The community has answered the call to help Denis and Melissa Jackson’s family of six at White Barn Fun Farm, just outside Brooks, Alta.

The exotic animal farm, which has been open to the public since 2018, has been a hit with camp kids for years.

It suffered the loss of five-year-old Stoli, a Bactrian camel, and Butterscotch, a nine-year-old pony, which were killed in the storm. They were seeking refuge under trees that fell on them.

The two may have been different species but were inseparable as friends.

“Stoli wasn’t your typical camel. He was so friendly and very personable. You could ride him and he’d never bite or spit at people, and he tolerated the kids,” said Liza Maurette, who has started a GoFundMe page for the farm, covering costs not covered by insurance.

“Camels can be a little ornery, but he was a complete sweetheart. I would go there and lean up against his enclosure he was in and put my back on the fence talking to people. He would come put his head on my shoulder and kind of lick my cheek a bit and say, ‘I’m here.'”

“His best friend Butterscotch also perished.”

Denis was working in his shop and had 10 minutes to get his animals to more protected areas before the full force of the hailstorm hit.

After Denis settled his animals, he took shelter in the house, only to have Butterscotch and Stoli decide to venture to a different spot under two large and well-rooted trees, which eventually fell.

“It was under two trees on the far side of their pasture. They figured the tree would be better shelter, but unfortunately it wasn’t a good decision,” said Maurette.

The farm also features yaks, emus, alpacas, peacocks, goats, bison, horses, ducks, and geese, which are a source of delight for families, camps and school tours from April to October.

Besides helping run the farm, Melissa also serves as a special needs worker for Maurette’s daughter, Emily, who has Down syndrome.

“Emily is very good with animals,” Maurette said.

“She helps the kids get comfortable around them and show how to feed them. She’s really good between working with the kids and the animals. It’s the most beautiful symbiotic relationship one could hope for.”

Things insurance can’t cover

People often think insurance means that everything is covered in the event of a natural disaster, but that is not the case, which led Maurette to spearhead the GoFundMe fundraiser.

“There are some things that insurance covers, and a whole lot that they don’t. They’ll cover the big buildings, they don’t cover chicken coops and shelters. There is the loss of income they don’t cover, or the camel or pony they lost,” said Maurette.

She said exotic animal insurance is exorbitant for a farm with a revenue stream that is confined to fair-weather months.

“A camel is like a $30,000 hit. It’s not a cheap animal just to go out and purchase.”

Denis drives truck during the winter to supplement the exotic animal farm small business.

But beyond the financial implications is the grief felt by the young people who make White Barn Fun Farms a regular stop. Letters and cards from camp kids are flooding in to the Jackson family as the children they try and help in their own way.

“They have been getting beautiful cards made by kids with 25 cents taped inside to contribute,” said Maurette.

“This is just a little business. it’s not a big organization that can suffer a hit like this very easily.”

Volunteers rally

All the windows on the west side of the house were destroyed, and fences throughout the property have been knocked over. Animal pens were wrecked, leaving yaks to mingle with alpacas, creating a Noah’s Ark vibe.

Volunteers from near and far have descended on the farm since the storm to help the Jacksons pick up the pieces and rebuild their lives.

Chainsaws are put to work clearing damaged trees, while other duties include hauling branches, fixing fences and clearing dangerous debris, as well as bringing food for the volunteers.

“They had people come from Calgary to help for the whole day and another guy from Medicine Hat. It was kind of cool to make that journey and do a hard day’s work, showing they care,” said Maurette.

“There was a lot of fixing and a lot of clean up. Between the Saturday and Sunday, they got so much done. It was unbelievable.”

For more information about the fundraising campaign, visit GoFundMe.

As of Tuesday, $10,270 had been raised.

The post Volunteers help exotic animal farm rebuild appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“The rugged, twisted trees usually grow on dry, rocky ridges and are thought to be some of the oldest trees in Canada,” the Whitebark Pine Ecosystem Foundation of Canada said in a release. “They grow very slowly, taking about 50 years to begin reproducing. Sadly, we are at risk of losing two-thirds of all limber pine trees in the next 100 years, including nearly 90 per cent of healthy limber pines here in Alberta.”

The organization says white pine blister rust is the greatest threat, which is caused by a fungus, and is “fatal to all except rare naturally resistant trees.”

Mountain pine beetles have also taken their toll, as have fire suppression measures that have caused fuel loads to build up and produce more intense wildfires that kill trees “that might have survived light surface fires.”

