Eastern Iowa Farmer Fall 2021

a big year
succeed in a forest are species like maples,
basswood, hackberry, box elder and
elm. While there’s nothing wrong with
these trees, they’re not as prized as our
oaks, walnuts and hickories, for timber
value, aesthetics or habitat.
Unfortunately, the holes in the canopy
opened up by the derecho also benefit
invasive species. Landowner Springsteen
said that the multiflora rose he’d almost
eliminated has made a roaring comeback
now that new light is reaching the forest
floor.
Cody Widner is a forester with the
National Wild Turkey Federation. He
calls for acting swiftly to combat invasive
species like honeysuckle.
“The longer you wait, it’ll take more
and more time to combat these undesirable
species,” he said.
The DNR’s Bridges said that some
landowners called immediately after the
storm for help assessing timber damage.
“Other people were so sickened by
what had happened that it took them
months to come out and look at it for the
first time,” Bridges said. “I had a handful
Cody Widner,
National Wild Turkey
Federation forester
of people say, with
some emotion in
their voice, ‘I’m
not sure if I’m
going to tear up
or vomit, but this
means a lot to
me.’”
Some landowners
who had put
off timber harvests
now have salvage
harvests on their
hands, according
to Bridges. It
wasn’t the way
they had hoped to harvest their trees.
“You went from full value to 35 percent
value,” he said.
From October to February, Bridges
worked almost exclusively with derecho-impacted
forest landowners, helping
with 99 program applications and assisting
about 50 other landowners.
The application window has now
passed for the Emergency Forest Restoration
Program, but Bridges said that
some other programs could help landowners
still dealing with derecho damage,
such as a cost share for removing
undesirables and replanting with more
desirable trees.
Clean-up and regeneration
Outside of Lisbon, Springsteen estimates
that he lost 70% to 80% of his
canopy. Within the first week, Springsteen
contacted Bridges, who put him in touch
with the logger Bruggeman.
Bruggeman said his great-grandfather
started the company making blanks for
gunstocks in World War II. The derecho
increased his business from two crews to
four or five.
“We probably planted 8,000 trees so far
this spring, and we plan on doing 15 to
20,000 this fall,” Bruggeman said. “Mostly
oaks, hickories and walnuts.”
Springsteen invested in more equipment
to handle the clearing. While
Bruggeman’s crew worked with the large,
dangerous trees, Springsteen worked with
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