PINEMAP faculty and staff recently had their 3rd annual meeting in Athens, GA on the campus of the University of Georgia. These annual meetings provide the opportunity for all 52 Principal investigators, 36 graduate students and postdoctoral researchers as well as 12 staff members to hear updates from each other’s research and have many informal discussions to push PINEMAP’s research along. PINEMAP members also toured the “Tier III” site in Washington, GA, where researchers are collecting data on soil carbon, growth rates and other things, while also manipulating the amount of rainfall that reaches the forest floor. Since, such a large number of people are involved in the PINEMAP project and are working on their specific piece of the “puzzle,” these meetings provide time and opportunity to really learn from each other. Throughout the year, PINEMAP members stay engaged with each other through web-based meetings, phone calls and emails (as well as in-person meetings for those that are geographically closer or attending the same meeting), however, meeting in person, is helpful to facilitate more exchange of ideas both within and between PINEMAP’s six groups.

The PINEMAP project is a unique partnership between many different kinds of forestry researchers, as well as education and extension specialists and now as we start year three, the group is becoming more cohesive, which should lead to greater innovations and discoveries. Most PINEMAP members have not worked on this type of project before and so along with strategizing the research, education and extension programs, team members have also had to learn how to integrate their work with others outside of their direct topics. As with any “new” kind of project, there have been some “growing pains,” but work on integrating researchers, education programs and extension efforts are coming together well as year two of the project is completed.

The extension team will be hosting a webinar series later this summer for foresters concerning some of the developments from the PINEMAP project and will include PINEMAP forestry researchers as speakers. The first few webinars in this series will explore different properties and aspects of soil and how it relates to forest management. As soon as these webinars are scheduled, we will announce it. Other upcoming topics include climate science, climate tools and silviculture. Other upcoming projects include a Western Gulf Forestry Conference, that is likely to be scheduled for the fall.

To stay up to date on any news from the PINEMAP project, please check our webpage at www.pinemap.org and/or “like” us on facebook at www.facebook.com/pinemap.