Davey Tree Flipbooks

10 THE DAVEY BULLETIN | May/June 2022 WHEELING OFFICE TREATS LARGE AMERICAN ELM TO DORMANT PRUNING CARE Left: Photo courtesy of Jason Nowitzki Photography, LLC. Right: Davey employees volunteered by providing dormant pruning work on a large American elm tree in Wheeling, Illinois, in February. Wheeling High School in Wheeling, Illinois, is home to what is considered to be one of the largest American elms in the state. "I frequently drive by this tree and have always admired it. It's a magnificent tree," said John Drescher, district manager, Wheeling office. Drescher noticed the tree needed pruning. In the spirit of community outreach, Drescher contacted the school and offered Davey's services to prune the elm. "We have operated out of Wheeling for more than 50 years. We have employees, as well as some of their children, who are alumni of the school. I wanted to do something for the school and the employees," Drescher said. Angel Cruz, trimmer, Alfonso Alvarez, trimmer, Erick Ahumada, foreman, pruned the tree. Adam Pfluger, trimmer, and Riley O'Malley, groundperson, and Oscar Vazquez, groundperson, worked on the ground. "When we pruned the tree, we gathered measurements and the tree's diameter at breast height (DBH) is 69 inches, the height is 70 feet, and the crown spread is 100 feet across," Drescher said. VISION AIDING A CHICKEN FARMER IN COMPOSTING EFFORTS The Davey Tree Expert Company of Canada, Limited's, Edmonton, Alberta, office has entered a long-term partnership to provide 100 percent of its woodchip waste to Jordan Day, a local chicken farmer. Day is mixing the woodchips with chicken manure to create a compost for fertilizer. Day has over 6,000 chickens at his farm and wanted to find a better way to use chicken manure that was more environmentally friendly. Day settled on composting. During his research, Day discovered that to properly compost the manure a large source of carbon had to be added to the process, which is where the woodchips come into play. "It's a win-win for all involved. We're not having to drive to a landfill to dump the chips and having to come all the way back to the office," said Kevin Cassells, district manager. "We dump the chips here at the office for Jordan to pick up. I run 12 lift trucks from this office, so that is a fair amount of wood waste he's taking from us. It's ultimately helping our environmental footprint as an office." Cassells encourages other Davey operations to explore finding similar opportunities for their woodchip waste. Jordan Day came to the Edmonton office in 2020 to see if they would be willing to dump a few loads of woodchips at his farm. In September 2021, a pilot project began where the Edmonton office dumps all their woodchips at their office, and the chips are loaded in a bin to be trucked to the farm. One of the challenges with composting manure is that if the pile isn't aerated, it will go anaerobic, and the desirable bacteria will die. Day needs a consistent supply of woodchips. Photo credit: Jordan Day

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