June 2022 Needlecast Field Tour and Workshop

On June 1st and 2nd, 2022, the Needlecast Working Group hosted a field tour and workshop that brought in a wide range of participants including from from forest industry, WA DNR, the tribal land managers, the USFS, Grays Harbor College, and  small woodland owners. 

One the first day, Mike Premer from Rayonier assisted and allowed the group to visit several stops on Rayonier land. Jimmy Hargrove from the Quinault Division of Natural Resources and Keith Jayawickrama presented data on the Douglas-fir family resilience study. Dave Shaw (OSU) and Rachel Brooks (WA DNR) showed examples of Swiss needlecast on Douglas-fir trees to participants. 

On the second day, they had an amazing group of speakers, including Dave Shaw who gave an overview of Swiss needlecast and the current knowledge. This was followed by Dan Omdal and Rachel Brooks from WA DNR Pathology who explained the monitoring that the state of Washington is doing regarding Swiss needlecast detection. Mark Boardman from PRT Nursery gave a presentation on how small woodland owners would order seedlings from their site, including non-Douglas-fir seedlings. Holly Haley from the WA DNR Small Forest Landowner Office presented the services that the Small Forest Landowner Office offers to small woodland owners. Mike Premer the Research and Development Coordinator for Rayonier presented some work he is doing looking at soil, elevation, economics, rotation age, location and other factors that go into determining where Rayonier would like to plant Douglas-fir or opt for hemlock or other species. 

In addition, Doug Mainwaring with OSU discussed the Silviculture Guide for Swiss Needle Cast which had been recently updated as well as the Douglas-fir needle retention model that he has worked on with the Swiss Needle Cast Cooperative. The Director of the Northwest Tree Improvement Cooperative out of OSU, Keith Jayawickrama discussed breeding of Douglas-fir for Swiss Needle Cast resistance and other tree improvements. This was followed by a presentation by Bernard Bormann, the Director of the UW Olympic Natural Resource Center, who discussed the importance of the studies and monitoring being done by the OSU Swiss Needle Cast Cooperative, WA DNR Swiss Needle Cast monitoring, breeding work being done by Jimmy Hargrove and Keith Jayawickrama and others, and how it all ties together to improve our knowledge and response to Swiss Needle Cast. They finished the day of presentations with a Zoom presentation from Sandor Toth and the Swiss Needle Cast forest calculator he is developing with his graduate student Mathew Schmidt.