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Stories

Restoring Canopy at Camp Kum-Ba-Yah

February 15, 2021 - The Virginia Department of Forestry (VDOF) helped Camp Kum-Ba-Yah give some much-needed care to their campground’s forest. The wooded property in Lynchburg, Virginia is owned and operated by the Lynchburg Covenant Fellowship. Camp Kum-Ba-Yah was founded in 1950 by Reverend Bev Cosby. Along with the camp, the property houses the Church of the Covenant, The Lodge of the Fishermen, Common Grounds Café, and Chrysalis Interfaith Retreat Center. Ash trees on... Read More

Field Notes

Field Notes: Fire Season is Coming – Be Prepared!

February 11, 2021 - By Heather Tuck, VDOF Eastern Region Fire Specialist Happy February! As we move into this month, my mind, along with many others at Virginia Department of Forestry (VDOF), turns to preparing for the upcoming spring fire season. It may not look like it outside (there are five inches of glorious snow outside my window right now), but we are quickly approaching fire season in Virginia. As a fire program specialist,... Read More

Stories

In Memory of Page Hutchinson

February 4, 2021 - The Virginia Department of Forestry is mourning the loss of Page Hutchinson, Virginia’s Project Learning Tree Coordinator and member of the VDOF family, after she passed away unexpectedly this week. Page was a leader in the environmental education community. Beyond the work she did to build Virginia’s PLT program, Page worked with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, the Virginia Master Naturalists, and the Virginia Association for Environmental Educators. In... Read More

Field Notes

Field Notes: Catawba Hospital Ford Crossing

February 2, 2021 - By Chad Austin, Water Quality Engineer, Western Region Members of the western region and water quality team recently installed a GeoWeb ford stream crossing on the Catawba Hospital grounds in Roanoke County. The ford crossing was installed using State Lands funds from a timber sale being conducted by the agency on the hospital’s property. This crossing replaces an extremely undersized culvert crossing that has been a maintenance issue for many... Read More

Field Notes

Field Notes: Ground Truthing Forest Data

January 22, 2021 - By John Pemberton, VDOF FIA Program Manager, and Ryan Hewitt, FIA Specialist When you read facts about Virginia’s forestland, do you ever wonder where this information comes from? In many cases, the source is the Forest Inventory & Analysis (FIA) program. FIA field crews put boots on the ground to collect information such as the number of acres of forestland (approximately 16 million); the most common forest type (upland hardwood,... Read More

Field Notes

Field Notes: January’s Least Wanted – English Ivy

January 19, 2021 - By Ellen Powell, VDOF Conservation Education Coordinator A brand new year brings a brand new feature to Field Notes! Each month, one of our posts will introduce one of Virginia’s “least wanted” – an invasive species that’s easy to spot at that time of year. It might be a plant, an insect, or a disease that’s impacting our state’s natural communities. We hope you’ll keep an eye out for the... Read More

Stories

A Christmas Present for Stony Creek

January 8, 2021 - The walking track in Sussex County’s Stony Creek Park is a well-used community resource. Citizens use it for exercise, and for years, the Virginia Department of Forestry (VDOF) has used it for firefighter pack tests. Walking the open track in the summer heat gave Zach Dowling, Senior Area Forester for VDOF’s Waverly work area, an idea. Last summer, Zach mentioned to town council member Mike Moody that shade trees would... Read More

Field Notes

Field Notes: Longleaf Pine Planting at Big Woods

December 29, 2020 - By Jim Schroering, VDOF Longleaf Pine/Southern Pine Beetle Coordinator On a cold but sunny Saturday in December, the Virginia Department of Forestry (VDOF) completed a longleaf pine planting project on their Big Woods State Forest (BWSF). Longleaf pine once covered more than 1,000,000 acres in Virginia, but it is now considered a diminished species. Until 25 years ago, only 200 mature longleaf pines were left in southeast Virginia. Longleaf pine... Read More

Field Notes

Field Notes: Disturbance Ecology in the Swamp

December 22, 2020 - By Scott Bachman, Senior Area Forester, and Meghan Mulroy-Goldman, Community Forester – Blackwater Work Area Earlier this year, Meghan Mulroy-Goldman and I took the opportunity to travel to the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. This swamp once covered more than one million acres in southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina and was dominated by tree species like bald cypress, black tupelo, and Atlantic white-cedar. Many species of wildlife roamed... Read More

Notices

Fourth Edition of the Virginia Tree Steward Manual Now Available

December 8, 2020 - The Virginia Department of Forestry, Virginia Tech, and Trees Virginia are excited to announce the release of the newest edition of the Virginia Tree Steward Manual! The manual is available to view and download on the Trees Virginia website: https://treesvirginia.org/outreach/tree-stewards This manual serves as the main resource for Tree Steward groups working across the state. It was last updated in 2009, and a lot of the materials were outdated. The... Read More