NWTF, Partners Plant over 12,000 Trees on Shawnee National Forest
EDGEFIELD, S.C. — The NWTF and the USDA Forest Service continue to build upon years of conservation success within the Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois, thanks to the recent Oakwood Bottoms tree planting project, a conservation effort to restore a part of the oakwood bottoms within the national forest that was heavily impacted by a fungal disease called oak wilt.
The oat wilt infection wiped out several oak species within a 28-acre stand. The Forest Service harvested and removed infected and dead trees from the site, and remaining stumps were treated with an aquatic herbicide to kill the root systems and fungus.
The NWTF also worked with Arrowhead Starr Company to remove any remaining mid-story trees and treat stumps. Once removal work was complete, Chase Seals, NWTF forester, procured seedlings from Illinois Department of Natural Resources’ Mason State Nursery to replant the stand. A mixture of bottomland hardwood species — including swamp white oak, bur oak, Shumard oak, pecan, bald cypress and common persimmon — were planted in the area. 12,264 trees were planted in total.
In the short term, the thinned forest will create quality nesting and brood-rearing habitat for wild turkeys for the next several years, barring flooding events. As the seedlings mature, it will begin to provide loafing habitat, foraging and eventually roosting habitat.
“I feel like the future of this project area is bright,” Seals said. “It will provide high quality habitat to a wide variety of game and non-game species over the years. The species that utilize the area will change as the timber ages and matures, but this once infected area will now have new life and become a healthy forest again.”
This project comes on the heels of years of collaborative forest management between the NWTF and the Forest Service on the Shawnee National Forest, including the Log Mark Pine Stewardship Project, the Kincaid Lake Watershed Project and the Buttermilk Hill Wildlife Stewardship Agreement, which recently included the planting in the Oakwood Bottoms and Little Cache areas of the Shawnee National Forest.