ELIZABETHTOWN — Just north of town, on the side of N.C. 242, a sign and stand of trees will catch your eye — burgeoning beacons of future growth filled with something akin to a promise.
“What we are doing on highway 242 is what we do across the whole forest,” said Assistant Forest Supervisor Lisa Hartrick. “It’s all about sustainability. We have an an allowable cut every year.”
This means that the management forester pretty much makes the biggest decisions on which stands to rotate, and when to clear cut them. Sometimes it is not clear cutting that is needed, but a thinning out instead.
“Sometimes we do site preparation,” she said. “And it depends a lot on the market, too.”
That site, which has undergone some serious changes over the last few years, has a new sign noting it’s part of a reforestation effort.
The sign is the first placed as part a new education initiative.
“We are like a test program for this sign,” said Hans-Christian Rohr, the forest supervisor. “It comes from Beth Romer. She is our information and education director. She thought it would be good if we had a sign because about a year ago people were asking about what is happening.”
They wanted to make sure that the public doesn’t get the impression that the forest is only being cut, but that it is also being reforested.
“That site had reached our management plan age, which is 40 years,” Hatrick said. “That helps to fund our operating budget.”
All the money that is made from the sale of the trees goes right back into the forest, and doesn’t leave the Bladen Lakes State Forest.
“That just happened to reach that age that needed to be cut out,” she said.
Hartrick has been in her position two years and at Bladen Lakes for four years, and she said this particular area has had a few setbacks when it comes to getting it established.
“It has been planted a couple of times, trying to get it established,” she said. “We have had a hard time trying to get trees to grow there, for a variety of reasons.”
One of those reasons has been the hurricane, with the storm taking out some of the places that had seedlings. Sometimes it was too late in the season, too dry, or competition started coming up.
“There’s an art to forest management,” she said. “Yes, there’s a science to it, but there’s an art to it as well. It’s not cookie cutter. You do the best you can with the tools you have. Sometimes Mother Nature works with you, and sometimes it doesn’t.
“Sometimes you have to modify it again, and keep going.”
“And for the first few years, you really don’t see it,” said Rohr. “You see cut forest.”
The stand was harvested in November 2015 and is about 30 acres. There was slash pine and loblolly pine there.
“We made a decision to convert it to a long leaf pine stand,” she said. “It is better suited to the soil.”
The signs will be there for a couple of years and then moved to a different location. The signs are made out in Morganton through a cooperative program between the N.C. Forest Service and the N.C. Division of Prisons. The signs will be made possibly later for the educational forests and private land owners as well.
Both short and long leaf pines have been replanted in the area north of Elizabethtown.
New seedlings have been planted throughout the stand.
Assistant Forest Supervisor Lisa Hartrick (left) explains that the area where the sign was posted has been fraught with difficulties in getting it established. Hans-Christian Rohr, the forest supervisor said that the sign was the first one of its kind.
The new sign, which is the first in the state, is visible on northbound N.C. 242.