NC summer heat. Dr. Don Booth led a fascinating discussion and demonstration of plant health care. The take-home message, stressed throughout all presentations, is to promote plant species diversity! Other important concepts are the retention and incorporation of organic matter, limiting the amount of asphalt and concrete as much as possible, and attempting to maintain an area in its “natural state.”

Dr. Booth brought out the “bugs” for a great show-and-tell session! Fire ant control using bait was discussed. Northerners are fortunate, indeed, to not have these ants! We saw a very hungry caterpillar killer (beetle), predaceous mites, and rove beetles. The use of pheromone traps to monitor peach tree borers (clearwing moth) was exciting, too! The highlight was a release of ladybugs (this species was native to California). These beneficial insects feed on aphids. The preferred time of day to release these ladybugs is early morning or late afternoon, but since that is not always possible, Dr. Booth discovered a way to keep the beneficials on the target plant. He shook some caffeine-free Coke® onto the plant and on the ladybugs themselves as they were being released. Apparently the lady bugs are looking for the sweet substance upon release and this “holds” them in the area rather than flying away. Note: Other caffeine-free sugary drinks may work as well!

Rick Sypolt & Beth Brantley

 

New Teaching Resources from the US Forest Service

Posted on by
Reply

The USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station has recently released two new manuals that could really be useful in forest technology courses. They are both full-color with abundant photos. Although printed copies are available, they come in pdf files that can be freely copied and distributed. And they are free! (Or as I tell my students, you have already paid for them with your taxes.) In a time when textbooks are almost a luxury it’s great to have these resources.

The first is Manual herbicide application methods for managing vegetation in Appalachian hardwood forests. It can be found here.

The next is Wood decay in living and dead trees: A pictorial overview. This builds on the classic work by Alex Shigo and can be found here.

2012 Meeting Announcement

Posted on by
Reply

Preliminary Schedule
Council of Eastern Forest Technology Schools (CEFTS) Meeting
August 1-4, 2012
Bartlett Tree Research Laboratory
Charlotte, NC

Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Arrive and check in to HYATT PLACE Charlotte/Arrowood
7900 Forest Point Blvd.
Charlotte, NC  28273
704.522.8400 x5104 (office)| 704.522.8489 (fax)|www.hyattplacecharlottearrowood.com.  Steve Resh will make shuttle trips to the airport as necessary during the day. A group of rooms has been reserved for the CEFTS / Bartlett Tree group.  You should call in to make your own reservations.

Instructions for making reservations:
You have 2 ways of booking your reservations:

You must make your reservations by 7/6/12.

7:00 pm           Welcome Reception at the Research lab.  Allegany College of Maryland will sponsor the reception which will be comprised of liquid refreshment and heavy hors d’oeuvres.  Transportation from the hotel will be provided.

8:30     Vans will return participants to the hotel and the Executive Committee will meet at the hotel.  All award nominations should be submitted to the appropriate individual prior to this meeting. (Grad. For Tech. Achievement Award, other) Remainder of the participants can have the evening free.

Thursday, August 2, 2012
Continental breakfast at the hotel.

8:00 am          Vans will leave the hotel and travel to the lab.

8:30                 Outdoor activities and lab tours.  Bartlett Tree Experts conduct many research projects at the lab and we will see as many as time permits.  The following come highly recommended: Insect and Diseases diagnostic clinic, planting study, bio char soil additive study, extensive arboretum, tree preservation study in a construction area, planting-root system study.

12:00    Lunch at the lab.  We will include the cost of the lunches in the registration fee.

1:00                 Continue with outdoor tours/activities.

5:30                 Van will return guests to the hotel

6:30                 Evening meal will be on your own.  We can van pool to a spot agreeable to all or                                     simply agree to go our own way.

Friday, August 3, 2012
Continental breakfast at the hotel.

8:00 am  Van will leave the hotel and travel to the lab.
Indoor activities today.

