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Tree education
Rachel Allison of North Platte, a forest health specialist with the Nebraska Forest Service, explains at a tree workshop in Beaver City that Nebraska’s environment is hard on trees, although humans also greatly impact tree health by planting them too deep or in the wrong location, over- and under-watering, using pesticides nearby and injuring them with mowers and weed whips. Scott Dicke, the assistant general director of the Lower Republican Natural Resource District based in Alma, said Nebraska’s NRDs coordinate with the forest service in the selection of their windbreak trees from the Bessey nursery at Halsey. He said that the goal of the LRNRD’s tree planting/windbreak program is to prevent soil erosion and encourage conservation practices, considering the benefits to livestock and wildlife and the protection of farmstead buildings. On average, the LRNRD sells 25,000 trees each year, Dicke said. Allison does not recommend windbreaks of all one type of tree, but a variety of trees so if a disease comes through, the whole windbreak isn’t wiped out at one time.