But grazing cattle can also be an issue, the foundation said in its release.

It urges producers to identify limber pines on their property and either stop cattle from grazing near them or limit grazing. It says the forage in a stand of limber pines is poor quality and heavy cattle traffic will kill seedlings and saplings. If grazing is done, it should be limited (no more than 25 per cent of yearly production) and there should be a long recovery period.

To keep cattle away from stands, the foundation suggests using wire fencing along existing pathways and placing salt and water in other areas.

These measures will aid a recovery plan that centres on leveraging the natural resistance some limber pines have to white pine blister rust.

“Trained teams find these rare trees, “ the release states. “We test them for resistance, collect their seeds and plant seedlings in carefully selected sites. With provincial forest health staff, we protect high-value trees where mountain pine beetles are a high risk. We also work with partners to improve maps of where limber pines grow, so developments can avoid them.”

To identify limber pines, look for needles that grow in bunches of five and are three to nine centimetres long. Cones are eight to 13 cm long. The trees are bushy with upswept branches, and reach a height of five to 15 metres (16 to 50 feet) tall.

They can also be found by letting a Clark’s nutcracker lead the way.

A member of the jay family, the bird has a long sharp bill able to pry seeds from the cones, making limber pines its preferred feed source.

“As stewards of the land, we know Alberta farmers and ranchers aim to leave the land better for the next generation,” the foundation says in its release. “With your help, we can do just that.”

The Whitebark Pine Ecosystem Foundation of Canada was founded in 2009 and has a sister organization in Montana.

The post Iconic Alberta tree needs some help from cattle producers appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“This is when the elm bark beetles, responsible for spreading the deadly DED fungus, are not active,” said Feddes-Calpas.

But it is important to properly prune trees and STOPDED recommends using a professional arborist. Pruned elm wood should be properly disposed of by burning, burying or chipping by March 31.

For more info, go to the Alberta Agriculture website. To find an ISA Certified Arborist, go to isaprairie.com.

The post Elm pruning ban over until March appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“Symptoms of DED infection are leaves initially wilting followed by curling, turning yellow, and then brown,” said Janet Feddes-Calpas, executive director of the Society to Prevent Dutch Elm Disease. “This is also referred to as flagging. Leaf symptoms are usually accompanied by brown staining under the bark.”

The fungus that causes DED is primarily spread by elm bark beetles. Infected trees must be removed immediately to prevent further spread. Samples from elms suspected to have Dutch elm disease can be sent to Alberta Agriculture and Forestry’s plant health lab for testing at no charge. Information on how to submit a sample can be found at www.stopded.org or by calling 1-877-837-ELMS (3567).

Elm bark beetle numbers have increased in recent years, especially along the Alberta-Saskatchewan border, said Feddes-Calpas.

“For this reason, it is important that elm firewood not be transported into or within Alberta as the wood may be harbouring the bark beetles,” she said.

The post Watch for yellow or brown leaves on elms appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The emerald ash borer, which attacks and kills all species of ash, was found in Winnipeg this winter. The beetle is on a steady invasive march across North America, destroying millions of trees in its wake.

“It does quite well in our climate and unfortunately, our trees have very little resistance to the insect,” said Andrea Saunders, regional program officer in plant protection with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

And although the pest hasn’t been found yet in Alberta, there are a lot of ash trees in the province and officials fear it would quickly spread. It is not only a common boulevard tree in urban areas but shelterbelts are also predominantly ash, and the species is abundant in natural wooded areas.

“It’s not just an urban problem — it’s also out in the countryside. If it does come to Alberta, there’s enough host material that there’s cause for concern,” said Saunders.

“We want to keep it out of Alberta for as long as possible.”

It’s the larvae of the metallic green beetle, a native of China and eastern Asia, that does the damage — and makes infestations hard to spot. Females lay as many as 200 eggs either singly or clustered in bark crevices. The eggs are quite tiny, only about one millimetre in diameter but the larvae quickly get bigger during their four moulting (growth) stages.

“During the larval stage, most of the damage is done. That’s under the bark, inside the tree,” said Saunders.

Then the creatures pupate, and the adult beetles emerge (starting in late May or early June) by chewing their way out of the tree, creating characteristic D-shaped exit holes.

“Those exit holes are really characteristic if it is found on ash,” said Saunders.

