Forest Sciences Commons^™

Guide To Woody Plants Of Nebraska, Justin R. Evertson, Kim Todd, David Mooter, Kate Schumacher

Nebraska Forest Service: Publications

Species diversity is the cornerstone of a healthy community forest. In an effort to increase species diversity, this publication provides a nearly complete list of woody plants that can be grown in Nebraska communities. Each plant is keyed to the hardiness zone map on this page to show where it will grow best in Nebraska. It should be noted, however, that many plants need extra care and protection to survive certain climates. Conversely, many plants may do well outside of their recommended zone if the proper microclimate exists.

How To Manage Your Woodlands For Sustained And Maximum Benefits, Steven D. Rasmussen

Nebraska Forest Service: Publications

Nebraska's forest lands comprise less than 2 percent of the total land base in the state (7 18,300 acres). However, on an acre by acre comparison, woodlands provide more associated benefits for society, the environment and our quality of life than most other land uses. Trees provide soil protection from wind and water erosion. Woodlands help protect the quality of adjacent water resources by eliminating contaminates, shading for cooler water temperatures and contributing organic matter for use by aquatic life at all levels. Trees and shrubs also trap snow for spring moisture. Woodlands are necessary areas for many wildlife species …

Nebraska Forest Service: Storm Damage Series, Nebraska Forest Service Storm Damage Bulletins

Nebraska Forest Service: Publications

Immediate Care for Storm Damaged Trees; How to Select an Arborist or Tree Service; Pruning Storm Damaged Trees; Large Tree Pruning and Care; Don’t Top Trees; Recognizing and Correcting Tree Hazards; Tree Selection and Placement; Tree Planting; Care of Newly Planted Trees; Storm Damage Resources;

Land Cover Inventory Of The Niobrara River Watershed, Patti R. Dappen, James W. Merchant

Nebraska Forest Service: Publications

The Niobrara River watershed covers a large area in northern Nebraska, and neighboring parts of South Dakota and Wyoming, and is an important component of statewide natural resources management. Under ongoing agreements with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (BoR), the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission are charged with the development of management plans for various BoR projects in the Niobrara River watershed in Nebraska. A detailed delineation of land use and land cover patterns was needed in order to define and implement effective management strategies.

Nebraska Forest Services: Woody Biomass Energy: Nebraska’S Untapped Resource, Dr. Scott Josiah, Dennis Adams

Nebraska Forest Service: Publications

Energy security is a vital issue in the United States. Heavy dependence on fossil fuels obtained from politically volatile areas, an emerging consensus that carbon emissions must be substantially reduced, and dramatically increasing costs of fuel oil and natural gas are driving the urgent need for alternative energy sources, both in Nebraska and nationally.

Wood Energy Can Help Solve Pressing Problems In Nebraska By; Nebraska’s Available Woody Biomass Resources; Woody Biomass—A Proven, Reliable Energy Source For Nebraska And Beyond; Completed Engineering Feasibility Studies For Conversion To Woody Biomass Energy; Additional Facilities Interested In Or Currently Conducting Feasibility Studies; Other Emerging …

Nebraska’S Unique Forest Resources, Nebraska Forest Services, Dr. Scott J. Josiah

Nebraska Forest Service: Publications

Many Nebraskans would be surprised to learn that in our largely agricultural and grassland state, unique and diverse forest resources are substantial and growing; Nebraska’s Riparian Forest Resources; Nebraska’s Ponderosa Pine Forest Resources; Nebraska’s Niobrara Valley Forest Resources

Nebraska Forestry Consultants, Dennis Adams

Nebraska Forest Service: Publications

This directory includes individuals and firms that offer forestry consulting services in Nebraska. It was originally developed from a “Nebraska Forestry Consultants Survey” conducted in April, 2002. Corrections/additions are periodically incorporated. Endorsement by the Nebraska Forest Service is not intended or inferred. Corrections or additions may be submitted to the Nebraska Forest Service, C/O Dennis Adams, 203C Forestry Hall, UNL East Campus, Lincoln, NE 68583-0815. Phone (402) 472-5822, E-mail: dadams2@unl.edu

