Happy Spring!

 

Hello, my name is Brady Wolken I am the Volunteer and Partnership Liaison of the Kansas Forest Service. I have been the Kansas Champion Tree Program Coordinator for a year now. Let me tell you, it has been a lot of learning, fun, and figuring things out!  

 

The Kansas Champion Tree program is reliant on volunteers to nominate and measure trees across the state. Without these volunteers, this unfunded program would not be possible!

 

Our champion tree volunteers and I have accomplished a lot in the past year. We have remeasured 13 of our Kansas champions trees that needed remeasuring and have found 2 new champion trees! The trees that were remeasured were: Ohio buckeye, horse-chestnut, rock elm, American basswood, limber pine, Austrian pine, southwestern white pine, lacebark elm, incense cedar, blue spruce, eastern cottonwood, and Texas red oak. The two new champion trees we found were, Arizona cypress in Sedgwick County, and black gum in Johnson County.

 

Another part of the champion tree program we are trying to address is finding new species that haven’t ever been nominated but are on national programs' approved species. There are over 1000 species on this list! To save your time, I have found three trees or shrubs that are most likely to be in Kansas but have never been nominated. These three are American plum (Prunus americana) wild goose plum (Prunus munsonian) and chokecherry (Prunus virginiana). If you know of any larger specimens of these species, click the button below to nominate a tree! 

 

 

Earlier this year, I shared more about the champion tree program, and what it takes to become a volunteer on the Kansas Canopy Podcast. Click the link below to listen to the episode if you'd like to learn more!

 

 

This program relies on Kansans scouting for large trees and nominating them! If you have questions about a specific tree, please reach out to me directly. Additionally, if you are interested in becoming a champion tree volunteer and measuring trees, I would love to talk to you about those opportunities.

 

Thank you,