Removing the bark over an infected area will also reveal S-shaped larval ‘galleries.’

Those signs are key — otherwise property owners could inadvertently help the beetles spread.

Infected trees typically first exhibit a loss of green colour in the uppermost leaves (chlorosis), followed by thinning and dieback of the crown. Leaves may also turn yellow at the end of summer. Eventually, as more of the crown dies back, the tree branches can break off or trees can even topple over. Infected trees usually die within three years, but can be killed in as little as one.

“Because it’s hard to detect this pest at low levels, people might unwillingly cut down the ash tree in their yard,” said Saunders. “They don’t know they have emerald ash borer in that tree. They cut it down and they take it as firewood to the lake. It’s that unintentional, unknowingly transporting a product that has a pest in it.”

And humans have undoubtedly been the culprits in the beetles’ spread.

They were first found in southern Ontario in 2002 but have somehow travelled more than 1,500 kilometres to Manitoba since then — even though beetles can only fly about 10 kilometres in a year. (It’s the second time in recent years that a major invasive species has reached the province. In October 2013, zebra mussels were found in Lake Winnipeg and are now endemic in that body of water.)

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has a simple message for preventing the spread of emerald ash borers.

“We have a firewood campaign that says, ‘Don’t move firewood, buy it local, buy it on site, and never take it back home again,’” said Saunders. “The idea is that people shouldn’t be travelling hundreds of miles with firewood in general. Firewood can transport other pests, not just emerald ash borer.”

The CFIA is conducting surveillance in Alberta and has 85 traps out in various municipalities across the province. If you spot signs of the beetles, contact your municipality or the agency.

The Canadian Forest Service has an identification guide for emerald ash borer (Google ‘Visual Guide Emerald Ash Borer’).

— With staff files

The post Deadly pest marching towards Alberta’s borders appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“The yellow-headed spruce sawfly has been a problem for spruce the last few years, as well as spider mites,” said provincial agro-forestry specialist Toso Bozic. “White pine weevils have also been a problem for young spruce trees, as they target the leader, or the top branch. Poplar and willow tree borers have been very dominant, along with a large infestation of forest tent caterpillars in the northern part of the province.”

There are treatments for some pests, but not all.

“Sawfly larvae can be removed by hand and squished, whereas mites can be controlled with high-pressure soapy water, or by encouraging beneficial insects such as lady beetles. Young willow trees infected by willow borer can be cut to the base of the tree. Unfortunately, there is very little that can be done with large aspen trees infected by poplar borer.”

Besides insects and diseases, other factors can potentially contribute to declining or dying trees, including improper use of chemicals, salt along roads, soil type, wildlife damage, competition, and heavy grazing. Bozic recommends only using insecticides as a last-ditch measure.

“Monitoring is key when it comes to insects. From mid-May until October 1, landowners should check their trees weekly to see what is going on. Monitoring also helps them keep on top of which trees may need watering under dry conditions, or may need help with other issues.”

If monitoring turns up insects, disease, or any other issues contributing to tree weakening, Bozic suggests taking a picture.

“Email a photo to me at toso.bozic@gov.ab.ca so we can discuss what you’ve found. If you can also provide photos from the surrounding area it will help me determine the extent of the problem, as well as if other issues are at hand.”

The post Keep watch for insects that attack trees appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“A variety of tree and shrub species can be found in Alberta’s urban and rural areas including ones that, in theory, should not be grown here at all due to our harsh climate conditions,” said Toso Bozic. “However, they are doing just fine on our farms, acreages, cities and towns, and provide great beauty and diversity alongside our native tree and shrub species.”

Having variety of trees and shrubs is a bulwark against disease outbreaks.

“If you have only a few species of trees or shrubs, an insect or disease outbreak will instantly have an impact and can kill them all at once,” said Bozic. “In a group of diverse trees and shrubs, the pest that damages one particular species will not affect the other species’ health and vigour, while another species’ beneficial insects or bacteria may control unwanted pests.”

It’s a similar story when it comes to drought, flooding, and sudden cold snaps.

“Each variety has its own way to adapt to those conditions, boosting the chance of its own survival as well as the survival of the whole ecosystem.”

Each tree and shrub also creates its own ecosystem, and collectively form a more complex forestry ecosystem. Having more diverse trees and shrubs will improve soil nutrients; create a different microclimate; and attract wildlife and beneficial insects, said Bozic.

Other benefits include more genetic diversity and higher property values from attractive landscaping.

