Nibi Chronicles: “The trees of our homeland”

Editor’s Note: “Nibi Chronicles,” a monthly Great Lakes Now feature, is written by Staci Lola Drouillard. A direct descendant of the Grand Portage Band of Ojibwe, she lives and works in Grand Marais on Minnesota’s North Shore of Lake Superior. Her two books “Walking the Old Road: A People’s History of Chippewa City and the Grand Marais Anishinaabe” and “Seven Aunts” were published 2019 and 2022, and she is at work on a children’s story.

Read Now at Great Lakes Now.

Original Article

Great Lakes Now

Great Lakes Now

https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2023/01/nibi-chronicles-trees-of-our-homeland/

Staci Lola Drouillard

Biden forest plan stirs dispute over what counts as “old”

By Matthew Brown and Matthew Daly, Associated Press

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — President Joe Biden’s order to protect the nation’s oldest forests against climate change, wildfires and other problems devastating vast woodlands is raising a simple yet vexing question: When does a forest grow old?

Millions of acres are potentially on the line — federal land that could eventually get new protections or remain open to logging as the administration decides which trees to count under Biden’s order covering “old growth” and “mature” forests.

Read Now at Great Lakes Now.

Original Article

Great Lakes Now

Great Lakes Now

https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/05/ap-biden-forest-plan-dispute/

The Associated Press

The Great Lakes sugaring season is changing

An area like the Great Lakes that has rain and higher temperatures in the summer, followed by a cold, snowy winter, is best suited for maple production.

But the Great Lakes maple season is evolving as climate change increasingly impacts maple syrup production with shorter harvest seasons, less sugar production and unreliable sap flow.

Read Now at Great Lakes Now.

Original Article

Great Lakes Now

Great Lakes Now

https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2022/04/great-lakes-sugaring-season/

Capri S. Cafaro

Disease and a newly identified fungus have been killing Michigan’s blue spruce population for roughly a decade, and the dangers show no signs of slowing.

The post Blue spruce fungus hits Christmas tree, landscape tree growers first appeared on Great Lakes Echo.

Original Article

Great Lakes Echo

Great Lakes Echo

http://greatlakesecho.org/2021/04/28/blue-spruce-fungus-hits-christmas-tree-landscape-tree-growers/

Guest Contributor

In the area around the City of Green Bay many trees have lost all or most of their leaves, especially the commonest and most abundant species such as green ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica), box elder (Acer negundo), and cottonwood (Populus deltoides). Other species generally leafless now include: white birch (Betula papyrifera), quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides), and wild cherries (Prunus serotina and Prunus virginiana).

Species still holding leaves include the invasive buckthorns (Rhamnus cathartica and Frangula alnus), Norway maple (Acer platanoides) and to a lesser degree silver maple (Acer saccharinum). The oaks also tend to hang onto their leaves, even after they turn brown (see Nov. 4). The photo at left shows still-green leaves of European buckthorn under the mostly bare branches of other species. If you look carefully, you may also notice green leaves still on the branches of a crack willow (Salix fragilis, another alien species) behind the other trees, toward the right side.

Close-up of leaves of European Buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica). European Buckthorn remains green late into Autumn. Oaks proovide late season color. Most trees are now bare of leaves.

 

Original Article

Biodiversity

Biodiversity

https://blog.uwgb.edu/biodiversity/2013/11/past-peak/

Vicki Medland