In November and December., the University of Kentucky Forestry and Natural Resources Extension’s “From the Woods Today” webcast will explore a bevy of topics including woodland management, invasive plants, stave drying research, mushrooms, turkeys and Christmas trees among many other subjects.  

On Nov. 3, listeners will learn the five W’s of woodland management from co-host Billy Thomas and find out exactly what is bugging their tree from Ellen Crocker, UK assistant extension professor of forest health. 

On Nov. 10, Crocker will discuss some of the dangers of invasive plants in Kentucky. Chad Niman, primary forest products specialist in the UK College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, will provide some interesting information on his barrel stave research project. Megan Buland, a student teaching assistant, will highlight some of the mushrooms found throughout Kentucky. 

As Thanksgiving nears, Billy Thomas will give listeners some reasons to be thankful for Kentucky’s trees, woodlands and those who own and care for them on the Nov. 17 edition. UK assistant extension professor of wildlife management Matt Springer will get into the holiday mood talks turkey; Buland will speak about turkey tail Mushrooms and Laurie Thomas discusses Christmas trees. 

On Dec. 1, Springer will speak about some of the wildlife friendly trees throughout the commonwealth and Crocker will talk more about some of the bugs that are hounding native trees. 

Rounding out the year, retired UK forester Doug McLaren tells the story of the Christmas tree, Laurie Thomas will provide a segment on Christmas birds and Crocker goes into detail about the famous holiday mistletoe. 

Laurie Thomas will introduce a Tree of the Week segment during Nov. 10 and Dec. 1 episodes.  

Due to the holidays, “From the Woods Today” will not host webcasts on Nov. 24, Dec. 8, Dec. 22 or Dec. 26. 

The link to the Zoom sessions, a list of topics and archived episodes are available at https://forestry.ca.uky.edu/home/woods-today. Participants will receive a prompt to install Zoom, if they haven’t already done it. When asked for an identification number, sign in as a guest. Anyone can join a session, regardless of their location. Live listeners will have the opportunity to interact with the presenters and ask questions. Those who have ideas for future programs or want to share something interesting they have found in Kentucky woodlands may let the show hosts know by completing a survey listed on the website above . The episodes are also available on Facebook Live at https://www.facebook.com/ForestryExtension/.