Commercializing The Hybrid Hazelnut As A Bioenergy And Food Crop For The Central States

Nebraska Forest Service: Publications

Initiative Goal; What Is The Hybrid Hazelnut?; Superior Hybrid Hazelnuts in Nebraska; Hybrid Hazelnuts Solve Economic, Energy and Environmental Problems By: Requirements for Large-Scale Commercialization of Hybrid Hazelnuts; Resources Required For Rapid Commercialization

Forestry Best Management Practices For Nebraska

Nebraska Forest Service: Publications

Introduction;Roads;Timber Harvesting;Tree Planting;Forest Improvement and Protection

Planning For Forest Stewardship: A Desk Guide, D. Ramsey Russell Jr., Susan Stein

Nebraska Forest Service: Publications

Since 1991, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service Forest Stewardship Program has assisted over 200,000 landowners in preparing multipurpose management plans for areas encompassing more than 20 million acres of nonindustrial private forest (NIPF). These plans promote the long-term sustainability of private forests by balancing future public needs for forest products with the need for protecting and enhancing watershed productivity, air and water quality, fish and wildlife habitat, and threatened and endangered species.

Conducting A Prescribed Burn And Prescribed Burning Checklist, Jerry D. Volesky, James L. Stubbendieck, Rob B. Mitchell

Nebraska Forest Service: Publications

The interacting forces of climate, fire and grazing formed and maintained the grasslands of the Great Plains of North America. Native Americans were the first to use fire to manipulate plant communities primarily to attract bison to lush regrowth. With the arrival of Europeans, the deliberate setting of fire was greatly curtailed because of the loss of property and potential loss of life associated with wildfires. Today, land managers realize that fire or prescribed burning is an effective tool to manage grassland

Nebraska Community Forestry Awards Program

Nebraska Forest Service: Publications

Each year the Nebraska Forest Service recognizes outstanding programs and projects in Community Forestry. There are nine categories for nominations. Awards are presented each year at the annual Tree City USA Conference and Awards Program held in Lincoln. The NFS encourages nominations. Deadline for each year will be the end of January but submissions can be made at any time.

To nominate a program, citizen, group, or business please fill out the form on the second page. Nomination categories are listed on the se for your convenience.

The Joint Fire Science Program’S First 10 Years, Gail Wells

Joint Fire Science Program Digests

Fire scientists and managers at the 4th International Fire Ecology and Management Congress offer their thoughts about the Joint Fire Science Program’s accomplishments, challenges, and future direction

Chloroacetamid Spray Drift And Leaf Tatters In Hackberry, Ariana P. Miller

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

During the last decade, leaf tatters has been reported in white oak and hackberry across several Midwestern states. Herbicide spray drift studies have shown that chloroacetamides can induce leaf tatters. The objectives of this research were to: 1) identify vulnerable bud developmental stages in hackberry and 2) determine if different commercial chloroacetamides affect severity of leaf tatters. In 2008, a preliminary spray drift experiment was conducted on mature trees from a former hackberry provenance test stand. Acetochlor (Harness), S-metolachlor (Dual II Magnum), and dimethenamid (Outlook) were applied at concentrations approximating 27%, 54%, 81%, or 108% of the recommended field rate. …

A Potential Plan Of Action For Emerald Ash Borer In Nebraska, Lee Wheeler

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

Abstract Emerald Ash Borer (Agrilus planipennis) (EAB) is an invasive insect pest. It feeds on the cambium tissues of ash tree species. It was first discovered in the United States in 2002 in Detroit, Michigan. Their effects on ash trees are deadly, and it is quickly spreading across the Midwest. Nebraska has not yet been invaded, but confirmed findings continue getting closer and closer. The major problem facing Nebraskans, with regards to EAB, is how to begin preparations to prevent a dramatic economic loss when an infestation does occur. So, to address this problem, I have conducted street and park …

