OSU Extension Offers Hands-On Forest Workshop at Vinton Furnace State Forest May 8

Shrub honeysuckle has spread through southeastern Ohio woodlots so aggressively that it now ranks among the top documented threats to native forest understories in the region, leafing out weeks before native plants and shading them to the ground by midsummer. A single established bush can produce thousands of seeds dispersed by birds across neighboring properties, and untreated infestations can form dense thickets that displace native wildflowers for decades. For Vinton County landowners who cannot yet identify it, let alone control it, the damage compounds every spring.

OSU Extension's SE Ohio Woods program is offering a direct answer. Its A DAY in the WOODS series brings a full-day field workshop, titled "Shrubs, Bugs, Wildflowers, and Fungi," to Vinton Furnace State Forest near McArthur on Friday, May 8, from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. The $20 registration fee covers lunch and all program materials. The deadline to register is May 1.

The workshop is built around field identification rather than classroom instruction. Participants will develop hands-on skills for recognizing common woodland shrubs, insects, spring wildflowers, and fungal species, then learn how those organisms interact to support or degrade forest health. The program is pitched explicitly at private woodland owners who need practical management tools, not a general nature survey.

That distinction matters in Vinton County, which is laced with state forest parcels, including Vinton Furnace itself, and hundreds of private woodlots whose owners make long-term decisions about timber, wildlife habitat, and recreation with little formal ecological training. Being able to walk a property and correctly identify what is a native shrub versus an invasive one, or recognize early signs of a pest infestation, directly affects whether a woodlot gains or loses value over the next decade.

Registration is handled through the Jackson County Extension office. Sign up online at go.osu.edu/aditw, call 740-286-5044, or email Annie Miller at miller.11368@osu.edu. The workshop announcement includes driving directions to both the north entrance near Dundas and the south entrance near Radcliff. Enrollment is limited, and the May 1 cutoff is firm.