schoppyi « College of Forestry

Have you ever hiked in the McDonald Forest and found a perfectly placed bench, appearing just as you need a moment to rest and enjoy the forest? You have just come across a commemorative bench! These benches commemorate an individual, a group, or an event and support the OSU Research Forests Recreation and Engagement Program, which creates and maintains the trails in the OSU Research Forests.

The most recent bench addition can be found on the Beautiful Trail. Long-time friends and avid trail runners Steve Strauss and Gary Barnes generously donated the bench “to honor all who run and appreciate the beauty of the forest and the joy of connection”. Strauss is a Distinguished Professor of Forest Biotechnology in the College of Forestry.

*Gary Barnes and Steve Strauss enjoy testing out the newest commemorative bench.*

There are currently 14 benches installed throughout the McDonald Forest. OSU Research Forest Recreation Field Coordinator Matt McPharlin and College of Forestry students construct the benches, using wood sourced from trees in the forest. In addition to the benches, the Research Forest honors people with memorial rocks and other installations.

“We’ve seen a notable increase in interest for our commemorative bench program,” says Jenna Baker, the Research Forests Recreation and Engagement program manager. “As a result, we’re in the process of thinking up some other creative and meaningful ways for people to commemorate and donate to our Recreation and Engagement program.”

The McDonald Research Forest, a short 15-minute drive from the Oregon State University campus, is part of the OSU Research Forests. These forests serve as a living laboratory and outdoor classroom for students, researchers and managers to learn about forest ecosystems and management. OSU utilizes the Research Forests to find new ways to sustainably manage forests for conservation, education, business, and recreation. If you are interested in learning more about how you can contribute and get involved with the Research Forest Recreation and Engagement program, contact Jenna Baker at jenna.baker@oregonstate.edu!

Position at Oregon State University: PhD Candidate, Graduate Research Assistant

Tell us a little bit about where you are from…
I’m originally from the foothills of Colorado. I went to Grinnell College in Iowa for my BA in anthropology and biological chemistry, then moved to Portland to get back to mountains and forests.

What brought you to OSU? What is your role in the College of Forestry?
When I lived in Portland I was part of the Oregon Mycological Society, which hosts monthly talks. In one of these I heard about research going on in the college making sustainable products using fungal pigments, and was particularly interested in the use of one of them as a semiconductor. I quit my corporate job and came to OSU to get involved finding new ways to make a better world with fungi.

What’s your favorite part about working for the College of Forestry?
The diverse resources that we have for projects and the excellent people that I work with.

What’s a cool work-related project you are working on right now?
I’m working on a project using ectomycorrhizal fungi for bioremediation of heavy metal treated wood waste. At the moment, wood treated with metals like arsenic and copper is disposed of in landfills where these metals can move into the environment. Fungi are known to sequester metals or produce compounds that will react with them, reducing their toxicity and potential environmental issues. Some species of ectomycorrhizal fungi in particular are known to tolerate heavy metal environments, and initial work has shown they may be able to reduce metal toxicity. Use of ectomycorrhizal fungi may be a sustainable way to reduce the environmental impact of these metals and potentially allow for reclamation.

What do you like to do outside of work?
My primary hobby is mushroom hunting. I’m in the forest looking for fungi most weekends. I am also into plants, both growing them and admiring them in the wild. I have a large collection of tropical orchids in a vivarium and a bog of carnivorous plants, plus more orchids in my yard. I’m particularly enthusiastic about parasitic plants and others that are dependent on fungi. I also am a woodworker, mostly woodturning, and like to cook.

What’s your favorite food?
Matsutake mushrooms.

What’s your favorite time of the year? Why?
I love late summer/early fall. The mushroom season has started on the coast by then and my favorite species of chanterelle is out, plus there are still huckleberries to snack on. Also it is still warm and sunny outside, and gardens are going crazy. Definitely the best time of year.

Do you have any children or pets?
Just plants and fungi.