Distribution Of Dioecious Eastern Red Cedar (Juniperus Virginiana) Along An Environmental Gradient In Ogallala, Ne., Taylor Sloey

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to study the sex distribution and energy allocation of dioecious Eastern Red Cedars (Juniperus virginiana) along an environmental resource gradient. The trees surveyed were growing in a canyon located at the University of Nebraska’s Cedar Point Biological Research Station in Ogallala, Nebraska. Due to the geography of this canyon, environmental factors necessary for plant growth should vary depending on the tree’s location within the canyon. These factors include water availability, sun exposure, ground slope, and soil nitrogen content, all of which are necessary for carbon acquisition.

Juniperus virginiana is a dioecious conifer. Dioecious …

A Predictive Model For Detection Of Agrilus Planipennis (Col., Buprestidae) Larvae In Girdled Ash (Fraxinus Spp.), J. M. Marshall, A. J. Storer, I. Fraser, V. C. Mastro

United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Agrilus planipennis (emerald ash borer, Coleoptera: Buprestidae) is a pest of ash (Fraxinus spp.) in North America and has caused mortality of ash throughout its introduced range. One technique used for detection of A. planipennis is the establishment and peeling of girdled trap trees. In an effort to reduce the search effort and target detection survey efforts within ash trap trees, a predictive model was created using data from 2007 and validated using data from 2008. In 2007 and 2008, ash trap trees were established, harvested, peeled and inspected for A. planipennis larvae. Gaussian curves were fit to describe …

2010 Western Mensurationists’ Conference, David Affleck, John Goodburn, Christopher Keyes, Renate Bush

JFSP Research Project Reports

The 2010 Western Mensurationists’ Conference in Missoula, MT, drew together forest scientists and land managers with primary expertise in the measurement and modeling of forest resources. The meeting provided an opportunity to focus the collective technical expertise of this group on crossdisciplinary conifer crown modeling issues that are of increasing importance to existing and emerging forest management strategies in western North America. Thus, a special invited session on conifer crown modeling results and opportunities was added to the conference agenda together with a participatory workshop on crown modeling needs and challenges. Funding was provided by the Joint Fire Science Program …

The Role Of Adaptive Capacity In Creating Fire-Adapted Human Communities, Pamela J. Jakes, Matthew S. Carroll, Travis B. Paveglio, Soren Newman

JFSP Research Project Reports

In this research we sought answers to the question: What are the social characteristics and conditions of human communities that promote adaptive capacity for wildfire? The Quadrennial Fire Review (USDA and USDI 2009) promotes a goal of “achieving fire-adapted communities” in the wildland urban interface (WUI), and identifies metrics for determining whether a community is fire-adapted. While these metrics address some of the biophysical conditions necessary for fire-adapted human communities, they offer little insight into the social elements that promote or sustain adaptive capacity. Adaptive capacity refers to the individual and collective resources, capabilities, and actions that alleviate the risk …

The Communicative Construction Of Safety In Wildland Firefighting, Jody Jahn, Linda Putnam, Anne Black

JFSP Research Project Reports

This document is a summary of a mixed methods dissertation that examined the communicative construction of safety in wildland firefighting. For the dissertation, I used a twostudy mixed methods approach, examining the communicative accomplishment of safety from two perspectives: high reliability organizing (Weick, Sutcliffe, & Obstfeld, 1999), and safety climate (Zohar, 1980). In Study One, 27 firefighters from two functionally similar wildland firefighting crews were interviewed about their crew-level interactions involved in implementing safety rules and firefighting tasks. These critical incident narratives (Flanagan, 1954; Gremler, 2004) were compared to extract workgroup level similarities and differences in interaction patterns relating to …

A Proposal To Improve Performance Of The Forest Vegetation Simulator - Fire And Fuels Extension, Dave C. Cawrse, Michael G. Van Dyke, Nicolas Nicholas L. Crookston, Donald Robinson, Sarah Beukema

