MELNA Executive Director Don Sproul
Don’s Digressions: Our Executive Director’s Column
• You should have recently received a mailing from the MELNA Office with your membership renewal information in it. Please return your membership renewals ASAP. If you did not get a packet, please contact me.
• As you can see in an article in this issue, the Summer Twilight Meeting will be held at Maine Coast Vineyards in Falmouth on Wednesday, July 10.
• We have still not selected a beneficiary for our Annual Charity Work Project in October. If you know of a worthy charity that could benefit from our services, please contact me.
• Our 3rd Annual Charity Golf Tourney will benefit a family of one of our own. Proceeds from the tournament will go to the “Te
Abbie and Luke Trust Fund”. “Te Abbie and Luke Trust Fund” is a fund that has been established to help meet the financial needs of the children of Amy Harris, who died as a result of a tragic automobile accident this Spring. Abbie and Luke’s surviving parent works at a MELNA member nursery and their grandfather is MELNA’s immediate past president, Mark Pendergast.
• We are looking at holding our next Certification Exam in November. If you are interested in becoming a Maine Certified Nursery Professional or a Maine Certified Sustainable Landscape Professional, contact the MELNA office or get an application off our web site at
www.melna.org.
MELNA’s primary source of getting the most up-to- date information to its members is through our E-NEWS, which is sent every two weeks. If you haven’t been receiving the E-NEWS, please make sure you send you e-mail address to the MELNA Executive Director at
MngmtPlus@aol.com and make sure that e-mail from that address is not goping to your SPAM folder!
ACF News
Firewood Dunnage in loads of Nursery Stock
Tis spring we were notified by colleagues at the NH Dept of Agriculture of a practice of using firewood as dunnage in loads of nursery stock shipped in from other states. Apparently this practice occurs with shipments of large trees that are transported on tarped flat-bed trucks. Te firewood is used to brace the trees so they stay angled down and don’t move. Tis might seem like a logical use for firewood because it is a recycled product with a wedged shape that can be used for fuel. Te problem is that the origin nurseries were in WA, NY, MI, OH and PA and these states, except WA, are all quarantined for emerald ash borer (EAB). EAB is a federally regulated destructive pest of ash trees and movement of any type of hardwood firewood is prohibited out of areas that are quarantined for this pest. Firewood is a major pathway for the movement of this pest. Te NH nursery receiving these shipments was particularly sensitive to this issue as EAB was found in NH this spring and his nursery is in a quarantined area. He was aware of the requirement to not move firewood and was trying to burn all the firewood included on the out of state shipments of trees, but he couldn’t keep up. Te
GrowingMEGreen Photos provided by Maine Dept. of Agriculture, Conservation & Forestry
nursery owner mentioned that he had seen firewood used as dunnage in the past, but that there was an increase in this practice this year. All the states involved were contacted to make sure the nurseries were requested to stop shipping firewood with nursery stock. Tis issue is of concern to us in Maine because it is not legal to bring untreated firewood from other states into Maine. It is important to check out of state shipments of trees for firewood dunnage. Notify us if this is a problem, but most importantly burn the wood as soon as possible. For more information regarding the Maine’s firewood regulations check the MFS website.
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