State Chapter Reports

MARYLAND CHAPTER REPORT
by Art and Vera Mae Schultz, Co-Presidents

Eighty people attended the semi-annual field day of the Maryland Chapter, April 22, in conjunction with the annual meeting of Western Maryland Tree Farm System.  Speakers addressed carbon credits, forest certification, landowner liability, hunting lease values, and technical and financial assistance available to forest landowners.

Highlight of the day was a tour of the farm of Don and Linda Grove, Hagerstown, Walnut Council members and Tree Farmers.  The Groves farm includes walnut and paulownia plantations, Forest Conservation Act plantings, pine groves, and wildlife plantings.  This was the first time the Maryland Chapter held a field day in conjunction with the Maryland Forests Association.

March 12 saw a few members of the Chapter maintaining the Chapter's walnut plantations at the Western Maryland Research and Education Center, University of Maryland, Keedysville.  (Some of you may have visited these plantations during the 2002 annual meeting in Maryland.)  There was also a review and analysis of direct seeding vs. seedling planting in the plantations.

Approximately forty attended the Chapter's fall 2007 meeting in western Maryland at Evergreen Estates, a historic farm and house museum near Cumberland.  Members heard about a Department of Natural Resources study on harvesting small woodlots.  Despite the drenching downpour, there was a full demonstration of a one-man operation of felling and skidding trees with an ATV pulling a small two-wheel log hauler.

INDIANA CHAPTER REPORT
by Donald Greene, President

The Indiana board met in January at Ft. Harrison State Park in Indianapolis to plan events for the coming year and the 2009 annual meeting in Indiana.

We had our spring field day on April 5th near LaPorte, Indiana (far north near the IN toll road( at Dan Warkentien's farm.  Discussions included TSI, thinning,  pruning, and site and species selection. We toured natural and planted stands and also talked about wildlife (the good and bad). We invited both Indiana and Michigan members and had 45 in attendance.

Our fall field day is planned for October 4th at the Bryce Bigley and Bruce Wakeland properties near Culver, IN.  We will see a walnut/pine, oak/pine, and poplar/pine plantations. Bigley has some 36 year old plantations and Wakeland will show his American chestnut plantings.

ILLINOIS CHAPTER REPORT
By John Katzke, President

The Illinois chapter has been busy with a number of events. We had four shiitake mushroom log inoculation clinics around the state this spring.  These events are a great chance to spend time in the woods (harvesting the oak logs) and then share a little about forestry and mushrooms with the people who attend the workshops.  Everyone goes home with a little hope for their future mushroom harvest and some new friends.  To top it off, the small fee we charge for the clinic allows us to grow our chapter treasury.

We are having work days already for the 2012 national meeting. The intention is to show a number of plantings under a variety of conditions and we have begun preparing and planting those fields.  We also recently hosted a tree planting and herbicide workshop near Galesburg.

The chapter will have our fall meeting October 11-12 at the Dan Schmoker tree farm near Eldred, IL