JFSP Research Project Reports

The Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS) and its associated Fire and Fuels Extension (FFE) have been used to provide information required by larger software systems like the Interagency Fuels Treatment - Decision Support System (IFT-DSS). Interacting with FVS in an automated fashion has been difficult, and simulations with very large numbers of stands, such as those necessary for landscape analyses for fire planning, could take a significant amount of time to process. This project was designed to: (A) develop a requirements document considering Service Oriented Architecture and how that may apply to FVS, and how FVS will be used interactively; (B) …

Assessment Of Canopy Fuel Loading Across A Heterogeneous Landscape Using Lidar, Kenneth L. Clark, Nicholas Skowronski, Michael Gallagher, Nicholas Carlo, Michael Farrell, Melanie R. Maghirang

JFSP Research Project Reports

Our research used light detection and ranging (LiDAR) systems coupled with sequential harvesting of Pitch pine (Pinus rigida Mill.) to quantify canopy fuels in three dimensions across a large, heterogeneous landscape impacted by multiple wildfires, prescribed burns and insect defoliation events. We used a three-tiered approach; 1) calibration of upward sensing profiling LiDAR data with sequential harvesting of 20 x 20 meter plots to quantify the mass of foliage, branches and stems in Pitch pine canopies in 1-meter height layers, 2) scaling results to the landscape scale using previously-published relationships between upward sensing and downward sensing scanning LiDAR systems in …

Annual Brome Biocontrol After Wildfire Using A Native Fungal Seed Pathogen, Susan E. Meyer, Phil S. Allen, Julie Beckstead, Michael Gregg, Heidi Newsome, Kathleen Harcksen, Gary Kidd, Glenn Paulsen, Karen Prentice, Dana Quinney, David Wilderman, Stephanie Carlson, Suzette Clement, Duane Smith, Thom Stewart, Katie Merrill, Keith Merrill, Kedra Foote, Stephen Harrison, Kelly Bergen, Brian Connelly, Trevor Davis, Sandra Dooley, Michael Huck, Laura Street, Lauren Miller

JFSP Research Project Reports

A major problem in post-fire restoration of semi-arid shrublands dominated by annual bromes is the presence of carryover seed banks that cannot be controlled using conventional methods. These seeds can provide significant competition for seeded species in the years following treatment. We investigated the feasibility of using a naturally occurring seed pathogen, the ascomycete Pyrenophora semeniperda, as a biocontrol organism for eliminating this carryover seed bank. We carried out the necessary technology development to create and apply field inoculum to cheatgrass- or red brome-infested areas (both burned and unburned) at six sites located in three states across two years of …

Changes In Vegetation And Fuels Due To The Warm Fire On The Kaibab National Forest, Melissa A. Mcmaster, Andrea Thode, Brian Brost, Matthew Williamsen, Ethan Aumack, Dave Mertz

JFSP Research Project Reports

Fire is a significant and essential disturbance in ponderosa pine ecosystems but the management and the re-introduction of fire across the landscape is a difficult task for land managers. In this study we worked with land managers, stakeholders and researchers to examine the effects of a large wildfire on the Kaibab Plateau in northern Arizona. We analyzed litter and duff depth, downed woody debris and understory vegetation responses to low and high burn severity and assessed the response of the understory vegetation to seeding with Lolium perenne ssp. multiflorum in high severity burn areas. To assist land managers in future …

Continued Evaluation Of Post-Fire Recovery And Treatment Effectiveness For Validation Of The Ermit Erosion Model, Peter R. Robichaud, William J. Elliot, Joseph W. Wagenbrenner, Sarah A. Lewis, Louise E. Ashmun, Peter M. Wohlgemuth, Robert E. Brown

