Advancing forestry
The University of Maine has received a $350,000 grant to join the National Science Foundation’s Center for Advanced Forestry Systems (CAFS), an effort by seven universities to help the forest industry in Maine and across the nation address important issues facing forest managers.
CAFS membership will provide funding for UMaine graduate student research. It also will link UMaine researchers and the Maine forest industry at the national level to cooperatively find solutions to common problems.
UMaine will focus on improving computer models used to predict the future growth and development of Maine’s forests. Models can predict future wood supplies that support traditional forest products, as well as emerging markets for bioenergy and bioproducts.
“UMaine will bring a unique approach to this national research because its focus and expertise has been on naturally regenerated forests with many tree species, while other universities in CAFS have been focused on plantation forests of single species,” says Robert Wagner, director of UMaine’s School of Forest Resources.