But when choosing species, you need to consider a number of factors, including soil type and moisture, shade or full sunlight, exposure, space, drought, and frost-free days. Characteristics such as size, shape, form, bark colour, flowering colour and patterns, and growth rate should also be considered.

Property owners may also consider the merits of native and introduced tree and shrub species, said Bozic.

“Native species are naturally adaptive to our environment, but many introduced species are also adaptive and very hardy here,” he said. “Some species may not thrive here but still survive in our climate.”

A little scouting of your area is a good way to get ideas about potential species.

“People love to see new and unusual trees and shrubs in their neighbourhood, farm, or community,” he said. “A quick look around your neighbours’ property, and the parks and boulevards of your cities and towns, may give you some ideas for what to plant,” says Bozic. “Be creative and experiment.”

For more information, go to www.agriculture.alberta.ca (search for ‘trees and plants’) or contact Bozic at 780-415-2681.

The post You’ve got more (landscaping) choices than you think appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“If elm trees are pruned during the pruning ban period, beetles that are active at this time can be attracted to the scent of the fresh wound and possibly infect an otherwise healthy elm with DED. Once an elm tree is infected with DED, it will die within that year,” said Janet Feddes-Calpas, executive director of the Society to Prevent Dutch Elm Disease.

The ban is in place until Sept. 30.

The post Elm pruning ban now in place appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

You’re not alone.

Alberta is experiencing a significant dieback of one of its most abundant species, and while some landowners are skeptical of the cause, evidence points to climate change as one possible contributor.

A massive poplar dieback is occurring throughout North America and this is only part of the problem. Where it is dying, it’s not growing back.

Whether the dieback is positive or a negative from a farming perspective depends on your point of view.

Some landowners have chosen to convert land where dieback is occurring into pasture, said Toso Bozic, a provincial agroforestry specialist. But from an environmental, water retention, fire hazard and forestry perspective, it’s not good news, he added.

Trembling aspen, commonly called white poplar, is the most widely distributed wood species in North America and is a commercially important hardwood species that grows throughout Alberta. It is more abundant in the northern half of the province but there are about 3.4 million hectares of privately owned forests in Alberta that are pure or mixed-wood aspen stands. That’s about 70 per cent of the entire privately owned forest in the province.

Some landowners stand to lose a lot of money from this dieback as producers of oriented strand board (OSB) and pulp source between 10 and 20 per cent of their wood supply annually from private land in the province. That works out to between two million and three million tonnes of aspen.

Shelleen Gerbig has witnessed aspen dieback first hand, both as a farmer and a scientist with SARDA Ag Research, a non-profit organization directed by farmers in the municipal districts of Smoky River, Big Lakes, Greenview, and Northern Sunrise County.

“Our farmyard has a lot of bush around it and is experiencing huge dieback of the aspen,” said Gerbig, who farms about 2,000 hectares near Falher.

The farm has one fully forested quarter section, and a number of poplars growing on fencelines and in their yard.

“Some of those trees are just old, but there is no regenerating growth, like nothing underneath to replace it. That’s also pretty much consistent with our fencelines.”

To compensate for the loss, they have planted mainly spruce as a replacement species.

Aspen dieback is widespread throughout the Peace Region, she said based on her observations while travelling for work.

“You notice it everywhere,” said Gerbig. “The trees just do not look healthy.”

However, aspen dieback isn’t necessarily being viewed as a negative by local landowners.

“Where we are farming, they are still in the (land) clearing mode,”she said. “So a dead tree is a good tree.”

But much of the land suffering aspen dieback is on marginal land, and having trees on that land is beneficial for neighbouring cropland.

“One thing that I think people should be concerned about is the loss of those natural areas where the natural pollinators and wildlife live,” she said.

What’s causing the dieback isn’t known, but climate change could be a factor, said Bozic.

“Based on the weather data I’ve reviewed, it would appear that climate change — resulting in more frost-free days and a drier climate — along with several other contributing factors is resulting in the aspen dieback issue in Alberta.”

He points to data assembled by University of Lethbridge researchers that shows the province’s weather is getting warmer, the growing season longer, the number of frost days declining, and the number of days of -10 C or lower only half of what it was in 1950. (The researchers used nearly five million Environment Canada daily temperature recordings from 6,833 locations across the province from 1950 and 2010 to create the Alberta Climate Records website: abrecords.cfapps.io.)

