Bob Hobbes Spoke at May 18 Rotary Luncheon
At our May 18 Rotary Luncheon at Purkey's Pink Apple, our guest speaker was Bob Hobbes who spoke about at-risk Pennsylvania's hardwood forests.
Penn’s Woods includes ~ 17 MM acres of forested area, of which 1/3 is publicly owned. PA is the largest hardwood producer in North America. ~65% of PA is forested. We are growing timber faster than we are harvesting it.
Most PA trees are 80 to 100 years old. PA was once the logging capital of the world and many areas were cleared of trees. In the 1900s, these areas were allowed to revert back to natural forests, especially after the depression. We need to turn over the forests, so that we have healthy forests in the future and mitigate issues where possible.
Competing vegetation, such as ferns, can take over the ground and then seedlings of trees will not grow there. Light is also important for the trees. Deer are eating some of the young seedlings. Large populations of white tail deer may require deer fences to keep out the deer and allow the trees and herbaceous plants to grow and establish. Forest fragmentation is also occurring due to energy development, pipelines and windmills. All these issues can negatively impact our forests.
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Bob Hobbes