Redsides Willow Harvest with McKenzie River Trust
Redsides and McKenzie River Trust volunteers with their harvested and trimmed willow stakes.
On Saturday, November 15th, members of The Resides Chapter of Trout Unlimited joined staff and volunteers from McKenzie River Trust (MRT) for a day of willow harvest and trimming, in preparation for relocation and planting at MRT’s project at Quartz Creek, in the upper McKenzie River watershed.’
From Sarah Wheeler, MRT’s Volunteer Manager, who helped us coordinate the event:
Hello and Happy Friday!
This is a big group thank you for a very big and very successful willow harvest and planting extravaganza to support the restoration and revitalization of Quartz Creek, in addition to some extra planting in the reconstructed swales at Green Island! I wanted to share all the details and photos in one place, so everyone who contributed can see the complete picture of the absolutely amazing work that was accomplished.
11/12 - Watershed Wednesday folks cut and processed 875 stakes to kick off the harvest!
11/14 - MRT Land Stewards Whitney and Anyah pre-cut piles of willow branches so we could get straight to work processing on Saturday morning
11/15 - The Willow Harvest + Fishing at Green Island team processed an astounding 1,921 stakes! I heard at least two trout were caught off the gravel bar during the fishing portion, too.
Bringing our total harvest to 2,796 willow stakes for planting, in just two work parties!
11/16 - Quartz Creek Willow Planting Party Facts and Figures!
- 1,450 stakes were planted during the work party
- 300 were tossed off the upper Quartz Creek bridge as an experiment to see if they will get stuck in log jams and naturalize
- 8 buckets of stakes were brought to a volunteer's house to be stored in water for independent volunteer planting next weekend
- The remainder were returned to Green Island for planting in the new reconstructed swales
11/19 - The Watershed Wednesday crew got the 675 remaining stakes in the ground at Green Island along the edges of the northern swale in just one morning.
Thanks to your help, these willows will soon be thriving, supporting the habitat and floodplain of Quartz Creek, and providing thicket and food source both there and on Green Island. On behalf of the staff, the land, the water, and the many critters this willow supports - thank you!
Cheers,
Sarah
Redsides TU members hard at work in the sun!
