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Hayes D. Brown

starting time: (00:00)
Comment

Hayes D. Brown, attorney and forest owner, will moderate this news conference. Hayes' email address is hbrown@hayesbrown.com.

Click Here to View & Hear Prior News Conferences.

Mr. Joel Pate

(00:27)
Hear Conference

Comment

Joel Pate is a manager of C. R. Pate Logging on weekdays, but on weekends he's known as boggdaddy to friends and visitors to his Brooklyn, Alabama, Boggs and Boulders Adventure Park. To give you a flavor for what he is trying to accomplish at the 850 acre park, we quote from the B & B webpage:

Our goal is to offer you our southern hospitality and hope you enjoy every minute of your weekend vacation with us. Whether you come to relax, lay back and take in all the action around our huge 10,000 square ft Pavilion, our Campgrounds, our Cool Pool, or maybe the Mud Pie Cafe. Maybe you will bring your dirtbike, 4-wheeler, sidebyside atv, jeep, mud buggy, rock crawler, 100ton army tank, 4x4 truck, your wife's SUV, HARLEY DAVIDSON, crotch rocket, hiking gear, mountain climbing stuff, or swimsuit. We have something for You and It somewhere on our beautiful, scenic 850 acres. We even have Caves to explore or camp in. We have 3 lakes on the property for you to camp beside, or just sit on the many picnic tables, positioned all around the waters edge in the shade, and admire the beauty of the water and wildlife. We have mild rolling hills mixed with timberland and pastures (even cattle and buffalo at large in places). We have slick red hills, sand hills, rocky hills, xx steep rock bluffs for the rock crawling crowd (all natural, not man made), and GUESS WHAT?? YES we have just what everybody loves, MUDDDDDD! and lots of it. It's natural too, not man made. Black mud flats. Acres of them. Some shallow, some deep, be prepared for both, or either be a woozie, and take all the bypass trails around the fun. Like I said we have something for everyone to enjoy, young or old, experienced or not so experienced, we have miles and miles of marked trails for you to hike, or ride.

Since AFOA's April 16 & 17 Annual Meeting is going to take place in Atmore this year, we thought you might like to stop off at Boggs and Boulders on your way to or from the meeting. Brooklyn is about 21 miles southeast of I-65 near Evergreen, and about 53 miles northeast of our meeting headquarters. 

Phone: (251) 578-4385
Email: boggdaddy@boggsandboulders.com

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Ms. Amanda Hamsley Lang

(03:50)
Hear Conference

Comment

Amanda Lang is operations manager at Forisk Consulting LLC and also the Managing Editor of Wood Bioenergy South. Wood Bioenergy South is an interesting little monthly report that all forest owners should be paying attention to during the coming years. Take a look at the February 24, 2010 issue. The first line in the Projected Annual Wood Demand, 2020 table under the yellow title bar sums the six announced bioenergy projects for Alabama. Not many of the projects make it through Ms. Lang's screens and we asked her why. We thought it interesting that the total amount of wood demand likely to happen in the 11 southern states by 2020 (18,702,885 tons) is less than the Current Pulpwood and Direct Chip Demand for Alabama alone (21,423,812 tons). Perhaps press releases about many of the bioenergy plants being touted in the news are written to please grant makers and should be read with skepticism by those looking for solid markets for roundwood products. Click here for an index to past and future Forisk reports.

Phone: (478) 396-0704
Email: ahlang@forisk.com

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Mr. Stephen Pecot

(06:40)
Hear Conference

Comment

Stephen Pecot is Communications Director for the Alabama Cogongrass Control Program, a new program funded by a $6.2 million grant from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA), the 2009 Stimulus Bill. The Alabama Forestry Commission was awarded the grant and has contracted out the administration to Larson & McGowin, Inc., Stephen's employer.
     Landowners in south Alabama have become very aware that Cogongrass is a serious forest pest, while north Alabamians may not have even heard about it. Stephen reminds us, however, that the program is available to landowners in every Alabama county. Cogongrass burns at very high temperatures, enough to kill mature longleaf, and is slowly spreading across the southern states. It is hard to control, maybe nearly impossible to control in extreme southern counties, such as Mobile and Baldwin, because infestations are so common and the grass establishes itself so easily. Stephen is currently asking landowners who have infestations on their land to apply for control help. The Program will hire contractors to kill infestations with a goal of complete eradication north of U.S. 82 (Mississippi to Montgomery) and U.S. 80 (Montgomery to Georgia), and will provide some control work on up to 10 acres per landowner for infestations south of the 80-82 line. Stephen will describe the program at AFOA's April 17 Educational Conference in Atmore and will be with us all day on the 17th to sign up interested landowners.    

Phone: (334) 240-9348 (Montgomery)
Email: specot@alabamacogongrass.com

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Mr. Powell G. Ogletree, Jr.

(10:07)
Hear Conference

Comment

Gee Ogletree is a Partner in the law firm of Adams & Reese LLP. He is a real estate, forestry, natural resources, economic development and business attorney who, among other things, counsels clients in avoiding litigation or resolving disputes through alternative dispute resolution proceedings. He is also a writer with a great sense of humor, as you will see when you read Do Fences Really Make Good Neighbors? The essay was published in the summer 2008 issue of the Mississippi Forestry Association's Tree Talk magazine. In six steps, Gee explains why a chocolate pie offering may a better way to solve a boundary line dispute than initiating costly litigation. And his advice may save you attorney's fees. Who could argue about that?

