“We don’t have an official group, like South Dakota Wheat Growers, but almost everyone has a yard with a tree in it. We cover it all, from arborists who care for trees, to helping communities with the trees that line their parks and streets.” - John Ball, Extension forestry specialist
CES Tends to all Forestry Branches
The South Dakota Cooperative Extension Service has a forestry division that meets and beats challenges daily. Extension forestry is found anywhere bark, leaves, and branches are found, and a growing number of SDSU students are engaging in the service’s work across the state.
The face of CES forestry may be SDSU’s John Ball, widely known as the “tree guy.” Ball is both South Dakota’s Forest Health specialist and the only Extension forestry specialist in the state. He said the scope of Extension forestry is broad.
“Our work is comprised of a sweeping number of aspects,” said Ball, “from commercial logging in the west, to working with conservation districts, to building wind breaks and shelter-belts around the state.”
“We face insect and disease problems, help the growing number of nursery businesses, assist utility companies in their work with power lines, and answer the tree-related questions of any landowner in the state.”
Ball said Extension forestry is one of the busiest divisions of CES. He said that while there is no commodity group for forestry, the division counts itself among the largest.
“We don’t have an official group, like South Dakota Wheat Growers, but almost everyone has a yard with a tree in it,” said Ball. “We cover it all, from arborists who care for trees, to helping communities with the trees that line their parks and streets.”
Logging is one example of the commercial forestry enterprises that CES provides support and outreach for. In fact, CES has held logging education programs since the early 1990s for those in the industry.
Ball said logging is an industry proportionate to farming. “Many people think loggers are picking up their direct paychecks from the mills, but they do not,” he said. “As producers, they are no different from the farmer. Farmers are not employed by the elevators.”
Rapid City’s Bob Baker, who operates Baker Timber Products, Inc., a fourth-generation South Dakota business, is one timber veteran that has been positively affected by CES forestry. Baker, who has attended nearly every CES logging education camp, said the camps are valuable for those in his profession.
“In some ways,” he said, “our work is like gardening on a huge scale, and we always need more information on the best ways to do it.”
But logging programs are just one part of CES’ outreach into commercial forestry; CES also conducts tree species inventories, marks trees afflicted by illness or insects, and answers questions on tree health and pruning.
The involvement of SDSU students in forestry education and research is an important facet of the Extension mission. SDSU students are involved in small- and large-scale research and education projects.
Chad Taecker, Yankton, an SDSU graduate student studying geography with a forestry emphasis, is involved in one research effort. The project Taecker is helping with seeks to discover if there is a link between certain trees deaths and a sometime component of state road maintenance.
“The Department of Transportation had received complaints from the public about the die-back of trees along state highways,” said Taecker, who received a Bachelor of Science degree in biology in 2004 from SDSU. “We’re trying to find out what’s killing these trees. It may be the de-icing salts used on these roads.”
Participating in Extension education programs or working with state and federal agencies allows SDSU forestry students to hone their knowledge of the discipline in the field. Coe Foss, forest health and special programs administrator with the South Dakota Department of Agriculture’s Division of Resource Conservation and Forestry, said the assistance of SDSU students in “short, internship-like” endeavors with his foresters is beneficial for all involved.
“It’s really win-win for both sides,” said Foss. “They get to learn the value of field practices and procedures, and we get the help.”
Extension forestry is active in all parts of South Dakota, and Ball said SDSU students make contributions through pruning workshops, education programs, and occasionally by helping to remove dying trees.
“In a number of urban forestry projects, planting trees, for example, students have been taking active roles,” Ball said. “They have been planting in Baltic, Sinai, and Spencer. In Spencer, students held a pruning workshop, where they helped prune some of the new trees planted after the tornado in 1998.”
As current forestry tasks continue and new threats and conditions emerge, look for SDSU and its students to continue to be important in South Dakota forestry. Ball said there is much ahead.
“Students play an important role, but we do face threats and have plenty of work to do,” he said. “Like the forest, our role is always changing.”
Relates Links