If you could have one superpower, what would it be? Why?
This is incredibly specific, but I would love to be able to look at a plant/fungus and know exactly what it needs to be happy. I work with high maintenance ectomycorrhizal fungi which are normally in symbiosis with trees, and we really do not know how to replicate what the tree (or other organisms in the ecosystem) normally provide to the fungus. There are many genera that no one has figured out how to culture. I’ve been playing around in the lab working on medias, but it would be so nice to just be able to know so we can do research on them more effectively. Knowing what plants need would also be nice for my orchid habit. An alternative superpower would be to instantly make things sterile and/or being able to select what grows in culture – that would be wonderful.

The Western Wood Preservers Institute (WWPI) donated $100,000 to support the construction of a pressure treating facility in Richardson Hall on the Oregon State University campus. The lab will be utilized by the Utility Pole Research Cooperative and the Environmental Performance of Treated Wood Research Cooperative, two preservative-treated wood cooperatives housed in the College of Forestry. Stella-Jones Inc. will be donating an experimental treating cylinder once the facility is ready, saving the cooperatives about $300,000 in equipment costs.

The repurposed facility will enable more versatile treated wood research, particularly into how to improve the treatment and durability of large wood commodities such as utility poles, railroad ties, and marine pilings. In addition, the facility will function as an educational resource, allowing students in wood science to gain hands-on experience with the process of wood treating.

Representatives of WWPI and Stella-Jones visited the Oregon Forest Science Center to deliver the donation, met with Tom DeLuca, Cheryl Ramberg-Ford and Allyn C. Ford Dean of the College of Forestry, and toured the new Peavy Forest Science Center, A.A. “Red” Emmerson Advanced Wood Products Lab, and the Peavy Arboretum. They also visited the lab spaces used by Gerald Presley, assistant professor in wood science and engineering, and his team.

“This donation enables us to advance science related to pressure treated wood and wood products,” said Gerald Presley, director of the two research cooperatives. “Pressure treatment enables wood to perform well in applications that would otherwise only be occupied by steel, concrete and plastics and OSU is now well-equipped to improve preserved wood products for better performance. This donation also helps us equip the next generation of leaders in wood science and engineering.”

Eric Hansen, department head of the department of wood science and engineering; Dean Tom DeLuca; Gerald Presley; Kyle Cassidy, President of Western Wood Preservers Institute and Director of Quality Assurance & Technical Services at Stella-Jones; Phil Schumock, Director of Sales for Residential Products at Stella-Jones; Dallin Brooks, Executive Director of Western Wood Preservers Institute. Not pictured, but in attendance were Butch Bernhardt, Senior Program Manager at Western Wood Preservers Institute; Mark Clark, Senior Technical Manager-Fire Safety with Hexion and Roy Hultberg, RJH Enterprises.

During the summer of 2021, the OSU Mechanized Harvesting Laboratory hosted a Career and Technology Education (CTE) workshop to explore opportunities for experiential learning in forestry using the harvesting simulator system. The laboratory is directed by Kevin Lyons, the Wes Lematta Professor in Forest Engineering.

Lyons and his team introduced participants to the John Deere forest harvesting simulator system. This system, which includes a terrain editor and a forest harvesting simulator, allows for virtual and experiential learning. It empowers users to begin learning about machine operation, silviculture and harvesting system planning, and mapping topography and forest cover. It also explores ecology and non-timber values using gaming techniques.

*Figure 1. Areas where harvesting simulators can contribute to CTE programs in high schools*

Workshop participants included instructors from Oregon high school CTE programs and the executive director and a student officer of the Future Natural Resource Leaders.

*John Deere forest harvesting simulator*

“There was unanimous agreement from the instructors that the simulator system provides unique opportunities for a range of natural resource management topics in addition to machine operator training, “ Lyons said. “The Mechanized Harvesting Laboratory is currently collaborating with the Future Natural Resources Leaders and CTE instructors on a program to bring the simulator systems to participating high schools.”

For more information, please contact Kevin Lyons, Wes Lematta Professor in Forest Engineering and director of the OSU Mechanized Harvesting Laboratory.

To ensure thoughtful and sustainable management of the McDonald and Dunn research forests, the Oregon State University Research Forests uses a combination of techniques to design and simulate harvests and other silvicultural treatments before cutting to ensure the harvest meets objectives, particularly from a viewshed perspective.

