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March 16, 2015

The Ohio Valley Conservation Coalition (OVCC) purchased the Tordon Tree Farm

The Ohio Valley Conservation Coalition (OVCC) purchased the Tordon Tree Farm, now named the Stroth-Rader Conservation Area at the request of the family, in late 2013 using grant funding from the Clean Ohio Conservation Fund.

The Tordon Tree Farm started as a Christmas tree farm in the 1950’s by Fitz Stroth.  It continued on as a Christmas tree farm until the death of Tom Rader in 2010.  Many local residents, including some OVCC supporters involved in this project, have fond memories of hiking around the Tordon Tree Farm searching for that perfect Christmas tree with friends and loved ones.  All of us at OVCC wish that the Tordon Tree Farm were still open and selling Christmas trees today.  That would be the ideal scenario.  As much as we all hated to see the closing of the Tordon Tree Farm, we equally hated the thought of seeing this beautiful property lost to subdivision and development, which was surely going to become its fate. That’s when OVCC decided to try to permanently conserve this property for both wildlife and future generations of Jackson County residents.

Today, a little over a year since OVCC’s purchase, the 138-acre Stroth-Rader Conservation Area is permanently conserved as OVCC’s newest preserve.  And it is again serving as a type of tree farm, even if the trees aren’t Christmas trees and even though they aren’t for sale and will never be cut.  Last summer OVCC received a grant administered by The Conservation Fund to reforest the grassland portions of the property and to conduct invasive species management.  This grant funding was made available as mitigation for impacts caused by the construction and maintenance of Rockies Express Pipeline, LLC in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  The purpose of the grant funding was to reforest the property to benefit, primarily, multiple species of migratory warbler species, including Cerulean, Kentucky and worm-eating warblers.

In the spring of 2014 OVCC purchased approximately 2,000 bare root stock tree stems from the Jackson Soil & Water Conservation District (SWCD) to plant at the property and to support the efforts of Jackson’s SWCD.  Not only did OVCC buy the plant stock from the SWCD, we hired them to do the planting as well in order to further support their local office.  The bare root stock consisted of black cherry, sugar maple, white oak and American chestnut trees.  

Because of a delay in getting grant funding disbursed nothing happened again until the fall.  By then OVCC was ready to complete the project and ordered around $50,000 in tree material, mostly large trees in 3-gallon pots likely to survive the winter.  Over several days in October these trees were planted throughout the property, intermingled with the bare root stock that was planted earlier that year.  Because of the scale of this tree planting effort it was too large of a job for the SWCD office to complete.  In fact, the project was so large that the trees were shipped in on a tractor-trailer, which took a crew of 15 to 20 people half a day just to unload!  The trees were planted and about a week later, much to our relief, we received a very long and thorough soaking of rain.

However, our work wasn’t yet done.  In just one summer the invasive plant autumn olive had begun to aggressively spread into the grassland and edge portions of the conservation area.  Autumn olive will outcompete native species resulting in a near monoculture of the shrub that lacks the diversity important to bird, insect and animal species, while also disrupting important nutrient cycles within the soil.  Finally, even though the invasive shrub produces proliferous fruits that are edible to birds, the fruits are not terribly high in nutrients and are thought to possibly be disruptive, rather than beneficial, to migratory birds such as warblers.

Since OVCC couldn’t contract with the Jackson SWCD staff to complete the fall tree planting, we instead contracted with them to conduct mechanical autumn olive removal.   An OVCC part-time employee followed behind and treated the exposed autumn olive stems with herbicide in order to kill them.  In just a few days of hard work the entire field and forestland edge was removed of this plant pest.  Combined with ongoing monitoring and removal of new autumn olive starts, we’ll be able to give the planted trees a good head start toward survival.  Once the trees mature within the grasslands and a closed canopy habitat develops, which is also preferred by these warbler species, the site will no longer be conducive to autumn olive proliferation.

Now that the reforestation project is completed, OVCC hopes that it can someday soon make the property available to the public.  This conservation area, which sits along the border with Lake Alma State Park and at the terminus of the Wellston Bike Path, is perfectly suited to being a passive public park.  Nature trails and a small parking area at the property entrance need to be developed.  Vandalism and dumping are also concerns that need to be addressed prior to allowing unrestricted public access.  However, getting the property so it can again be hiked and enjoyed by the local citizenry is an important priority for OVCC.  

Even though it is not yet fully open to the public, anyone can still apply for a permit to access the property.  Property access permit request forms can be downloaded from OVCC’s website and submitted for consideration any time of the year; however, we do request that you submit the form at least 48 hours in advance of your intended visit.  OVCC highly recommends and would love to see more people apply for permits to nature watch, hike, fish or to do outdoor education or scientific research at the conservation area.  Property access permits are free to download and submit.

OVCC is a strong proponent of hunting and allows it on a many of its properties based upon a free, public permit system.  Not all of OVCC’s properties can be hunted however, due to either the proximity of neighboring residences, the existence of very rare plants or other ecologies that must be protected, or with some properties due to the fact that the grant funding used to purchase the property does not allow hunting.  Even on properties where OVCC allows hunting there are restrictions established to protect habitat, such as a prohibition on the use of ATV’s.  OVCC accepts hunting permit requests every February.  In 2014, over 30 permit requests were received by OVCC and all were granted hunting access.  

OVCC does not currently allow hunting at the Stroth-Rader Conservation Area unfortunately.  This is due to the fact that the conservation area is located within the Wellston city limits where hunting with triggered mechanisms (including quick releases for bows) is understood to be prohibited.  If this law changes OVCC would certainly entertain issuing permits for bow hunting purposes at the conservation area.  Based upon an analysis of the flora, deer in particular, are overabundant and could use to have their herd sizes reduced.

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