8:30 am           Business Meeting CEFTS

10:00 am         Tree Inventory and GIS presentation from Bartlett employees

12:00               Catered lunch at the lab.  Fee included in registration costs.

1:00 pm           Curriculum Discussion:  How can “Urban Forestry skills” be incorporated into the traditional forest management curriculum so graduates are prepared to take advantage of these job opportunities.  John Jastrzembski, Steve Resh, Lab personnel.

3:00 pm           Cracker Barrel Discussion.

We will allow time to discuss various topics as presented by the members of                                CEFTS.  These have ranged from recruiting, to Accreditation to grant sources to                           educating young faculty members.  I will poll the membership and ask for topics.

5:00                 Van returns members to the hotel.

6:00                 Closing Dinner and Scholarship Auction.

Bartlett Tree Expert Corporation will host our closing banquet at the lab.  Following the dinner, we will hold our annual scholarship auction.  Please bring something to donate which will entice the membership to bid.  Proceeds will benefit the scholarship fund.  We have tried to keep the cost of this meeting as low as possible in order to encourage your participation.  But now is not the time to be cheap!

Saturday, August 4, 2012
Shuttle service from the hotel to the airport will be provided as necessary.

Click to see a pdf or Word Document of this announcement.

Student Transportation Options?

Posted on by
Reply

Student transportation for forestry field labs is an important and costly topic. I am gathering all the responses to Monica’s request here. It’s something all forest technology programs need to consider.

Our school is considering selling our motor pool and going to rentals.  I am trying to find forestry/natural resource technical programs that did this and what the impact was.  Any help getting this inquiry out would be greatly appreciated.

Best regards,
Monica Spicker
Instructor, Natural Resources Program
Dept Chair, Environmental Sciences Dept.
Spokane Community College

From Harry Hutchins at Itasca Community College in Minnesota
At Itasca CC we sometimes do not have enough vans for the whole college to  use so we have to either rent a  van from a local car dealer or take a regional bus service.  We only have 2,  10 passenger vans plus an 8 passenger Expedition for the college to use (that includes sports teams).  The Bus service hesitates to go off  on Forestry roads, or snow banks in the winter are problems.  We use to have 4, 12 passenger vans but times have changed.  So I may often  get another big van at the car dealer if I do not have room.

From Peter Linehan at Penn State Mont Alto
At Penn State Mont Alto we have a bus and a dump truck that were paid for by an alumni donation. That seems to be the most economical on operating costs if you are fortunate enough to have a wealthy alumnus. We also have two vans on campus from the Univesity motor pool. They charge our budget on a per mile basis. That includes gas, too.

Occasionally we have rented vans, mostly for long trips and woodsmen’s meets. We get a discount from Enterprise. We use the bus a lot for field labs, so I don’t think rentals would be very good.

Sometimes I have thought of just telling students where to meet us in the forest for labs. Most of them have their own trucks. But that would be really awkward and maybe even unsafe.

From Michael Fisher at Central Oregon Community College
We use both motorpool vehicles and rentals.  Basically, we pay too much for our own motorpool vans to use them for long fieldtrips and can get save some money and have more flexibility if we rent.  The down side is I spent many a year on Enterprise’s black list for having vans brought back dirty/muddy.  An additional challenge has been to ensure that the vans are there when we need them, typically the night before.  We’ve recently got a new motorpool manager who wants to work with us and save us from having to rent in order to get better, more cost effective service.

From Chris Westbrook at the SUNY-ESF Ranger School
At the Ranger School we have used fleet vehicles for many years.  We normally have been given the worn out and heavily used vehicles from the main campus in Syracuse or vans that were picked up at state auctions.  We then pay a per mile charge for these vehicles.

This fall we were able to strike a deal with the administration to purchase two vans (a 15-passenger and a 12-passenger).  The college “floated” us a loan and we will pay this back over the next several years.  We will not have to pay a mileage charge for these vans but will pay for gas.  These are new vans so we are very pleased with this new arrangement.  Of course we will still need to use some of the fleet vehicles and pay those charges.

