Howard County 4-H Forestry Team Competes in Monticello
Howard County Forestry Team competes in State 4-H Forestry Competition.
Nashville, Ark. – On Thursday, May 9th, the Howard County 4-H Forestry team competed in the state 4-H Forestry Contest in Monticello. This competition consisted of tree identification, tree measurement, compass and pacing, tree disease and insect identification, and a forestry quiz.
Members of the Howard County 4-H Forestry team are: Seniors – Payton Hale and Emmett Jamison and Junior – Asher Howard.
That morning the team was split up into groups and was sent into the woods with a compass and tree stick. One group took tree measurements while the other group focused on compass and pacing. For the tree measurement section, the plot was a quarter of an acre. The 4-Her’s used the tree stick to find the DBH of a tree. The DBH is the diameter of a tree at 4.5 feet from the ground. After they found the DBH they paced out 66 feet from the tree and recorded the amount of 16 feet logs that could be made from that tree. They used a volume table after finding the height and DBH to find the total board feet per tree. The youth had to do this for 10 trees, add up the total board feet, and multiply by 4 to find the total volume per acre. The other group did compass and pacing at the same time. This group used a compass to find an azimuth or bearing. Then, they had to pace out to the next point and record how many feet it was away. They had to find the azimuth and distance to 5 different points. After both groups rotated through these two challenges, they had to identify 25 different trees.
The last two sections of the competition were held indoors. The groups were split up again and either sent to a classroom to take the quiz or a lab to identify the insects and tree diseases. In the lab, there were specimens of diseased limbs or foliage from trees that had diseases and insects, or their damage placed on tables. The 4-Her’s had to go through and identify what the disease was or what kind of insects caused the damage they were seeing. The quiz was 25 questions that were either multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, or matching.
The Howard County 4-Her’s did very well in their first State 4-H Forestry Competition. Peyton Hale tied for second in the senior division on tree measurement, but the tiebreaker went to the other 4-Her. Emmett Jamison also tied for third in the senior division on compass and pacing. This was a three-way tie that went to someone from another county as well. Asher Howard was the second-place high-scoring individual in the junior division. He also placed third in insect and disease identification, second in tree measurement, second on the forestry quiz, first in compass and pacing, and first in tree identification. These 4-Hers spent many weeks practicing and preparing for this competition. They have improved by leaps and bounds and hope to compete at next year’s State 4-H Forestry Competition.
For more information on how you can become a member of our Forestry Team, call the Howard County Extension Office at 870-845-7517. The Cooperative Extension Service is part of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture.
By Samantha Horn
4-H Staff Chair
The Cooperative Extension Service
U of A System Division of Agriculture
Media Contact: Samantha Horn
4-H Staff Chair
U of A Division of Agriculture
Cooperative Extension Service
421 N. Main Nashville AR 71852
(870) 845-7517
shorn@uada.edu
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