Forest Stewardship Tip of the Day: bark beetles, bark beetles and bark beetles…

Sometimes I feel like a broken record, but I wanted to make sure that everyone has been out in the woods this fall to survey your land for newly infested trees. The work you do on your own land to remove currently infested trees can help reduce the total number of trees lost during the course of this bark beetle epidemic. Don’t forget that mountain pine beetles are tough little buggers and just cutting the trees down and leaving the cut logs in the woods won’t kill the beetles. You need to take extra steps to “sanitize” (aka kill the beetles underneath the bark) the infested logs. Take a look at our newly created bark beetle inspector field guide to learn more about ways to kill beetles under the bark and also to help in your hunt for beetles. It’s available online here: http://www.bouldercounty.org/find/library/environment/barkbeetlefieldguide.pdf (3MB).  

Don’t forget that outreach foresters are available to come out on site visits to help you as your manage your backyard forest. Feel free to give us a call or email with any questions you have about forest stewardship. 

The Daily Camera included a guest opinion piece today about the closure of our community forestry sort yards, bark beetle management and wildfire mitigation. Read the article here: http://www.dailycamera.com/ci_19300198?IADID (Scroll all the way to the bottom to read the article.)

Boulder County Mountain Community News – Zero Waste Fall Newsletter

Boulder County’s Resource Conservation Department puts together a quarterly Zero Waste Newsletter that we thought folks would be interested in reading. The fall issue focuses on October’s Wildfire Awareness Month, mountain spring clean up events, as well as on site composting of needles and cut grass. Take a look; we think you will find some useful information as you are out working in your backyard forest this fall and winter! Here is a weblink to the newsletter:http://www.bouldercounty.org/find/library/gogreen/zerowastenewsletterfall2011.pdf    

Cheers,
Ryan

Ryan Ludlow | Forestry Education & Outreach Coordinator 
Boulder County | Land Use Department
P.O. Box 471, Boulder CO 80306
O: 720.564.2641 | F: 303.441.4856
rludlow@nullbouldercounty.org | www.bouldercounty.org/ForestHealth