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Society of American Forestry Sectional Meeting Flagstaff 4/28/2017

Society of American Forestry Sectional Meeting Flagstaff 4/28/2017

Apr 28, 2017

Meeting notes

Intro: Ken Reid (New Mexico Eastern Highlands)

Presenter intro: Dave Auty

Keynote Speaker: Andrew Sanchez-Meador (Assist. Prof. NAU) School of Forestry & Ecological Restoration Institute

Technological developments in forestry: the invevitable change.

  • "you can't teach an old dog new tricks"

  1. Big Data & Machine Learning

  2. Precision Forestry & Smart Phones

  3. Biotechnology & Phytoremediation

  4. Communication and Social Media

Speaker: Me!

Speaker: Travis Wooley (The Nature Conservancy)

Forest restoration (4FRI) - accelerate the pase and scale of forest restoration in Northern Arizona

Planning 2.4 million acres

Restoration bottlenecks: Economics and Trust

  • Arc Collector - ESRI product (tablet), mobile mapping

  • Timber Guide (tm) software 

  • Lidar - individual tree segmentation, landscape metrics

  • sUAS

Solutions

  • Goals of ecologically based restoration | Diversity in forest structure, groupings/openings, tree age diversity.

  • Specialist 'walk throughs' | draws areas of importance, record coordinates for plot data, designate roads,

  • Painting trees over 250k acres costs $$$$ - use a digital marking concept | from $40/day to $16/day | 8ac/day to 60ac/day

  • Uses ArcCollector App on handheld tablets to digitally mark trees.

  • Simplifies the decision process for operators

    Needs

  • RAPID adaptive management

Speaker: Bob Rich

  • Cut to length logging on steep slopes | Ponsse steep slope logging 

  • an alternative to skyline helicopter yarding

  • logging systems commonly used in the US can be separated int o4 broad classes

    • mechanical whole tree

    • cut to length

    • skyline

    • helicopter

USFS lands do not exceed 40% | Skyline and Helicopter

Recent innovations allow up to 80% slope

  • Dev of 8 wheel harvesters

  • Balance bogie axles | steep slopes balanced bogie distributes equal pressure to both wheels

  • trac-bands designed for steep slopes | steel tank tracks over the wheels | lower PSI on the ground 

  • flexible frames with multi-articulation | conforms to the landscape

  • long machine frames

  • tethered synchronized winch assist

  • Mechanical logging is much safer

  • Eliminates the need for roads at the top of a unit | uphill yarding

  • Equipment operations >40% cause less damage using the machine.



Speaker Dan Sanchez

Salad within: genetically identifying diet of an endangered species

  • Species from feces: Bat ecology and genetics lab

  • Bat biology species

  • New Mexico meadow jumping mouse (Z. hudsonius) (Z. h. luteus) | C3 herbivores with diverse plant diet

  • genetics and diet | analyzed the genes of the plant species in their feces 

  • revealing diet through metabarcoding (Illumina MiSeq) | ITS2 metabarcoding

  • BOLD system (barcode of life system)

  • They eat everything. 

  • future directions of wildlife

LUNCH

Speaker: Steve Sesnie (USFWS)

  • Emerging technical advancedments for the natural resources: myths, deceptions, and assorted anecdotes

  • https://openforests.com/

  • Spatial data scientists | math and statistics, spatial skills, domain knowledge, hacking skills | 

  • Southwest Region National Wildlife Refuge System | Inventory & Monitoring "Initiative"

  • Active Management | Meet scientific standards \ National Inventory and Monitoring.

  • CRAN Task View: Analysis of Spatial Data

  • http://climateengine.org/app/

  • lidar animal habitat characterization | canopy cover | relative density

  • NAIP-CIR 2012

  • lidar 2007-2011

  • vegetation monitoring using cheap instruments 

Speaker: Daniel DePinte (USFS Forest Health Protection)

  • Monitoring forest health in the southwest | Forest Health Protection

  • Entomologists (John Anhold group leader)

  • Monitioring for defoliation | Tablet technology | Survey 123 for ArcGIS

  • Flys around in an aircraft, monitoring, inputing observations into a tablet.

  • Quick note to local silviculturalist.

  • Limitations | Timing of Surveys | Other Activity | Surveyor Style | Identification skill set

  • foresthealth.fs.usda.gov/portal

Speaker: Amanda Grady (USFS Forest Health Protection)

Evaluating Unmanned Aerial Systems for resource mission work in the USFS: are we ready?

  • Severe spruce aphid defoliation in Hannagan Meadow

  • concern for spruce beetle (100% mortality agent)

  • 2015 UAS advisory group | 200 ac pilot project in the SW Region

  • Collaborative Forest Restoration Project Initiative (CFLRP) 4FRI

  • Matrix Turbo Ace QuadCopter

  • Sensor MicaSense Red Edge | 3" at 400' altitude

  • SAFECOM - crash | 80% of project flown.

  • Gov't red tape was extreme hardship to getting the mission flown.

  • USFS has not developed a policy for pilot or sUAS approval

Speaker: Kristin Waring (Professor of Silvaculture at NAU)

DNA, UAVs Climate and Disease

  • working across disciplines to sustain southwestern white pine

  • white pine blister rust (fungal pathogen)

  • find genetic resistance

    • major gene | full resistance: confer immunity

      • weakness | can be overcome by pathogen mutation

    • multigenic | partial resistance: get sick, won't die

      • strength | long term durability

  • we expect low frequency across the landscape

    • Looking at susceptability across core ranges

    • Southwest Experimental Gargen Array (SEGA)

  • find adaptive traits using common gardens

  • find adaptive genes using next gen DNA sequencing

    • Virginia Commonwealth University

    • SNIPS

    • Gene resistance between SW WhitePine and LimberPine

  • link phenotypes to genotypes usling leaf skin temp

  • model gene flow, adaptive variation, and climage change