Johnsonburg, Pa.: Members of the Rolfe Beagle Club first noticed European Buckthorn at the club in the early 2000s.  “At first, it was just a shrub here or there,” said Jim Pennington, Jr, President of the club, “but then all of a sudden it was everywhere.  Closing in our travel lanes, pushing out our native shrubs, and creating competition for our native berries such as Juneberries, witherods, viburnums, and blueberries.  Nasty stuff.”

The Rolfe Beagle Club has an active wildlife and wood management program at the club, and immediately started to learn how best to manage the buckthorn starting to take over the club grounds.  The first thing club members learned was how detrimental buckthorn was to birds, warblers, and mammals that depend upon nutrition from berries to help them migrate, or make it through a tough winter.  Buckthorn, because it comes from Europe, lacks the same nutrition in its berries that have co-evolved with our native wildlife.  As such, warblers migrating through the club chow down on buckthorn berries and do not get adequate nutrition to complete their migration.  The same negative effect is multiplied for native birds and mammals that stay at the club year-round. 

Besides being detrimental to wildlife, buckthorn is a highly invasive, non-native shrub from Europe that wreaks havoc on our northern PA forests and wildlife.  Buckthorn has gained a foothold from southern Elk County north into McKean, Cameron, and Potter Counties.  Even though the club has tried many different techniques over its 20-year battle with buckthorn, other landowners are now also paying much more attention to buckthorn because it prevents the creation of new forests.  We all want forests for our grandchildren.  The shade of buckthorn becomes so dark that seedlings of trees and shrubs in our northern Pa forests cannot sprout and grow.  “If we do get a few tree or shrub seedlings, says Jim, “the first thing that happens is the buckthorn seeds also sprout and because they grow faster than our native trees and shrubs, they quickly shade out our beneficial seedlings.”

The Allegheny Forest Health Collaborative (AFHC) recognized the significance of being able to maintain forests as forests here in northern PA and organized over five years ago to bring together landowners to learn and share how to combat forest health concerns, including the buckthorn problem.  This year, the AFHC offered a FREE workshop for all interested landowners on Thursday, June 20, with a follow-up session to be held on July 17.

The session on Thursday, June 20, started at the Johnsonburg Fire Hall in the morning with an introduction to the biology and management of buckthorn.  The afternoon sessions were all “hands-on”; attendees used five different management techniques on stands of buckthorn at Rolfe Beagle Club grounds.

“We were excited to have the AFHC use our club grounds for this buckthorn management demonstration because anything we learn here can be used on our grounds in the future,” said Jim Pennington, Jr.

The July 17 session will be a follow-up critique of the different management methods for buckthorn.  Attendees will do the field work to assess the effectiveness of the treatments and then report back to all the attendees at the buckthorn workshop.

Additional information on buckthorn can be found at the Center for Private Forests, or on the Facebook Page, Allegheny Forest Health Collaborative.