Sacramento, CA, May 21^st – California ReLeaf unveiled its new grants program today that will provide more than $250,000 to community-based groups and other organizations throughout California for urban forestry projects.  California ReLeaf’s 2012 Urban Forestry and Education Grants Program is funded through contracts with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL Fire) and Region IX of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Eligible applicants include incorporated nonprofit organizations and unincorporated community-based groups, with a financial sponsor, located in California.  Individual funding requests range from $1,000 to $10,000.  Applicants may submit one proposal that utilizes either tree planting or tree care projects as the foundation for increasing awareness and stewardship of urban forests among program participants. Grants will be used to cover a variety costs associated with carrying out these projects.

“ReLeaf is proud to design and administer a program that joins the need for increased environmental education about the value of our urban forests with the hand-on approach of enhancing or preserving these resources,” said Executive Director Joe Liszewski.  “Since 1992, we have invested more than $9 million in urban forestry efforts geared towards cleaning our air and water, creating green jobs, building community pride, and beautifying our Golden State.”

California ReLeaf’s mission is to empower grassroots efforts and build strategic partnerships that preserve, protect, and enhance California’s urban and community forests.  Working statewide, we promote alliances among community-based groups, individuals, industry, and government agencies, encouraging each to contribute to the livability of our cities and the protection of our environment by planting and caring for trees.

Proposals must be postmarked by July 20^th, 2012.  Grant recipients will have until March 15^th, 2013 to complete their project.  The guidelines and application are available online at www.californiareleaf.org/programs/grants.  For questions, or to request a hard copy, please contact California ReLeaf’s grants program manager at gro.faelerainrofilacnull@sllimc, or call (916) 497-0035.

Ed Castro, Staff Writer

The Sun

REDLANDS – The University of Redlands received nationwide recognition for embracing five standards that focused on campus tree care and community involvement.

For its efforts, U of R earned Tree Campus USA recognition for the third straight year for its dedication to forestry management and environmental stewardship, according to the nonprofit Arbor Day Foundation.

The five standards included: establishment of a campus tree advisory committee; evidence of a campus tree-care plan; verification of dedicated annual expenditures on the campus tree-care plan; involvement in an Arbor Day observance; and the institution of a service-learning project aimed at engaging the student body.

A photographic Campus Tree Tour of the university is available online and a map is also offered to guide visitors during a trip on campus.

“Students throughout the country are passionate about sustainability and community improvement, which makes the University of Redlands’ emphasis on well-maintained and healthy trees so important,” said John Rosenow, chief executive of the Arbor Day Foundation.

The university’s tree advisory committee includes members from the Students for Environmental Action group, the Community Service Learning Office, professors in the environment studies and biology departments, facilities management employees, as well a member of the city Street Tree Committee.

The campus also produces a majority of its energy, as well as heating and cooling, with its on-site co-generation plant and plants its own sustainable vegetable garden.

In the university’s green residence hall, Merriam Hall, students can explore sustainable living. Its newest buildings, the Center for the Arts complex, recently received gold Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification for its environmentally friendly features, and the Lewis Hall for Environmental Studies is a silver LEED-certified green building.

Tree Campus USA is a national program that honors colleges and universities and their leaders for promoting healthy management of their campus forests and for engaging the community in environmental stewardship.

The fungus is a new species of Fusarium. Scientists are working on characterizing its specific identification. It is transmitted by the Tea Shot Hole Borer (Euwallacea fornicatus), an exotic ambrosia beetle that is smaller than a sesame seed. The disease it spreads is referred to as “Fusarium dieback.”

“This beetle has also been found in Israel and since 2009, the beetle-fungus combination has caused severe damage to avocado trees there,” said Akif Eskalen, an extension plant pathologist UC Riverside, whose lab identified the fungus.

To date, the Tea Shot Hole Borer has been reported on 18 different plant species worldwide, including avocado, tea, citrus, guava, lychee, mango, persimmon, pomegranate, macadamia and silk oak.

Eskalen explained that the beetle and fungus have a symbiotic relationship.

“When the beetle burrows into the tree, it inoculates the host plant with the fungus it carries in its mouth parts,” he said. “The fungus then attacks the vascular tissue of the tree, disturbing water and nutrient flow, and eventually causing branch dieback. The beetle larvae live in galleries within the tree and feed on the fungus.”

Although the beetle was first detected in Los Angeles County in 2003, reports of its negative impact on tree health were paid no attention until February 2012, when Eskalen found both the beetle and fungus on a backyard avocado tree showing dieback symptoms in South Gate, Los Angeles County. The Agricultural Commissioner of Los Angeles County and the California Food and Drug Administration have confirmed the identity of the beetle.

