Add yet another major buffer project completion on the Opequon.

Recently the West Virginia riparian assessment study was completed by the WVCA and its partners. The study noted only a 38% survival among the bare root plantings as compared to 74% survival of the container plantings. So why did we even want to attempt a bare root planting recently at Ray Pichot’s property on the Opequon mainstem? In addition, volunteers were committed to other projects, it was the middle of May, and money was tight. Two things in our favor: we had almost 400 bare root seedlings that needed to get planted and we had a shovel-ready project on the Pichot property.

So the decision was made to go for it. After phone calls, coordination and last minute scrambling, 375 free bare root trees and shrubs from the Eastern Panhandle Conservation District and the Clement State nursery were pulled out of cold storage or dug up. A 1000 foot buffer planting was born. Thanks goes out to Conservation Services out of Verona, Virginia for responding quickly by sending two professional planters. Also, thanks to Neil Gillies for offering to use this project as part of his on-going deer deterrent electric fence study. Other funding was provided by Alana Hartman’s Chesapeake Bay Program grant. Diane Sylvester, a volunteer with Opequon Creek Project Team, donated the post for the solar fence charger and helped out by assembling tree tubes. All the trees were protected by two-foot tubes and black matting was installed on all of the plants to slow weed growth.

So the lesson is this: Bare root plantings are a necessity at times due to constraints such as time, money and equipment. We simply need to get better at them. Both of the other Opequon watershed spring plantings had an important bare root component. Ensuring that the roots remain viable, with proper planting and care, we can keep this option for the future. Bare root plantings must remain a part of our over-all plan to reforest the Opequon Creek buffers.

Other thanks go to Mr. Pichot for recognizing the value of forested buffers, and to Alana Hartman, WV DEP for securing the funding for this project.

Submitted by Herb Peddicord, WV DOF.