Keeping our forests healthy

When Byron and Jenny Morgan bought a 328-acre farm in Crawford County in 1984, they focused more on its 166 acres of cropland and less on its 172 acres of forest. These Hoosiers who are now Louisville, Kentucky, residents have never lived on the property, but Byron enjoyed farming on the weekends, “basically by myself, to release stress,” he says. “I knew the forest was of value, but I didn’t have the knowledge and the time to get into it,” he adds. That changed when the Morgans attended “Forest Management for the Private Woodland Owner,” taught by Ron Rathfon, Purdue Extension Forester at the Southern Indiana Purdue Agricultural Center. They have since implemented practices they learned in the eight-week course, which included forest tours.

“You can look at pictures all day long and think you know everything — until you go into the woods,” Byron says. “We got real-life, practical information in a way we could understand. Ron’s an excellent teacher, and the people he brought in to complement his teaching were also wonderful.”

The Morgans have come to understand that a pretty forest isn’t necessarily a healthy one. Based on Rathfon’s suggestion, they hired a professional forester to walk their land, which Byron describes as hilly and mostly hardwood, and help them develop a long-term plan for its use.

Approximately 85,000 Indiana residents own property that includes 10 or more acres of woodlands. Purdue Extension foresters help landowners maintain the health and beauty of these ecosystems and their productivity for hardwood timber and wildlife habitat, now and for future generations.

PRESERVATION

Education & training

Indiana state legislators receive a field tour of the Hardwood Ecosystem Experiment, a longterm, large-scale experimental study of animal and plant responses to forest management.

90% of forest landowners in a 2019 course on controlling invasive plants indicated the knowledge gained would help them make management decisions over the next year.