MEETING MINUTES

Wednesday, November 3, 2021

Meeting Held Through Email Due to Coronavirus Restrictions

Attendees:

Gabrielle Oldham Dori Murphy

Ron Anderson Kathie Jarmon

Michael Morgan Tom Frederick

John Bennett

Treasurer’s Report

Tom reported on funds available to the Forestry Board, and the status of bank accounts.

Big Tree Program Update:

John reported:

In Cecil, I have asked Joli McCathran to plan a visit after the leaves drop to re-measure the height of the State Champion mockernut hickory at Cecil College and the silver maple at Eder Park. Both are exceptionally tall trees and the Nikon Pro hypsometer she owns does a more accurate job with very tall trees. The silver maple has the potential to become the new State Champion so I want to make them accurate. She is also going to do the yellow poplar at Susquehanna State Park, another very tall tree. Kathie offered to help when Joli comes up if she can schedule it.

Across the State, 20 trees were measured/re-measured. The Frederick Board did 5 trees, including this new county champion white oak at 373 points. They intend to submit it in the Wolf Tree Contest sponsored by the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay.

I worked with Jim Sherring and Geoff Graff to measure/re-measure 5 trees in Harford County, including the new county co-champion southern red oak in Havre de Grace.

In September DNR Secretary Jeannie Haddaway-Riccio requested that the Forest Service measure some trees on an estate in Easton owned by a wealthy family ($3.8 billion). DNR staff Ken Jolly, Matt Hurd, Jim Harris, Derek Albers and Andrew Amorusa measured three trees. None of them had measuredtrees recently so there were some issues that arose. I agreed to help out along with Jim Bardsley and Jim Sherring. We picked a day when the owner was in residence; re-measured the height on two of the trees and disqualified the third as it split below 4’ 6”. We then measured 7 new trees on the property for a total of 9. One of the 9 is still unidentified—some sort of non-native elm. (It was later determined to be an English elm.) This pecan is one of the new trees - #2 in Maryland at 341 points.

On the same day we were able to re-measure 3 trees (QA, Talbot, Caroline) and measure a new tree in Talbot. One of the re-measured trees is the #2 southern magnolia at Myrtle Grove, the estate in Talbot visited several times by Fred Besley which once had 4 National Champion trees, now all deceased. This southern magnolia may have been originally measured by Mr. Besley. DNR Regional Forester Matt Hurd is posing.

Website Update:

Ron reported that he updated the website as follows:

Added October minutes and November agenda

NRCC Report:

No Report

New Business:

Gabrielle reported that the State Association Meeting went well and was well attended.

Tom reported:

The ENSP Salvage Harvest is still moving along.  The weather has been pretty favorable.  They are currently working on both the east side of Turkey Point Road and the west side across from the office.  Hopefully it will be completed sometime in November.

The 2500 White Pine seedlings for next spring have been ordered, paid for and reserved.

Next Meeting: December 1, 2021