By Emery Gluck, DEEP Forester, Cockaponset State Forest.
(May 26, 2021) Signing off -It has been an honor and privilege to care for the forests of the citizens of Connecticut for the past 41 years.
It has been a good run but mainly uphill. I have enjoyed meeting many of you.
Until a new forester is hired as a replacement (hopefully), Salmon River State Forest forester Nate Piche will be monitoring my timber sales though either are active at the moment.
Another sale in Haddam off Filley Road has been awarded to the high bidder but to my knowledge the contract has not been signed.
A Robust Shoutout to Forestry Volunteer soon to be 73 year old Vietnam Vet Yale Forestry School Steve Lowery.
For almost 6 years, Steve has provided invaluable service, helping me mark timber sales and property boundaries.
Most importantly, he helped me free up young oak saplings from the killing shade of faster growing black birch, beech and maple saplings on 581 acres of recently regeneration harvests.
Oaks are dying out from drought, gypsy moth defoliations, old age and new oaks are not ascending into the upper canopy without this type of work.
So at least on the acres that Steve helped free up oaks, there will oaks producing acorns in at least part of the forest for the wildlife when your great grandchildren are coming of age.
May 2nd Prescribed Fire at Nehantic State Forest Sustains Oak Woodlands
Since 1993, we have been burning a 17 acres tract at the entrance of Nehantic State Forest in Lyme to replicate the repeated fires Native Americans reportedly did near their villages and encampments.
They burned to make the forest more habitable for themselves, promote grasses that attracted their game animals, promote berry productions, facilitate acorn and firewood collection, and many more reasons.
The fires favored thick bark (which insulated the killing layer of the tree from the lethal heat ) mast producing oaks and chestnut and killed thin bark maple, birch and beech.
The fires was the reason that white oak was the dominant tree in the pre-settlement forest. With little fire to keep it check, red maple is now the dominant tree and oaks continue to decline.
Forester often mimic the effects of fire by implementing harvests that cut small, medium and large trees.
The Nehantic Burn was my last state fire that I was the burn boss on. I am lucky to have had the opportunity to be the burn boss on about 110 state prescribed fires that covered over 1500 acres.
If anyone would like to see small scale forest operations or effects of prescribed burns in my wife’s and my woodlot in Lebanon, feel free to contact me emerygluck@yahoo.com
Aloha,
Emery
Emery Gluck
Forester
Cockaponset State Forest
Division of Forestry
Bureau of Natural Resources
Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection
18 Ranger, Haddam, CT 06438
