Woodlot Site Visit with Eastern Ontario Model Forest Staff

The Certification coordinator for Eastern Ontario Model Forest (EOMF) out of Kemptville spent the morning with me walking the Heartwood woodlot. The EOMF Certification program - see website - is an organisation established to promote and recognise sustainable forestry. One of the EOMF programs is the qualification of identified woodlots that meet a specific standard, thus ensuring that the woodlot is well managed within specific guidelines.

We are seriously considering certification for our woodlot since we strongly support the values espoused by EOMF and definitely support the “Seven Generation test” of sustainability. For more detail on the test see the EOMF website.

The morning was very enlightening, since my guest was very well informed and familiar with the local tree species. We found many butternut [Juglans cinerea L.] trees in the north end of MFTIP Plan Area C , and many of these were damaged and diseased due to the ice storms, while several in Area F were very healthy. Now that I was able to identify them I have found several more near the acre around our house.

We found a dogwood in Area G which stood about 6 feet high like a small shrub, unlike the more familiar and much shorter red osier dogwood [Cornus stolonifera] that is bush common in various spots throughout the woodlot. We were not able to definitively identify this dogwood, and I will have to return to the field to make a certain identification with field guides in hand.

In the same area G we found pin cherry [Prunus pensylvanica L. f.] and black cherry [Prunus serotina Ehrh.].

At the lowland Area F we found a jack-in-the-pulpit [Arisema triphylle] in seed. All that could be seen now was the short 30-cm. stalk with red berries. Upon first inspection I thought it was poison ivy since the leaf shape is very similar to it, but poison ivy has white berries, not red. Also this plant was isolated which is not a common characteristic of poison ivy.

Just as we exited the woodlot we found service berry. I had previously suspected that I found service berry [Amelanchier stolonifera Weig.] here but this was confirmed by my guest. I found this to be difficult to distinguish. I notice that there are a number of different types of service berry, again more detailed inspection will be required to confirm which exact species we saw.