NorthWoods is once again teaming up with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) to help save the elms!
In the mid-20th century, the Dutch Elm Disease came through the U.S. and decimated the American Elm population, killing almost all of the iconic trees. Even now, many elm trees which succeed in establishing themselves are killed by the disease before they are able to achieve their mature height. While the majority of elms have been killed, there are still some large elm trees which survived the disease, and it has been shown that some of these individuals have an innate resistance to the disease. Scientists have bred these disease resistant trees to create another generation of elms that will hopefully be disease resistant as well, and will hopefully grow to the full mature elm height of up to 100 feet.
The Nature Conservancy runs a program that takes these disease-resistant crosses and plants them in riparian areas to reestablish floodplain forests, which were once dominated by elms and silver maples. NorthWoods has been contracted by TNC again this year to plant a little over 400 of these trees in the Johnson Farm and Willoughby Falls Wildlife Management Areas this April.