The annual Maine Woodland Owners and Maine Tree Farm Forestry Field Day on Sept. 9 promises to be a fun and interesting day day!

The event will be based at the Maine Youth Fish and Game Camp, located near Milford on the Stud Mill Road (parking and bus transportation to the camp will be available).

From there, shuttle vans will bring folks to Pam and Bryan Wells’ Demonstration Tree Farm, three miles north of the Camp on the Stud Mill Road. Pam and Bryan are the 2017 Maine Outstanding Tree Farmers, and were among eight finalists nationwide for the American Tree Farm System’s National Outstanding Tree Farmer award. They are also very active members of the Maine Woodland Owners’ Penobscot Valley Chapter.

Field Day activities at the MYFGA Camp will include displays and information about wildlife, invasive species (both plant and insect), the University of Maine Forest, and a variety of woods and forestry related vendors. “Operation Game Thief,” in cooperation with the Maine Warden Service, will show the “Wall of Shame,” a mobile display of the bad effects of poaching on Maine’s fish and wildlife.

Northern Solstice Alpaca Farm will display Maine-grown fiber and clothes. The Northeast Master Logger Certification program will have an informational display. As more presenters and vendors are added to the program, they will be listed on the Wells Forest website (wellsforest.com/tree-farm-field-day/), on the Field Day There will be demonstrations and vendors on site, and lots of other spots to visit in the area.

The tours of the Wells’ Tree Farm will offer walking and riding options. Walking tours of moderate length will reveal a gorge on the beautiful Sunkhaze Stream, and showcase artifacts of the 1800’s era LeBallister shingle mill, as well as other aspects of local history and natural beauty. Walking trail construction and surfacing work done with a mechanized mulcher on a tracked skid steer machine will be demonstrated live. On the riding tours, folks will board a 12-person passenger van to see live demonstrations of cut-to-length in-woods processing and forwarding, as well as the results of restorative silvicultural practices such as crop tree release, pre-commercial thinning, and low-density pine thinning. All the live equipment demonstrations will feature Madden Sustainable Forestry Inc., winner of the Professional Logging Contractor’s 2017 Logger of the Year Award.

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For the riding tours, folks will board a 12-person passenger van and will ride in between stops to see live demonstrations of cut-to-length in-woods processing and forwarding, as well as the results of silvicultural practices such as crop tree release, pre-commercial thinning, and low-density pine thinning.

For those who prefer not to drive their vehicles on gravel roads, parking and bus transportation to the MYFGA Camp will be available from the Madden Timberlands headquarters located off Route 2 in Milford/Costigan – the address is 506 Main Road, Milford (blue shop with “Fernald Madden and Sons” on the side). Coffee and snacks will be available at the camp, and a tasty lunch will be available for a nominal fee – cash only.

To sign up, go to http://wellsforest.com/are-you-joining-us. For more information, contact pwells@oakleaf.com.

In 2015, the University of Maine had a story on Pam Wells, who enrolled in the School of Forest Resources at the University of Maine so she could learn more about her forest. The Wells’ woodlot is 1,058 acres about 10 miles from Old Town in Milford/Greenfield and abuts the Stud Mill Road and is adjacent to Sunkhaze Meadows National Wildlife Refuge; they allow hunting, fishing, hiking, etc., but our goal is to create a demonstration forest for other woodlot owners and a place for students to conduct wildlife and forestry research. A long-term goal is to have the woodlot provide habitat for wildlife, increase forest productivity, and at some point obtain income from a sustainable harvest.

The property was harvested extensively for decades. It resembles much of Maine’s forests. Precommercial thinning was performed in 2014 with assistance from the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Several years ago, a crop tree release was performed in a six-acre stand, and in 2015, the Wellses created a “stream team” consisting of both state and federal fish biologists. The goal is to restore the Wells’ portion of the Sunkhaze Stream in order to provide better habitat for trout and salmon.

In the letter announcing the award earlier this year, Maine Tree Farm System wrote “The Wells Demonstration Forest, which encompasses over 1,000 acres in Milford and Greenfield has an interesting story, as does one of its owners, Pam wells…the work that has been done on the property to bring it back from a hi-grade situation, including the manual labor done by the landowners, is remarkable and to be admired.”


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