Atlantic Forestry May 2021
/The highs and lows of spring
by David Palmer
For spring watchers (and that would surely be all of us), March is typically a tumultuous month that cannot decide whether it wants to be a lamb or a lion. Although some of the coldest temperatures of the winter assailed the land in early March, highs in the upper teens set in by the first day of spring, and beat the snowbanks back. Twenty days of sunshine kept spirits high and SAD (seasonal affective disorder) in check.
For maple syrup producers, March is usually a make-or-break month. Unseasonably early sap flow came in late February, but the weather turned cold for the first 10 days of March, was variable and inconsistent for the next 10, then too warm for the week after. According to Nathan Scott, of Dumfries Maple, the best sap flow was in late March and the first week of April. By April 15, the season was done, ending a little below average.
For harvest contractors and truckers, March means spring weight restrictions will be coming into effect – so it is a time to hurry and scurry to get operations cleaned up, and haul the last of the wood to market before the quagmire of mud season puts an end to it.
April is the time to float equipment back to the shop, catch up on overdue maintenance, and maybe skedaddle to Moncton for the annual Canadian Woodlands Forum (CWF) spring meeting and associated Heavy Equipment Show – and perhaps, if you’ve had a decent year, take a well-deserved trip down south to recharge and rejuvenate. Not so in 2021. There have been be no tropical resort getaways, and no live CWF gathering (gone online, like so many popular events).
And by the looks of the muddy-tracked roadsides, there was not much break from harvesting, as many operations continued into mid-April. It seems that a good dry fall and open winter weren’t enough to completely fill all the sawmill yards. Either that, or the log buyers, goaded by their bosses – who are motivated by exceptionally high lumber prices – stuffed their wood yards to the gills. The outcome of post-thaw operations isn’t pretty; mud is strewn over public highways, and deep ruts scar the forest, which does not help the negative public image that the forest industry is constantly battling.
Sadly, despite lumber prices that hovered in the unthinkable, ionospheric $1,400 range, and pulp kraft prices at US$1,300/tonne in early April, there were no hefty bonuses for wood producers in New Brunswick. All the major industry players held the line on raises for sawlogs and studwood – though there was a modest price increase in early May, paying lip service to the true value of the raw material. The same was true for pulpwood; for years, the prevailing condescending attitude from industry has been that when you have pulpwood to sell, you should consider yourself lucky if someone will take it off your hands. The price of pulpwood in New Brunswick hasn’t budged for a decade, remaining firmly stuck well below $40/tonne, or less than $80/cord, to use the old measure. That’s $20/cord less than the price was in 1989!
Meanwhile, in response to the pleadings of woodlot owners, the government wrings its hands and agrees that something needs to be done – but in the end, does nothing. As for roundwood biomass, there are only a couple of places in the province that will buy from local suppliers.
For those woodlot owners like me who don’t have to grind out a living and think about the unfairness of the system, there is a suspenseful expectancy to April, which ushers in a plethora of predictable but joyous natural events – and I’m not talking about the re-opening of golf courses. April arrives with the Silver maples already flowering, alder catkins suffused with early pollen, goldeneye ducks bobbing and diving on the first open water, a verge of coltsfoot in bloom, and the return of the Eastern phoebe.
In “The Waste Land,” T.S. Eliot wrote: “April is the cruellest month, breeding / Lilacs out of the dead ground, mixing / Memory and desire, stirring / Dull roots with spring rain.” That sums up many of our feelings towards April. For impatient folks, the month’s slow, incremental plod towards rebirth couldn’t be over fast enough. That’s why a month away at this time of year takes the edge off spring’s slow creep, as one leapfrogs from melting snowbanks to bursting buds. For those who remain behind as springtime shadows shorten, there is a lot to observe and a lot to do. However, faced with an abundance of time, we often postpone and procrastinate – flipping through catalogs, counting redpolls at the feeder, and dreaming of warm weather – until one day, May whooshes in like a bustling, blushing bride, and panic sets in, as the list of undone chores looms large.
SHELTERBELTS
A series of interesting talks on trees and shrubs, organized by Trees Matter Fredericton, has whetted my desire to enhance the incomplete shelterbelt that partially protects our home from the north and west wind. The best prairie farmsteads are surrounded by a thick hedge of mixed shrubs and trees that blunts the wind, holds the soil, traps the snow, and provides shelter and food for wildlife. The erstwhile Shelterbelt Centre, in Indian Head, Saskatchewan, which operated from 1901-2013 under the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration program, before being axed by federal budget cuts, conducted research on what trees and shrubs are best for harsh prairie winters. It also grew seedlings which were provided to farmers in Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba, and British Columbia’s Peace River region. The top four deciduous trees were Amur maple, Siberian elm, Green ash, and Manitoba maple, while White spruce topped the pick for conifer plantings.
In Atlantic Canada, our native White spruce still makes a wonderful, thick windbreak that the birds love; and it is hard to resist the fast-growing, graceful, Norway spruce, whose lower branches sweep the ground. While many trees self-prune as they age, the branches of White and Norway spruce spread out, neatly plugging the holes in the hedge. As the spruces develop, more shade-tolerant species such as Red spruce, White pine, and cedar can be used to fill in and thicken the shelterbelt, while a combination of native trees and shrubs such as chokecherry, hawthorn, and sumac – and even feral apple seedlings – can be planted along the perimeter. You can even blend in a few lilacs, honeysuckles, forsythia, and Burning bush for a mix of colour and fragrance.
PLANTING THE URBAN FOREST
Nobody in the Maritimes would knowingly plant a Manitoba maple, and Green ash would be a poor choice, in light of the arrival of the Emerald ash borer (EAB). I worry about our own White ash – planted 20 years ago, and now a handsome, dominant tree. The City of Fredericton, where EAB was detected in early 2021, already had a plan in place for the pest’s arrival, and has been inoculating selected trees with TreeAzin, an insecticide whose active ingredient is extracted from the Neem tree of India. The city has identified about 2,300 ash along its streets and public areas, and plans to treat 1,300 of the most significant ones, while the rest will be removed and replaced with other species during the next 10 years. Of course, the big question is what to replace them with.
In theory, there are plenty to choose from. The trend today is towards native species, but many of those desirable forest dwellers don’t always do well when relocated to the city. Even healthy, well-established trees on Fredericton streets, particularly Red maple, have struggled under the last few years’ dry conditions, according to Mike Glynn, the city forester. Choosing the right tree is a whole new frontier; as climate change shifts plant hardiness zones to the north, arborists are turning to more southerly forests for species that might do well here 50 years from now.
Fredericton’s 2021 planting program comprises 500 trees of 23 species, including many from warmer regions. It represents a plunge into the future. “The goal,” says Glynn, “is to maximize diversity, with the intention of increasing the resiliency of Fredericton’s urban forest in adapting to climate change, insects, disease, and invasive species.”
Although nearly half of the plantings will be tried-and-true native oaks and maples, along with a sprinkling of Yellow birch, the list includes some interesting specimens from the Carolinian forest, such as Northern hackberry, tulip poplar, and Kentucky coffeetree. There are also several southern oaks, and a few European imports such as the London planetree, Crimean linden, and Pyramidal English oak. Rounding out the collection are some Asian gems such as Sawtooth oak, Ivory Silk, and Amur corktree. Perhaps the most exciting of this year’s plantings are a handful of young disease-resistant American elm – the first of many to come from a trial conducted by Natural Resources Canada, in collaboration with Fredericton Parks and Trees.