“One reason our neighbors live near the forest and in the Vineyard Mountain neighborhood is that it is beautiful up here,” says Stephen Fitzgerald, director of the OSU Research Forests. “We wanted to maintain the surrounding aesthetics as much as possible with this harvest so that it is less noticeable from afar. We also have high-use recreation trails in the harvest unit we had to consider. To design this harvest with aesthetics in mind, we used innovative techniques to design the pattern of leave trees in this highly visible area.”

In 2020, Fitzgerald, forest manager Brent Klumph, associate professor of forest engineering Bogdan Strimbu, graduate student Bryan Begay, and forestry student workers employed a three-phase technique to plan harvests when there are potential viewshed impacts. This project was part of Begay’s larger master’s research project exploring aesthetic silviculture. This three-phase technique includes using GPS to pinpoint tree location followed by LIDAR, which stands for Light Detection and Ranging and is a remote sensing method that uses light in the form of a pulsed laser to reconstruct a digital version of the forest or area in question. The final phase involves walking the forest floor. The team first employed this process within the Davie Crocket II forest, a “variable retention harvest” located near the top of Vineyard Mountain in Corvallis.

“The Davie Crocket II harvest area encompasses the well-used Vineyard Mountain recreation trail, which we wanted to protect,” explains Fitzgerald. “First, we identified and GPS’d trees along and adjacent to the trail that we wanted to retain. Second, we marked and GPS’d additional trees to be retained either singularly or in clumps across the rest of the harvest area while also creating gaps and openings. Then all of the GPS’d trees were put into LIDAR so that we could see where they were and could then look up at the harvest area (as if it was harvested showing the retained trees) from distant viewpoints around Corvallis.”

Being able to view what the harvest might look like before it is harvested from different vantage points from afar allows Fitzgerald and his team to add or subtract trees within the harvest area. For example, Fitzgerald explains, the proposed harvest area was evident from Highway 99 near Lewisburg, and they did not want the harvest to stand out from an aesthetic perspective.

*Before harvest looking from Hwy 99 at Lewisbu*rg up to Vineyard Mt.

The final step of walking the forest floor with boots on the ground and eyes on the trees and their spatial arrangement allows Fitzgerald and his team to view the tree canopy and make any final adjustments.

*After harvest looking from Hwy 99 at Lewisbu*rg up to Vineyard Mt.

“By walking within and along the 500 Road, which borders the harvest unit, we were able to determine, mark and GPS additional trees to leave from a view and aesthetic perspective as you were hiking or biking by,” Fitzgerald says.

A view of the Davy Crockett II harvest area during the logging stage. Note the varied retention pattern of mature trees. OSU Research Forest personnel will reforest the openings. The Vineyard Mountain trail runs beneath and through these trees.

The logging contractor, Drew Marshall, recently received the 2021 Certificate of Merit through the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) for his excellent work and eye for detail. The award recognizes those forest practices operators that ‘go the extra mile’ for protecting Oregon’s natural resources while working in the forest.

Among those on hand to celebrate the donation were (left to right): Ken Brown, Westwinds Farm founder; Holly Ober, program leader for Forestry and Natural Resources Extension; Jim Heater, owner of Silver Mountain Christmas Trees in Sublimity; Bryan Brown, owner of Westwinds Farm; Ivory Lyles, vice provost, Division of Extension and Engagement; and Chal Landgren.

The College of Forestry George W. Peavy Forest Science Center on the Oregon State University Corvallis campus has a towering Nordmann fir Christmas tree thanks to a generous donation and the work of many hands. Donated by Westwinds Farm in Dallas, the tree celebrates a 60-plus year collaboration between OSU Extension and local Christmas tree growers. It also honors Chal Landgren, who is retiring as the OSU Extension Christmas tree specialist. A couple of forestry students took a break from studying to help get the 30-foot tree into the building and raised. Benny the Beaver, the OSU mascot, also lent a hand getting the tree into its final position in the lobby!

The history of this tree starts in 1965 when Drew Michaels, a West Salem tree farmer, acquired seed from trees native to western Asia’s Caucasus Mountains. He found that this variety, now known as Nordmann fir, thrived in the hot, dry summer climate of the Willamette Valley. The descendant of Drew’s Nordmann plantation, along with other trees in the Westwinds Farm seed orchard, is part of an ongoing research project with Oregon State University. Together they are working to improve needle quality and retention and to enhance growth, with the goal of giving Willamette Valley farmers the tools to grow the best trees possible.

