As The Woodlands Township continues the second stage of reforestation to replace the 52,000 dead trees from the 2011 drought, the third and final stage of replanting could begin this fall.
John Powers, assistant general manager of community services for the township, said beginning in 2013 the township planned to replant 250,000 trees to make up for the lost trees through three stages of replanting. After a spring that saw 91,000 seedlings planted around Arbor Day and another 1,350 trees of 5-, 10-, 15- and 30-gallon sizes, the second phase began in the fall. The second phase includes another 4,000 5-gallon trees and 30,000 to 40,000 more seedlings planted, Powers said.
The second stage, which should be completed by February, will cost the township $204,500, Powers said.
With more than 115,000 trees already planted in 2013 and about $600,000 of the $780,000 allotted for the reforestation project already spent, he said the final stage of replanting would likely begin in the fall after approval by the board of directors.
"[The third phase] will be based on a couple of things, and one will be an evaluation of how successful this phase is," Powers said. "One of the things we saw from the last phase was that some of the larger trees didn't fare as well as some of the smaller trees, and a lot more had to be replaced."
The trees through the first two phases have been placed in about 200 locations affected by the drought and are either adjacent to residential properties or offer vegetation barriers, Powers said.
"The next phase will be anything we might have missed," Powers said. "We anticipate that where heavy deforestation areas occurred, there might be a ripple effect of mortality."
Native trees have been planted throughout the replanting process, including water oaks, white oaks, green ashes, black hickories, sycamores and loblolly pines, Powers said. Fewer large gallon trees and more seedlings will likely be planted in the final phase, he said.
With significant rainfall in November and December, Powers said the region has received normal precipitation the past few months. He said rainfall and soil moisture are a major factor in the mortality rate of trees, as are extreme temperatures.
The Woodlands loses about 2,000 to 3,000 trees that die from age, insects, drought and disease in a normal year, Powers said, and the community is nearly back to an average tree mortality rate.
John Warner, urban district forester for the Texas A&M Forest Service, said the 2011 drought—which killed as many as 301 million trees in Texas— was the most devastating he had ever seen in terms of fire and tree mortality.
"It was amazing the way they started turning color and dying," Warner said. "The secondary impact of the drought was hardwood trees dying from the hypoxylon canker. It's still going on."
Warner said hypoxylon canker is a fungus, a weak pathogen that attacks weakened trees and prevents the spread of nutrients and water through trees.
