14
THE DAVEY BULLETIN
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January/February 2022
DAVEY TEACHES STUDENTS ABOUT SAVING A CHAMPION TREE
Eduardo Medina, skills trainer, has worked closely with
arboriculture students at the University of Wisconsin –
Platteville campus to teach them about pruning, climbing
and careers in our industry. The campus is home to a
Wisconsin Champion Tree, a northern catalpa, that is the
largest of its species in the state. In August, Medina
received an email from his contact at the school that a
storm caused damage to a limb. The school improvised by
placing flower planters underneath the limb to prevent it
from falling until Medina and Christian Feichtinger, skills
trainer, could travel to the school later that week to inspect
the damage and offer advice. Medina returned to the
campus in October with skills
trainer Nathan Hadley and Quad
Cities R/C foreman leader Mychal Messenger to offer
volunteer restorative pruning and cabling services to help
save the tree. While they were there, they organized a time
to bring the environmental horticulture majors and students
in the Woody Landscape Plants course to the tree to teach
them about the techniques they'd be using. "When working
with the students over the years, I try to make pruning and
climbing fun and interactive to get them interested in the
arboriculture field," Medina said. "This opportunity to bring
the students to the northern catalpa was another great way
to get them excited and involved."
STEWARDSHIP
The northern catalpa after a storm came
through and damaged its lower limb.
Above: Eduardo Medina (right) and Mychal Messenger helped
this champion northern catalpa recover from storm damage. The
tree resides on the campus of the University of Wisconsin Platteville.
Below: Nathan Hadley, Medina and Messenger speak with
students in front of the northern catalpa about the pruning and
cabling work they would later be doing to the tree.
