A solid group attended this year’s Bureau of Forestry seminar on Hemlock Woolly Adelgid – its life cycle, the dangers it poses and the importance of Eastern (Canadian) Hemlock to our biodiversity, and the currently available treatment options – at the Cook Forest State Park office. Following the classroom session, we trekked a short distance along beautiful Birch Trail, where Forestry scientists illustrated the soil injection method of tree inoculation, which will protect the treated trees for an estimated seven years.
As you may know, many of our ecosystems depend upon hemlock to filter our water and contain our streambanks, shade these streams for trout and the aquatic insects they feed upon, clean our air, and create the singular micro-climate that no other tree can reproduce, and on which many species depend.
You can protect your hemlocks at home:
- minimize stressors by keeping them watered in droughts and not compacting their soil, and
- monitoring them closely for health – watch the crown for thinning, and always check wind-blown limbs for evidence of HWA infestation, as they tend to colonize the top half of the tree.
View the entire photo gallery here – and please join us next year, as we hope to make the HWA Treatment Seminar an annual event! The Cook Forest area hemlock are relatively healthy now, and by keeping Pennsylvanians aware and proactive, we can ensure their survival for the good of the woods, waters, and people of the coming decades 🙂
