Urban Forestry Management Plan

The goal of the Urban Forestry Division is to develop a comprehensive management plan to maintain all the trees in the public right-of-way and City-owned property. This management plan will consist of tree planting, tree pruning, and tree removals. We will develop a master tree planting list & specification, tree pruning and removal specification, standard contracts for bidding work, new forms, and brochures on our new program. Our management plan will be determined by the Street Tree Inventory.  Our focus in 2012 will be on long-term preventive maintenance of the street trees, trees located in parks and Oak Grove Cemetery. The objective is to be on a five year cycle with the street trees in Ward 2 beginning in 2012.  Routine Large maintenance trees are defined as trees recommended for horticultural pruning to correct structural problems or growth patterns which would eventually obstruct traffic, pedestrians walking on sidewalks, interfere with utility lines, or buildings.  Trees in this category require a bucket truck access or manual climbing.  We plan to prune and dispose of the debris.

We plan to incorporate the use of internal and external workforce to complete the initial priority tree removals and priority pruning of tree branches. We expect use a two-man crew from the Public Works Department for smaller dead tree removals, small priority tree removal, stumping grinding, re-seeding, and tree planting. We plan to use a contracted tree crew to perform the large dead trees, large priority trees, and manual climbing of trees. Seasonal part-time employees will perform duties such as new tree planting watering, mulching of new trees and existing trees, small tree pruning, and other duties as assigned by the City Arborist.

Free woodchips and wood are available at the Public Works Complex.  The Public Works Complex is located off North College Drive adjacent to the Wood County Recycling Building.  The woodchips are located at the end of drive off North College Drive.  The wood is located off Tarragon Drive (Off East Poe Road) in between the Public Works Complex and the Wood County Airport.   Contact the City Arborist for more information at 419-353-4101.

Electric Division Line Clearance Program

Electric Division Line Clearance Program goal is to be on a four year cycle based on trimming all circuits in a substation to improve reliability of electrical service. The four year cycle is based on the following: customer load, critical customers, outage history, and integrity of the electric infrastructure. We plan to integrate the use of internal and external workforces to complete initial circuit and substation trimming. We expect to use a two-man crew from the Electric Division to work on smaller dead tree removals, small tree removal, stump grinding, re-seeding, and tree planting on the circuits. We plan to use a contracted tree to focus on large dead tree removals, large tree removal, and manual climbing of trees. We plan to develop a tree pruning and removal specification for line clearance, standard contracts for bidding work, new forms, and brochures on our line clearance program.

Emerald Ash Borer Management Plan

Emerald Ash Borer Quarantine areas exist in all 88 Ohio counties as of September 8, 2010.  No hardwood tree firewood can leave the quarantine areas.  Please refer to quarantine map: www.ohioagriculture.gov/eab/maps/eab-map-quarantine.pdf  The State of Ohio has suspended all funding in the quarantine counties.  Property owners are responsible for ash tree removal and replacement in the quarantine counties.  Emerald Ash Borer was positively identified on Bowling Green State University campus in July 2006.  Emerald Ash Borer will spread at a rate of 1/2 mile per year and spread throughout the City of Bowling Green in five years.  The City of Bowling Green must be prepared for the potential loss of all ash trees or selective removal ash throughout the City and on private property. Our goal is to work with the Federal and State Government Agencies to educate the public, coordinate the work, inventory the ash trees, and budget for restoration of the canopy over an 10 year period depending on the funds available. We plan to provide Adopt-A-Tree monies to help residents with trees on private property.  Please refer to the EAB Links & Contacts: Emerald Ash Borer Contacts & Links

Gypsy Moth Suppression Plan

Our goal is to suppress the Gypsy Moth outbreak in City Park and Oak Grove Cemetery.  We plan to use a natural occurring bacteria called Baccillus thuringiensis (BT).  BT spray will only effect caterpillars and is harmless to other animals and people.  The burlap bands around the trees can also be coated with an insecticide called Permethrin to eliminate the need to pull caterpillars off daily.   The burlapped trees will be inspected through the Gypsy Moth larvae life cycle May through August 2012.  The larvae and egg masses will be scraped into buckets and disposed of properly if necessary.  Each oak tree will be aerated, mulched, and fertilized to improve the health of the trees.  Entomophaga fungal spores were applied to the soils at Oak Grove in by Craig Everett, Wood County OSU Extension Horticulturist.  Gypsy Moths have moved off the City Park into the surrounding areas due to build up of the population.  The City Arborist and Public Works Director are reviewing all options available to suppress the Gypsy Moth populations to reasonable levels.  Please see the attached website for Gypsy Moth suppression:  http://dnr.state.oh.us/health/gypsymoth/tabid/5208/Default.aspx

Pictures 1 & 2 - Burlap applied to oaks trees in City Park to attract gypsy moth caterpillars.

Red Oak Group Trees in NW Ohio and Bowling Green.

The Red Oak group of tree species consists of red oak, pin oak, scarlet oak, Shumard and black oak trees.  Fulton, Lucas, and Wood counties OSU Extension have received calls about red oak group tree species in decline.  The City Arborist coordinated the diagnosis of red oak samples in the City of Bowling Green with the ODNR Division of Forestry and OSU Horticulture Laboratory.  Samples were gathered in August 2010.  The red oak samples were tested for Bacterial Leaf Scorch (BLS).  Two samples were tested and one tested positive for Bacterial Leaf Scorch.  OSU Diagnostics Lab will perform further test to verify the find.  ODNR Division of Forestry will sample additional trees in the summer of 2012 in Bowling Green.  We will immediately stop planting northern red oak, black oak, scarlet oak, northern pin oak and Shumard oak as precaution.  This could be an isolated case but we can't take any chances.  BLS is specific to 18 species of oak, maples (Norway, red, sugar, and silver), sycamore/London Plane, sweetgum, ginkgo, mulberry and native elms.

Public Education and Community Service

The new focus for the Bowling Green Tree Commission is public education and community service. Our Tree Commission members will submit 12 educational tree-related articles to the Sentinel Newspaper on an annual basis. One article will be published each month to offer public education in 2012. We are preparing to conduct quarterly educational seminars in 2012 to provide urban forestry information to the residents in the community. We are planning for an Arbor Day Program 2012 to include the school children in the City of Bowling Green.  We are development phase of creating a Bowling Green Pride Program with schools. This would be joint effort with between the BG Tree Commission, Urban Forestry Division, City Parks & Recreation, Public Works, and Electric Division. City Arborist will analyze tree insect and disease problems throughout the City trees, review forestry work requests from external and intern clients. 

Educational Seminar Series - 2011

Tentative Future Dates: March 3, 2012 (Insects & Disease of Landscape Plants for Home Owners), September 15, 2012 (Proper Tree Care - Planting & Pruning) and November 3, 2012 (Green Sustainability).