“This is the very same fungus that caused avocado dieback in Israel,” Eskalen said. “The California Avocado Commission is concerned about the economic damage this fungus can do to the industry here in California.

“For now, we are asking gardeners to keep an eye on their trees and report to us any sign of the fungus or beetle,” he added. “Symptoms in avocado include the appearance of white powdery exudate in association with a single beetle exit hole on the bark of the trunk and main branches of the tree. This exudate could be dry or it can appear as a wet discoloration.”

A team of UCR scientists has been formed to study Fusarium dieback in Southern California. Eskalen and Alex Gonzalez, a field specialist, are already conducting a survey to determine the extent of the beetle infestation and the likely extent of the fungus infection in avocado trees and other host plants. Richard Stouthamer, a professor of entomology, and Paul Rugman-Jones, an associate specialist in entomology, are studying the biology and genetics of the beetle.

Members of the public can report sightings of the Tea Shot Hole Borer and signs of Fusarium dieback by calling (951) 827-3499 or emailing ude.rcunull@nelaksea.

It’s important to respect your elders, children are reminded. It seems that this goes for trees, too.

Big, old trees dominate many forests worldwide and play crucial ecological services that aren’t immediately obvious, like providing habitat for a wide range of organisms, from fungi to woodpeckers.

Among their many other invaluable roles, the oldsters also store a lot of carbon. In a research plot in California’s Yosemite National Park, big trees (those with a diameter greater than three feet at chest height) account for only 1 percent of trees but store half of the area’s biomass, according to a study published this week in PLoS ONE.

To read the full article published in the New York Times, click here.

By DOUGLAS M. MAIN

The New York Times, April 25, 2012

Red oak seedlings in Central Park grow up to eight times faster than their cousins cultivated outside the city, probably because of the urban “heat island” effect, Columbia University researchers report.

The researchers planted seedlings of the native red oak in the spring of 2007 and 2008 in four places: in northeastern Central Park, near 105th Street; in two forest plots in the suburban Hudson Valley; and near the city’s Ashokan Reservoir in the Catskill foothills about 100 miles north of Manhattan. By the end each of summer, the city trees had put on eight times more biomass than those raised outside the city, according to their study, published in the journal Tree Physiology.

“The seedlings grew much larger in the city, with decreasing growth as you get farther from the city,” said the study’s lead author, Stephanie Searle, who was a Columbia University undergraduate when the research began and is now a biofuels policy researcher at the International Council on Clean Transportation in Washington.

The researchers hypothesized that Manhattan’s warmer temperatures — up to eight degrees higher at nighttime than in rural surroundings — could be a primary reason for the Central Park oaks’ faster growth rates.

Yet temperature is obviously only one of the differences between rural and urban sites. To isolate the role played by the thermostat, the researchers also raised oaks in a laboratory setting where all conditions were basically the same, except for the temperature, which was altered to mimic conditions from the different field plots. Sure enough, they observed faster growth rates for oaks raised in hotter conditions, similar to those seen in the field, Dr. Searle said.

The so-called urban heat island effect is often discussed in terms of potentially negative consequences. But the study suggests it could be a boon to certain species. “Some organisms may thrive on urban conditions,” another author, Kevin Griffin, a tree physiologist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia, said in a statement.

The results parallel those of a 2003 study in Nature that found greater growth rates among poplar trees raised in the city than among those grown in the surrounding countryside. But the current study went farther by isolating the effect of temperature, Dr. Searle said.

Red oaks and their relatives dominate many forests from Virginia to southern New England. The experience of Central Park’s red oaks could yield clues to what might happen in forests elsewhere as temperatures climb in decades to come with the advance of climate change, the researchers suggested.

An in-depth article covers the history and current issues involved in tree cutting near billboards.

It’s all about location. With a jump in elevation from sea level to more than 6,000 feet, one can see Monterey cypress and ponderosa pines within a few miles. And with the Santa Ynez Mountains informally considered the dividing line between Northern and Southern California, trees from both regions are found here.

By Ashley Archibald, Santa Monica Daily Press

DIGGING IN: Boy Scout Troop 2 creates an urban forest out of a small strip of land Saturday as part of a national carbon trading initiative. photo by Brandon Wise.

A stand of young California sycamores, supported by poles nearly as tall as the trees themselves, line what used to be a dilapidated asphalt pad, sentinels against the waves of invisible chemicals and particulates emanating from the cars below.

