Labs Unlocked

Beetles, Blazes and Biofuels.  Another excellent and interesting evening put on by the College of the Environment at the UW (the largest in this country..1700 students and 200 faculty).  This time in the department of forestry.  3 talks in 3 different labs by the students working on the projects and their professors …1. tracking biodisturbance in the trees of the region.. (in hopes of figuring out what is the environmental pattern),  2. figuring how to use  all the lodgepole pines that are dying because of the bark beetle and the most economical way to turn that dry brittle wood into fuel (gas additives) by pyrolysis (heating it). ( Extra is the very enthusiastic and totally brilliant young masters student that developed the machine to do this,.,.and 3) the blip:  What will forests look like in a warm and fiery future?   Fascinating to hear about the balance between the fuel (the wood) and the flowers (the cones of these knobcone pines) and frequent vs infrequent fires and how prepared the trees are and what is too much.   these cones are very tough.. they will open with heat (2 minutes in the microwave!) but then they hang on to their seeds til there is a wind (and maybe the ground has cooled then) to regenerate the trees…. talked about the huge fires in Yellowstone in 1988 and how those trees came back.  but times are changing….dryer and warmer.,…How about the 2017 Columbia River fires and the California fires .. students are using field biology to study and better understand when where and how the forests will be vulnerable to too much fire.   That’s just the bare bones…but I couldn't resist a mini report...


I find all these topics totally fascinating and I really love seeing the enthusiastic students who are making a difference.,   And these events  (with great food too:-)) 3 times a year are so  informative and interesting —we are fortunate to live so close and to attend,.