The umes mcintire-stennis cooperative forestry research program focuses on carrying out research, and developing the future workforce to carryout relevant work in forestry

Work at umes specifically focuses on forests in maryland, especially on the delmarva peninsula. The specific focus of work at umes falls into the following categories: 1) reforestation and management of land for the production of crops of timber and other related products of the forest, 2) management of forest and related watershed lands to improve conditions of water flow and to protect resources against floods and erosion, and 3) management of forest lands for outdoor recreation; utilization of wood and other forest products. Among the specific projects to be carried out will include the implementation of forest ground plots to map the distribution of forest types across the umes farm and the rest of the manokin watershed as well as estimate carbon stocks in above ground tree and understory biomass, deadwood, litter, and in the soil over several years to evaluate changes in carbon storage and predict potential capture of carbon dioxide emissions. These plots will serve as important outdoor learning labs and demonstrations for umes? Students especially on forest distribution and resilience, carbon sequestration, and the importance of forests to mitigate impacts of climate change. The research will: 1) generate fine scale base dataset of forest types for stewart neck farm, 2) estimate and evaluate the carbon sequestration potential of forest experiments and demonstration plots developed, 3) improve ability to classify forest types from imagery, 4) estimate carbon sequestration potential for manokin watershed, and 5) propose the development of a carbon sequestration demonstration program serving forest resilience, carbon sequestration, and climate change objectives.