JFSP Research Project Reports

The use and cost of post-fire emergency stabilization treatments continues to grow. To help maximize the impact of these treatments, many assessment teams use the Erosion Risk Management Tool (ERMiT) erosion model to predict postfire erosion and mitigation effects. However, despite several completed JFSP projects, the long-term effects of these treatments remain unknown, and the ERMiT model has not been validated. Long-term post-fire erosion and runoff data on a variety of mulches and erosion barriers were collected using 12 existing sites throughout the Western U.S. The agricultural straw and wood strand mulch treatments were very effective at reducing erosion and …

Effectiveness Of Fuel Treatments For Mitigating Wildfire Severity: A Manager‐Focused Review And Synthesis, Philip N. Omi, Erik J. Martinson Mr.

JFSP Research Project Reports

The 2008 Request for Applications from the Joint Fire Science Program called for a synthesis of the extant literature that addresses the effectiveness of fuel treatments. We employed a four‐pronged approach to address this task, including several scoping exercises with land managers, a literature review, a meta‐analysis, and development of an online pictorial database.

An Enhanced Online Piled Fuels Biomass Calculator, Clinton S. Wright, Paige C. Eagle

JFSP Research Project Reports

A web-programming project was undertaken to allow users of the online Hand-piled Fuels Biomass Calculator to also estimate the volume, biomass and potential emissions of mechanically piled fuels. Machine pile calculations encoded in the decision support software CONSUME 3.0 were added to the online Calculator to achieve this objective. In addition, the ability to batch process piled fuels data was added to the online Calculator to ease data input for large analysis projects. A stand-alone version of the Calculator was developed for users without access to the Internet. As it is executed within a standard web browser (e.g., Microsoft Internet …

Evaluating The Effects Of Pinyon Thinning Treatments At A Wildland Urban Interface, J. R. Matchett, Matthew L. Brooks, Anne Halford, Dale Johnson, Helen Smith

JFSP Research Project Reports

This study evaluated the short-term effects of thinning methods for pinyon pine woodlands at two sites in the southwestern Great Basin. Both cut/pile/burn and mastication treatments were equally effective at reducing the target fuels which were mature, live pinyon trees. Application costs though differed substantially, with the cut/pile/burn technique being less expensive. Thinning treatments increased the abundance of herbaceous vegetation, although in some cases the strength of the increase was constrained by the level of pre-treatment tree dominance. Increases in perennial grass cover and density in response to thinning were usually greatest at lower levels of pre-treatment pinyon dominance, whereas …

Exploring The Traditional Use Of Fire In The Coastal Mountains Of Central California, Brent E. Johnson, Rand R. Everett, Kent G. Lightfoot, Charles J. Stiplen

JFSP Research Project Reports

This study brought together a team of ecologists, archaeologists, environmental historians, indigenous peoples, and land managers within a research framework combining an ethnographic investigation of traditional practices with cutting-edge paleoecological techniques to answer questions about Indian utilization of fire as an ecological and cultural landscape management tool in Central Coastal California. The study was designed around four key elements: (1) examining fire regimes for research sites using a combination of fire scar dendrochronology, phytoliths, archaeology, historical information, and traditional ecological knowledge; (2) attempting to formalize a methodology for using phytoliths to estimate the fire return interval and intensity in grassland …

Fire Regimes Of The Southern Appalachian Mountains: Temporal And Spatial Variability Over Multiple Scales And Implications For Ecosystem Management, Charles W. Lafon, Henri D. Grissino-Mayer, Sally P. Horn, Robert N. Klein

JFSP Research Project Reports

Information about historic fire regimes and the departure of current fire regimes from historic conditions is essential for guiding and justifying management actions, such as prescribed burning programs for ecosystem process restoration and fuel reduction. Such information is noticeably lacking for the southern Appalachian Mountains, where human populations are encroaching onto wildland areas, and where decades of fire exclusion have contributed to the decline of fire-associated communities and also to altered fuel loads. We address this knowledge gap via a multi-scale investigation of the variability in fire regimes over time and space using tree-ring reconstructions of fire history and stand …