In terms of dieback in the Peace Region, Gerbig isn’t convinced that warming temperatures are to blame. Chemical drift could be killing aspens along fencelines and there is significantly less forest being harvested for firewood, so there is less removal of older trees than in past years. Disease could also be an issue, she said.

Whatever the cause, dieback is not only occurring along fencelines and in yards, but in the middle of large woodlots and there is little regeneration taking place.

And it’s not just Peace Country being affected.

The Canadian Forest Service has been monitoring dieback in Alberta’s aspen forest since the mid-1990s, and also has 30 aspen research and monitoring sites across Western Canada, Ontario, and the Northwest Territories.

More than half the aspen tagged on these sites since 2000 are now dead, and the number of trees growing to replace them is in decline, said Mike Michaelian, a forest health technician and researcher with the forest service.

He points to two other factors that could partly explain the dieback.

“The northern half of Alberta has been exceptionally dry since 2000, with 2015 being one of the driest years in many parts of northern Alberta in probably more than 80 years,” he says. “We’ve also had a forest tent caterpillar infestation.”

This has increased the severity, speed, and extent of aspen dieback, he said.

As this dieback trend is expected to continue, Bozic suggests landowners survey their woodlots and put a plan in place to harvest wood before it loses its commercial value. This could include selling wood for production of bioenergy. The income could be used to implement a woodlot regeneration, although some landowners may choose to convert that land to agriculture production, he said.

On the positive side, aspen is a suckering species and new growth is more resilient. However, in some areas, particularly along the southern fringe of the aspen forest, there is no guarantee that an aspen stand will regenerate itself and may revert to a prairie landscape.

Landowners might want to plant coniferous species in the understorey, turning a pure aspen stand into a more resilient and valuable mixed-wood forest, said Bozic.

The post Alberta’s most abundant tree species under threat appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“The beauty of winter pruning is that there are no leaves, and you will have a clear picture where to prune,” said Toso Bozic, a provincial woodlot extension specialist.

You want to remove the ‘three Ds’ — dead, diseased, and damaged branches, he said.

“Walking around your trees to envision the end result of your pruning is the first step,” said Bozic. “Next you can get to work removing water sprouts, suckers, rubbing and undesirable branches.”

Trees infested with black knot or fire blight require special care and attention.

“Black knot is a fungal disease while fire blight is bacterial, and you want to make sure you take the proper steps not to spread either of them,” said Bozic.

Black knot reduces growth, but takes a long time to kill a tree. On the other hand, fire blight is a very deadly disease that can kill part or sometimes an entire tree very quickly.

Black knot is a very common disease among the Prunus genus, and appears on a range of trees and shrubs including chokecherries, maydays, plums, and many others.

It is relatively easy to recognize due to the black and tar-like swelling of fruiting bodies. In the early stages of an infestation you will notice a green to olive-coloured gall (swelling) with a spur where the disease is spreading. After two to three years that fruiting body is mature and will ripen and become black. This stage is more recognizable.

Fire blight can kill a range of many hardy ornamentals or fruit-bearing trees and shrubs in the Rose family including crabapples, hawthorns, raspberry, saskatoon berry, mountain ash, pear, and cotoneasters.

In the summer, this disease is more easily recognizable as it causes blossom wilting and browning, and also causes leaves to turn black, as if they were scorched by fire. On the bark of branches you will see cracks, splitting, peeling, and eventually watery oozing. Infection will progress along the branch, circling it and creating a canker. The old infested canker may look like cracked bark with a black colour surrounding it. This is a good indication about where the disease is, and where to prune. These old cankers are the main source for a future fire blight infestation and must be removed.

“Pruning in cold weather is ideal for treating both of these diseases, as their spores are inactive and can’t survive cold temperatures,” said Bozic. “Winter pruning also removes the opportunity for them to spread and infest other trees.”

For both infestations, the key is to prune at least 12 inches below the infested area.

If an entire tree or shrub is infested, you will likely need to remove it. Once removed, infested branches must be destroyed immediately. You can put them in sealed bags and send them to the local landfill. Burning diseased branches is also an option in the winter. Do not leave the pruned branches on the ground until spring, as they can spread spores once the growing season begins.

You should still sterilize your pruning tools after each cut, but even if you cut through the spores or bacteria, they will be exposed to cold and can’t survive on tools for long in an Alberta winter.

The post Cold weather is an ideal time for pruning diseased trees appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.