The trees represent the intersection of national policy and local achievement as part of both a federal pilot project to study the carbon sequestering potential of the urban forest and the culmination of one Santa Monican’s journey to attain the highest title available to him — Eagle Scout.

Josh Lappen, 17, stumbled upon the planting project through hard work and luck.

Lappen has been a member of Santa Monica’s Boy Scout Troop 2 since he was in seventh grade. That’s several years of knot tying, fire starting and learning to canoe, a specialty of Troop 2.

At the end of the parade of merit badges comes not a new turn, but a mountain — choose to take on the six-month process of elevating to Eagle Scout or simply content oneself with a job well done.

Amongst a host of other requirements, prospective Eagle Scouts have to commit themselves to accomplishing a project for the community. Although there are no hard and fast rules on what the project must entail, they usually contribute something meant to last and consume over 100 hours of effort on the part of the applicant.

Lappen was struggling. He knew he wanted to contribute something to the outdoors that had an emphasis on the environment and sustainability, but hit only dead ends.

“I looked originally at trail building,” Lappen said. “One of the things I especially love about Boy Scouts are the outdoor activities.”

But when he picked up the phone to call a state park and offer free manual labor, no one answered. Budget cuts had taken their toll on the park system to the point that Lappen couldn’t find anyone to even hear his proposal.

“Now that’s a story,” Lappen said.

A multitude of contacts later, Lappen hit upon the city of Santa Monica and contacted City Forester Walt Warriner.

Warriner, it so happened, had an idea.

City Hall signed up with the United States Forest Service to take part in a pilot project that could eventually earn carbon credits by planting 1,000 trees that remove carbon from the air.

Carbon credits are an interesting invention of the capitalist system that puts a value on the amount of carbon dioxide and other green house gases that a company or entity emits. Exchanges, similar to the New York Stock Exchange, allow polluting companies or industries to buy credits so they can effectively produce more pollution.

At the other end of the transaction is another group that promises to either reduce its own emissions or actively remove carbon from the air.

The 1,000 trees being planted in Santa Monica will remove green house gases from the air and eventually make City Hall a player in that market.

Through a grant from the South Coast Air Quality Management District, Warriner had the trees and the space, a vegetation-free asphalt strip backed up against a safety fence. Lappen offered him the labor.

“This project was completely up my alley,” Lappen said. “It was everything I could have thought of, wanted or dreamed of in a planting project.”

At the end of February, municipal teams cleaned up the site, removing the cap of concrete and prepping for the eventual planting.

On April 28, the day after National Arbor Day, Lappen and a host of volunteers were ready to get the trees in the ground.

Popular culture holds that it’s difficult to get teenagers to do anything at 8 a.m. except hit a snooze button, but as the clock wound up Saturday morning, the team of teens gathered where 22nd Street meets Michigan Avenue, shovels in hand.

The process is technically simple — dig a hole as deep as the root ball on the end of the young tree and approximately twice as wide. Place the tree inside the hole, and fill it in with soil, but not too high to invite crown rot to the new plant.

Tie the sycamore to stakes placed immediately to the sides, and a tree is planted. Repeat between 19 and 24 more times.

That’s hard work, particularly getting the stakes in the ground, which requires a heavy piece of metal placed on top of the stake that a person lifts and then lets fall, driving the pole downward.

“A day of planting trees is a workout,” Warriner said, watching the young men and women attack the ground with shovels.

In 10 years, with thoughtful care and pruning, the trees will grow to 20 or 30 feet in height, just below the power lines that stretch over the site. Over the course of the next century, Santa Monica officials have committed to monitoring the trees’ growth and reporting back to the Forest Service for use in their studies.

But it’s in two decades that the newly-planted sycamores will have their greatest impact.

“Twenty years from now, these kids will be driving their kids to school,” Warriner said. “They’ll be able to tell their kids, ‘I planted those trees.’ There’s an immense amount of pride in that.”

By Brian Palmer, Published: April 30

The current height champion out West is Hyperion, a 379-foot coast redwood standing somewhere in California’s Redwood National Park. (Researchers have kept the precise location quiet to protect the world’s tallest tree.) That’s just a shade under double the size of the tallest Eastern tree. In fact, even the average coast redwood grows more than 100 feet taller than any tree in the East.

And the height disparity isn’t limited to redwoods. Douglas firs in the western United States and Canada might have grown close to 400 feet tall before logging eliminated the tallest representatives of the species. (There are historical accounts of equally tall mountain ash trees in Australia around a century ago, but those have suffered the same fate as the tallest Douglas firs and redwoods.)

There’s no denying it: Trees are simply taller out in the West. But why?

To find out, read the complete article at The Washington Post.