The OSU Christmas tree program is based at the North Willamette Research and Extension Center in Clackamas county, the heart of Christmas tree production in Oregon.

Position at Oregon State University: Student Services Specialist

Tell us a little bit about where you are from…
I grew up in Dallas, Oregon but lived in the Midwest and South for about 15 years before returning to Oregon in 2013. So I guess technically I’m a “native Oregonian”.

What brought you to OSU? What is your role in the College of Forestry?
I came to OSU after I moved back to Oregon and worked for Eastern Oregon University for a short time. I was spending a lot of time in Corvallis and decided I wanted to make it my permanent home and it worked out that the College of Forestry had a position that was available around that same time. And here I am. My current primary role in the College of Forestry is supporting our scholarship program, managing the Mentored Employment program, supporting student clubs, and supervising the FERN Center and Student Services student staff. I also work with employers who would like to share out their career or internship opportunities with students.

What’s your favorite part about working for the College of Forestry?
My favorite thing about working in the CoF is getting to know the students. I feel much of what I do impacts our students’ experience, either directly or indirectly, which makes coming to work each day a little more enjoyable.

What’s a cool work-related project you are working on right now?
I am currently preparing for the College of Forestry Career Fair (my eighth career fair!) and training our new FERN Center and Student Services student staff who will be supporting Student Service activities.

What do you like to do outside of work?
When I’m not at work I enjoy spending time with my kids (when they are not hiding out in their rooms or off with friends) and reading. I took up running during the stay-at-home pandemic year so now I’m in a love/hate relationship with running. I also enjoy watching Blazer basketball and all Beaver sports.

What’s your favorite food?
My favorite food is a tie between tacos or enchiladas. Or freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. Basically I could live on these three foods and feel they should be at the top of the food pyramid.

What’s your favorite time of the year? Why?
Summer is my favorite time of year because I love the sun and the long days that come with summer and despite being born and raised in Oregon I do not love rain or gray skies.

Do you have any children or pets?
I have six children. Three of them no longer live at home and the remaining three are in middle and high school. I also have a dog (Casey) and a cat (Pumpkin).

If you could have one superpower, what would it be? Why?
I’d like to possess the power to look at the ingredients in my pantry and refrigerator and come up with a creative and delicious dinner. In less than 30 minutes. That everyone would eat. With minimal clean-up. That would be an excellent superpower.

What is your job?
I’m the Department Head of FERM. My other job is as an associate professor of forest soils. I am particularly interested in carbon and organic matter and sustainability of management on soils. I have 5 students in my lab – 4 Corvallis based (3 grad, 1 undergrad) and 1 on-line MNR student.

How did you become interested in soils?
I got my bachelor’s degree in environmental science. At the time, I had several professors that got me interested in biogeochemistry, and I was also interested in forest fires. After my undergrad, I worked for a couple of years at a engineered wood R&D lab owned by Louisiana Pacific (now LP) in Sherwood, OR (while living in downtown PDX). When I was working there for a couple of years, I still had a lot of questions about things like forest fires and biogeochemistry, so I often visited the library at Portland State University to try to find answers. I discovered that if I wanted to understand how plants responded to fire or how biogeochemistry responded to fire, it all circled around soil. I applied for a lot of different grad programs, and finally found one that was a fully funded RA at the University of Washington. At that time, I was lukewarm on soil, but during my third quarter at UW, I took a genesis of morphology class that describes how soils form. In that class, I found that soils are like these awesome chemical incubators where so much is happening and so much is unknown, but at the same time, I can dig a hole and tell you a story about that place. You can dig even deeper and look at the chemistry of the soil and that will tell you stories as well. I’m really enthralled by the stories that soils can tell. They record stories that go back thousands of years.

What’s your favorite part of the work you do now?
My favorite part about my work is probably just being confused most of the time and having the epiphany and enlightenment. This happens often because we’re asking many questions that no one else is. If you work hard enough your frustration turns into some sort of payoff.

What do you do when you’re not working?
I have a family. Reyna (wife) is home with our ten-year-old daughter and eight-year old twins. When it’s nice out, we do a lot of camping. Currently, I’m trying to get my family into mountain biking. I’ve cycled my whole adult life. I’ve gotten back into mountain biking, and now own a full suspension bike. I enjoy hucking myself down trails on my bike.

