|
Up to 20
classes use the forest for lab trips and outdoor classroom
exercises
Fall: prescribed
burns
Spring: plant
seedlings
Summer: timber
harvest |
The University of
Idaho Experimental Forest is a multiple-use, working forest administered by the
College of Natural Resources. Activities such as timber, watershed, wildlife and
range management, as well as many types of recreation, take place on the forest.
Objectives:
- To provide students at the university a field laboratory in which to observe and
practice what they have learned in the classroom.
- To provide an area in which to
demonstrate to the public the latest forest land management techniques.
- To provide a land base for research
projects conducted by faculty and students of the college.
Education
Each fall, students taking the Prescribed Burning lab use prescribed fire to prepare harvest units for future
planting or natural regeneration. In the spring students plant seedlings grown in the UI
Forest Research Nursery on sites prepared the previous fall. During summer months
selected students can work on the student logging crew, helping to accomplish the
majority of the forest's timber harvest activities.
It is managed on a sustained yield basis, where students help plan
the harvests, design the road systems, and write the silvicultural prescriptions. A data
base of resource information on the forest is maintained and utilized by instructors
during classes. An invaluable resource, it provides students with that most fundamental of all
learning tools -- first hand experience.
Forest Environment
The Experimental Forest is a diverse forest typical of the drier mountains of northern Idaho.
Precipitation averages 27 inches per year, with the majority falling as rain and snow during
the fall, winter, and spring. Grand fir and Douglas-fir are the most common tree species.
Western red cedar, ponderosa pie, western larch, western white pine, lodgepole pine,
Engelmann spruce, western hemlock, and subalpine fir are also found in varying quantities.
Shrub species dominate in many areas, with ninebark, ocean-spray, willow, and red stem
Ceanothus as the common tall and medium shrubs. Low shrubs consist of snowberry, rose,
thimbleberry, and spirea. The understory is rich with forbs and grasses such as trillium, wild
ginger, fairy slipper, pinegrass, and Idaho fescue.
The many stages of plant succession here allow for a wide variety of
wildlife species. The forest is year-round home to elk, white-tailed deer, and mule deer.
Other forest dwellers include a black gear, coyote, bobcat, mountain lion, and an occasional
moose. Small mammals on the forest include beaver, snowshoe hare, porcupine, and
weasel.
Birds abound during nesting season, with robins, common flickers, chickadees, and
thrushes making use of the varied habitats. The great horned owl and red-tailed hawk can
also be found on the forest. |
The Experimental
Forest consists primarily of four large management units totaling
7000 acres and including two outdoor classrooms. |
|
Announcing nine new
species
1. American
Chestnut
2.
Carpathian Walnut
3.Engelmann Spruce
4. Grand Fir
5. Lodgepole Pine
6. Mugo Pine
7. Red flowering currant
8. Water Birch
9. Wood's Rose
Details |
The Forest
Research Nursery is different
from other nurseries that grow
and sell seedlings because it
has additional roles in
teaching, research and
service.
Service includes growing and selling container-grown seedlings for reforestation
and conservation purposes. We grow about 680,000 seedlings, including hardwoods and
conifers. We don't bid on contracts; some of our seedlings go to the Idaho Department of
Lands and forest industries, but most are reserved for private land owners throughout
Idaho. Our service role is much more than selling seedlings. We provide information on
species selection, handling and planting practices, provide tours and workshops,
organize meetings, and release numerous publications each year, all aimed at providing
up-to-date information for both professional nursery managers and seedling buyers.
One Featured New
Specie
American Chestnut (Castanea
dentata) was once considered the queen of eastern American
forests but is now reduced to a memory due to the devastating chestnut blight. This great tree grew
over 100 feet tall, 4 feet in diameter, with massive, wide-spreading branches and a broad crown. The
good news is that it can be grown in the west blight-free! The valuable wood is rot-resistant, light and
durable and used in a variety of ways, from furniture to railroad ties. It prefers a well-drained soil with a
pH of 5.5 to 6.5 and will not tolerate high pH or poorly drained soils. Once established they are quite
drought-tolerant. The chestnuts are the same ones sung about in the familiar Christmas carol, and are
produced in huge quantities every year starting at about age 10.
Wildlife benefit: The nuts are very nutritious and are relished by bears, deer, squirrels, grouse, and other animals.
Details
about the other eight.
|
Visitors
welcome weekdays
8 am - 3:30 pm
Business Hours:
Weekdays
7:30 am - 4 pm
Seedling information: 1.208.885.3888
Greenhouses: 1.208.885.3512
Fax: 1.208.885.6226 (specify nursery)
Forest Research Nursery
University of Idaho
PO Box 441137
Moscow, Idaho 83844-1137
Shipping address:
Forest Research Nursery
Troy Highway (Idaho 8)
Moscow, Idaho 83843
University of Idaho Forest Research Nursery, Moscow, Idaho, 83844-1137,
USA: 1.208.885.3888
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