From Matt Chagnon at the University of New Hampshire
We have 2 buses and 2 vans of our own.  We have looked at renting.  It may be a little cheaper, but it is not worth the flexibility that you give up.  I agree with Michael that the muddy floors are always an issue.

From Brian Clark at Horry Georgetown Technical College
No rentals used here. Our Department maintains a fleet of five vans. Two are College Pool Vans dedicated to our Department and three are Department owned vans via a grant. We pay $0.51 a mile for their use and pay general maintenance (oil change and cleaning as needed).

From Rick Sypolt at Glenville State College
I have two vans which we have bought and maintain.  Probably not the cheapest way to go, but they are always available and we usually don’t put a lot of miles on them, so maintenance is reasonably cheap.

 

Use Google Earth for Aerial Photo Instruction

Posted on by

 

The technology of aerial photos is shifting rapidly towards digital sources. The importance of traditional analog prints  has diminished a great deal. A good source of aerial photo imagery is Google Earth and its cousin, Google Maps. Recently, I decided to add questions on imagery in Google Earth to my Aerial Photo Interpretation test. I created a kml file with the selected points. The students were required to study each of the points before answering the test questions. Here is a Google Map of the points:
[google-map-v3 width=”530″ height=”350″ zoom=”12″ maptype=”HYBRID” kml=”http://www.personal.psu.edu/pel2/TestSites.kml” showmarker=”true” animation=”DROP” maptypecontrol=”true” pancontrol=”true” zoomcontrol=”true” scalecontrol=”true” streetviewcontrol=”false” bubbleautopan=”false” markerdirections=”true” showbike=”false” showtraffic=”false” showpanoramio=”false”]
Here are the questions and answers:

Using the seven principles of aerial photo interpretation, identify what is the
feature marked by item 1. Use the historical imagery tool of Google Earth. What
has happened to the size of the feature between 1994 and today?

Feature 1 is a gravel pit. The shape and the color give it
away.

What is the feature represented by item 2 ? You may use the topographic
map layer to get the name of the feature.

Item 2 is the old Chambersburg Reservoir. It is labeled on the
topographic map.

Load the false color infrared layer from PASDA and again look at item
2. This imagery was taken in the summer of 2010. What does the color
infrared imagery tell you about the different types of vegetation found on this
site. Hint: you may look at the Panoramio images on Google Earth. You may have
to turn them on in the Google Earth table of contents.

The old reservoir has regrown considerably, including shrubs
and trees. A look at a ground photo shows that trees have been replanted on the
site.

Item 3 is located in northern Maine. What type of land use or operation is
going on here? Be specific in the scene details that you use to arrive at your
interpretation. You may also look at the past imagery available for this scene.

This is a logging operation, under different configurations.
You can also see patch clearcuts.

Item 4 is located not far from campus. What has happened to the forest here?
What caused this action to be necessary?

This is a salvage cutting of a gypsy moth infested area.

Item 5 shows a different type of vegetative cover. What is it? What are the
clues that lead you to this identification?

This is an apple orchard. The regular pattern of the trees and
the road network help identify it.

Item 6 is in Honduras. What is happening here? What are the clues? After the
event is over how will this area respond to EM radiation? What is the term for
this?

This area is burning. Smoke is visible in the image. Afterward
the ground will be black from the soot and behave as a black body.

Item 7 is a unique land use pattern. Using the seven principles can you
guess what it may be? If you load the topographic map layer you will find where
the item is located.

This is in Letterkenny Army Depot. The road network supplies
bunkers, perhaps for munitions.

Item 8 shows a particular type of residential area. What is it? What are the
clues that lead you to this identification?

Item 8 is a trailer park. The homes are very close together
and all the same shape and size.

BONUS: The bonus item is in a red pine forest in Minnesota. What is going on here? What is your guess as to what kind of forestry operation may be represented here? The answer is more obvious than you may think.

This is a silvicultural research area to look at the effects
of different harvesting treatments.