2014 Manistee Planting Report

The Upper Manistee River Northern White-cedar Restoration Project has completed its fourth year in the Deward area.  The purpose of this cedar tree planting and protection project is preserve and protects the cold-water fishery of the Manistee River by planting northern white-cedar seedlings along the river’s edge. Cedars help maintain shade, cool the water, and provide erosion control by locking in the soil.

There were four separate new plantings completed in 2014 on state owned land in the Deward area. Mason Griffiths Founders Chapter of Trout Unlimited, lead by Bob Andrus and Dave Smith, completed a planting of 50 seedlings in Zone 4 on May 17, 2014 in their segment of the river.  The Headwaters Chapter of Trout Unlimited completed a planting of 50 seedlings on September 13, 2014 in Zone 2, lead by member Eric Anderson.

Anglers of the Au Sable completed a new planting in a new site on the west side of the river this year. This 50 seedling planting was completed on September 20, 2014 headed by Jim Shifflet. This new site will be called Zone 6. The original site Zone 1 planted by Anglers of the Au Sable in the past years continues to yield poor results, After last year’s complete replanting, still about one-half of the replants did not survive.  We still are not sure what the cause of this poor survival rate is.  We did plant three new seedlings in the area of the past plantings in Zone 1 without the noticeable enclosures to see how they survive.

Claire Wood with Huron Pines RC&D and Lorne Beatty with the Sierra Club of Michigan partnered with the youth from the Kalkaska SEEDS afterschool program to plant an addition 50 seedlings in Zone 5 on May 19, 2014.

A total of 203 cedars have been planted within the Deward Area this year, bring the total to 600 new plantings. Additional partners in this project include Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Forest Management Unit, and Huron Pines RC&D.

This initiative is part of the “Cedars for the Au Sable” project which is administrated by the Au Sable River Property Owners Association.   Additional partners in this project include Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Forest management Unit and Huron Pines RC&D.