What else are you interested in?
I enjoy making things. I like to cook and bake. We have slowly been renovating our house and have tried to do a bunch of that ourselves.

What kinds of things do you cook?
I’ll find any excuse to cook over a fire. I like making things like chicken skewers that cook in 20 minutes to a 14-hour brisket. I enjoy it all. I also built a pizza oven out of soil in my back yard. The soil in this area isn’t the best because it shrinks a lot, so my oven cracked a lot, but it does get really hot.

What about baking? What are your favorite treats?
I like to make cookies around Christmas time. I make all my kids’ birthday cakes. Lately, I’ll make the cake and frosting and my wife decorates because she has the more steady hand and artistic eye.

A three-story mass timber building has been designed and constructed for structural testing at College of Forestry’s A.A. “Red” Emmerson Advanced Wood Products Lab, the home of the TallWood Design Institute.

This project, funded by the USDA Agricultural Research Service and led by associate professor of wood science and engineering Arijit Sinha, is testing innovative lateral force resisting systems (LFRS) comprised of newer mass timber products and different energy dissipation mechanisms. These LFRS represent a suite of resilient design techniques that can localize damage in special hardware designed to dissipate energy during an earthquake or similar disturbance. The end product is a building that is potentially more resilient to natural disasters than conventional construction.

The mass timber building, constructed by Fortis Construction Inc. and spanning 40’-x-40′ will be tested in multiple phases, with each stage utilizing different LFRS in terms of design and materials:

Phase 1: The first phase will involve testing a 30-foot post-tensioned self-centering shear wall made from a mass plywood panel (MPP) with U-shaped flexural plates (UFP) as the special energy dissipating hardware.
The project’s second phase will involve testing an MPP rocking “spine” with buckling restrained braces (BRBs) used for energy dissipation.
Phase 3 will introduce a new mass timber panel product, yet to hit the market, as part of post-tensioned, self-centering shear walls with UFP.

All mass timber products used in the building are manufactured in Oregon with Oregon fiber. Beams and columns are Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL) manufactured by Boise Cascade, while the floors and walls are Mass Plywood Panels (MPP) manufactured by Freres Lumber. Both these products are made with Douglas-fir. Simpson StrongTie provided a majority of the connections in the building.

This project is a collaboration between research faculty in the OSU department of wood science and engineering, OSU School of Civil and Construction Engineering, and TallWood Design Institute.

For more information about this project, visit the Innovative Lateral Systems website, or contact the principal investigator Arijit Sinha at arijit.sinha@oregonstate.edu, or TDI’s outreach coordinator, Evan Schmidt, at evan.schmidt@oregonstate.edu.

We’d like to congratulate professor emeritus Richard Waring, who was honored as one of three recipients of the 2020 Marcus Wallenberg Prize. He gave the acceptance speech in the digital ceremony and symposium held on October 26, 2021.

Waring, along with co-honorees Joe Landsberg and Nicholas Coops, developed a revolutionary computer model to predict forest growth in a changing climate. Together these scientists fundamentally changed the understanding of forest growth, providing new, spatially explicit tools that are routinely used by forest managers, scientists and policy makers. The annual prize, one of the highest honors in the field of forestry, is named for the late Marcus Wallenberg Jr., a banker, industrialist and member of Sweden’s long-influential Wallenberg family.

Richard Waring joined the OSU College of Forestry faculty in 1963 and remained active in forest science teaching and research until 2018. The award was announced in April of last year.

College of Forestry

At Oregon State University

Author Archives: schoppyi

Commemorative benches benefit trails in the McDonald Forest

CoF Spotlight: Ray Van Court

Western Wood Preservers Institute gives gift to support College of Forestry pressure treating facility

Harvesting simulators provide unique opportunity for experiential learning

Innovative techniques ensure harvests that prioritize forest health and aesthetics

Exceptional Christmas tree celebrates collaboration

CoF Spotlight: Brooke Harrington

CoF Spotlight: Jeff Hatten

Three-story mass timber building constructed to test innovative lateral force resisting systems

Richard Waring receives 2020 Marcus Wallenberg Prize

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