Forestry & Natural Resources Program, serving Benton, Linn, & Polk Counties

Help For Your Forestland

Woodlands Assistance Guide 

Log Price Information

Oregon Department of Forestry

Oregon Forest Resources Institute

OSU Extension Forestry

OSU College of Forestry

Sustainable Forestry Partnership

Willamette Valley Ponderosa Pine Conservation Association

Sudden Oak Death Syndrome

Directory of Watershed Resources- Created and maintained by the Environmental Finance Center (EFC) at Boise State University, it is a searchable database of funding sources. This directory is a collaboration between the EFC and the states of Oregon, Alaska, Idaho, Washington and the US EPA. It replaces the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Funding Directory, and contains all of the information previously contained in the Oregon directory.

Sick Trees, What Can I Do?

In all our Forestry Extension programs, we try hard to develop the concept that woodland health is a overall condition, and that many very healthy woodlands have individual dead or dying trees. Some would even argue that a woodland must have dead trees to be really "healthy" because some processes and animal residents of the forest ecosystem depend on them for food or shelter.

However, it is natural for a woodland owner to get concerned when several trees start dying, or a homeowner's lawn tree turns brown, and we in Extension often get calls to see if we can explain what is going on. Around residential areas there is the added concern for life and property: sick or dead trees that might have no negative impacts in a natural or managed woodland property might be a serious danger in a residential setting.

Common causes of damage to forest trees are:

Abiotic Injuries
(injuries related to Weather, to Soil and to Human Activities.)
Insect Pests
Disease Organisms
Non-Human Vertebrate Pests (Critters)

Unfortunately, diagnosis when trees lose vigor or decline can be very difficult, and all the more difficult by phone because we are rarely able to make field visits. The web is a very promising tool for helping you, our clients, understand or solve some of the more common "Sick Tree Call" questions that we get. It will take some time and work to figure out how to tie all the different information and pictures together in a useful way, but we'll all learn as we go.