The Steps:

1. Chocolate Pie Mediation
2. Nice Letter
3. Lawyer Nice Letter
4. Lease or Written Acknowledgement
5. Notice to Chancery Clerk
6. Litigation 

Phone: (601) 292-0740
Email: gee.ogletree@arlaw.com

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Mr. Thomas J. Ebner

(13:36)
Hear Conference

Comment

Tom Ebner has been busy since we last heard from him in July 2008. At that time he told us, "Marked thinning results in higher quality residual stands, increased diameter growth and higher stand present value prior to the second thinning than in operator select thinning. Costs for marking are easily justified by increased stand value." He hasn't changed his mind, but has continued to gather data that strengthens his argument for hiring skilled timber markers to select trees to be left to grow, rather than leaving that decision to the logger (operator select). When discussing which trees to leave, he pointed out that "bigger" is part of being best and he wants landowners to leave the best trees to grow after the first thinning so they can grow into sawtimber and greatly increase in value. Why should a landowner encourage his consultant forester to carefully mark plantations to be thinned? Because "You're looking at $300 to $400 per acre loss if you don't mark." Tom's paper, tables and charts are not easy to read for a layman, but we encourage forest owners to show Tom's work to their consultants when the discussion about thinning plantation pines comes up. It's worth it.

• Pine Thinnings - To Mark or Not - How Many Trees to Leave after Thinning - and Timing of Second Thinning
   
• Tables & Charts

Phone: (662) 328-5304
Email: tjebner@earthlink.net

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Dr. Wayne K. Clatterbuck

(18:08)
Hear Conference

Comment

Wayne Clatterbuck is Professor of Silviculture and Forest Management at the University of Tennessee - Knoxville. Wayne has spoken to us several times about hardwood management at AFOA Annual Meetings, but this is the first time he has been a guest on Capital Ideas - Live! He and co-authors Jeffrey Stringer and John Seifert have recently published a 36-page guidelines entitled Site Preparation and Competition Control Guidelines for Hardwood Tree Plantings (PB1783). Wayne told us, "I like the way it is presented with scenarios that landowners and professionals encounter," and we think you will, too, especially if your land is in north Alabama.

Topics include:

• Successful Tree Plantings
• Factors Affecting Planting Success
• Types and Sources of Competition
• Hardwood Specific Herbicides
• Prescriptions - several scenarios
• Post-Planting Maintenance -- Second and Third Year

Dr. Clatterbuck suggests a visit to UT's Hardwood Management Note Series. The Site Prep and Competition Control Guidelines publication is one publication in the series.

Phone: (865) 974-7346
Email: wclatterbuck@utk.edu

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Mr. Rick Roark

(21:42)
Hear Conference

Comment

Rick Roark is a certified Erosion Control Specialist with Midwest Construction Products, Inc. in Nashville, Tennessee. Forest owners in north Alabama are frequently faced with building roads in steep topography and nearly all of us have struggled to build permanent stream crossings. In a discussion a few weeks ago, someone suggested using Gabion Baskets and someone else asked, "What are they?" We have seen the wire baskets filled with rocks stacked on top of one another to build roads in the steep mountains of Ecuador, but haven't seen them used much in the eastern U.S. A little search on the Internet let us know right away that Gabion Baskets were alive and well in the U.S. and we found Rick Roark in Nashville just waiting to tell us about how the baskets are being used in Alabama and how they might be used on our land. Go to www.gabionbaskets.net and scroll down about midway on the page to see a series of photos on the use of gabions for retaining walls. It doesn't take much imagination to see how the baskets could be used to shore up a road on a steep hill or hold the sides of a stream crossing with the baskets nestled up and over a culvert. Click here for image ideas. Rick also suggested a visit to the Innovative Product Applications for Environmental Science website - www.ipafes.com - for ideas and access to experts on erosion control.

Phone: 1-800-598-1582
Email: rick@midwestconstruct.com

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Dr. Christine L. Thomas

(24:22)
Hear Conference

Comment

Christine Thomas is Dean and Professor of Resource Management at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point College of Natural Resources, and she is the founder of a program we have seen for many years in AFOA's Calendar of Events, the BOW (Becoming an Outdoors Woman) program. A listing for March 6-8, 2009 in Shelby County noted that the program will take place at the 4-H Center on Lay Lake and "Participants choose from over 50 courses such as: backyard wildlife, rock climbing, camp cooking, map and compass, camping, mountain biking, fishing, hunting, canoeing, and many more." The cost was $199 and included meals and lodging. We have listed the BOW events in our Calendar because we thought our female members might be interested in attending and our male members might want to alert spouses or sisters or mothers about the programs. A quick look at the BOW webpage at UWSP let's us know that BOW is a lot more than shooting a rifle or cooking over a campfire in Shelby County, Alabama. We are glad we have the founder of the BOW program with us today and will ask her to describe the program, tell us how it got started, and explain why it is important to forest owners.

For Questions about the BOW Program outside Alabama:
     Peggy Farrell, Director, Becoming an Outdoors-Woman
     Room 190, College of Natural Resources
     (715) 346-4681 or toll free 1-877-BOWOMAN
     E-mail: pfarrell@uwsp.edu
     Webpage: www.uwsp.edu/cnr/BOW

For Questions about the Alabama BOW program:
     Sylvia Payne, Alabama BOW Program
     1-800-262-3151
     Email: sylvia.payne@dcnr.alabama.gov
     Webpage: http://www.outdooralabama.com/outdoor-adventures/events_for_women/bow

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