Saying hello

[Dezian]

Hello  I'm new to the forum, and I'd love to introduce myself, but let me start from....apologizes - for hosting a new topic, as I don't find my joining important enough to starting a whole new thread  ;) Jeff, Ron, if it's not the right place, please move my post to a proper topic.
I'm a fresh student of forestry in central Europe, in Poland as a metter of fact. I've been grew up in a tiny (there are +- 3500 inhabitants) town surrounded with woods, a couple of weeks ago moved to a city - maybe someone has heard of Cracow? - to study. I hope to find a job in forestry one day, maybe in one of national parks, as my specialization predispose me to. The FF will be a great resource of knowledge for me,I'm also plaining to take by the handful from your experience gentlemen    :P  As for my english,it's faaar from perfect, and that's another thing I'll be working on with you keeping an eye on me 

Well,once again then: hi there 

[Norm]

Good morning Dezian, this is a fine place to introduce yourself. First off your english is very good so don't worry about that one bit.

My son was stationed in your area and has told me quite a bit about Poland so I'm anxious to hear more. Welcome aboard.

[Banjo picker]

Welcome to the forum....I thought I was going to be the first to greet you, but I see someone typed a little quicker .....anyway welcome..And what trees dominate the landscape over there????  Tim

[blaze83]

dezion,

welcome to the forum, no worries on your english...it's already better than mine :D

would love to see pictures of your forests and country side.

i think you will learn a lot here, i sure have.

any way,

welcome to the FF

Steve

[Dezian]

Thank You  Well, when it comes to trees, I'm having problems with english names. I will use eng Wikipedia to translate latin names into english, but Wiki sometimes departs a little from the truth. Well, some of the everyday species of trees are scots pine, norway spruce, blue spruce, but also Quercus (Robur and Petraea are ordinary,but it's also not too hard to find Rubra), european beech, european hornbeam (I enjoy walking in a clear hornbeam wood so much  :) and two or three species of birch and Alnus. Few months ago, walking in the wood I found a strange species of pinus. I took a cone, and back home identified it as eastern white pine. I was deeply surprised - not only I've never seen it in my area before, but also my parents have brought one cone of it from London's Cue Garden. It was two times longer than the one I've found, and it's husk?shell? was three times longer. I also know only one place within a radius of a dozen or so km where japanese larch is. I'll think more of some interesting ones  : )

Not true, Steve. Ok, I'll admit - I'm working on every one post +- 0,5h  :D

[Jeff]

Welcome to the Forestry Forum Dezian.

[Reddog]

Not true, Steve. Ok, I'll admit - I'm working on every one post +- 0,5h  :D

Welcome to the FF Dezian.

By sharing your story of the White pine, this a great first thread.  ;)
Please fill us in more as you have the time. We enjoy reading about how forestry is done around the world.

Takes me a half an hour to type this much some days. You are doing fine. 

[SwampDonkey]

Hi, Dezian. Glad to have another set of eyes from another corner of the globe. ;)

Few months ago, walking in the wood I found a strange species of pinus. I took a cone, and back home identified it as eastern white pine. I was deeply surprised - not only I've never seen it in my area before, but also ....

....my parents have brought one cone of it from London's Cue Garden. It was two times longer than the one I've found, and it's husk?shell? was three times longer.

Good chance it could be western white pine to, they have 7-9 spiral rows of scales that are deep red on inner surface, where as eastern have 5 spiral rows of scales. I believe there are a number of western North America conifers in England both for botanical purposes and experimenting with growing them for crops. Both species have cones of sizes from 3" to 10" long though, western is generally a bit bigger of the two.

[Dezian]

Thank you all for warm welcome I will take and share some photos of my area as soon as I'm back home. It'll be Christmas probably. Well, if I'll have luck and some snow will fall and cover the trees with white coat, the photos would be aw....but I better shut my mouth and don't challenge my luck.
SwampDonkey, you may be right. The cone I've found in my neighborhood is about 3,5'' long, and a little curved. The one from UK is straight and 8''+ long. When my mum showed it to me and with wide smile said "It's also eastern white pine ^^" all I could reply was "You gotta be kidding me mum". Of course, she laughed and pointed the talk with "This expression on your face - priceless"

[okie]

Welcome dezian. Your english is fine,  there are folks from all around the world on here. For that matter, I have seen northerners and southerners right here in the states not be able to understand each other a lick due to the " language" difference. :D

[WildDog]

Welcome Dezian, your English is great mate. How is city life treating you? Our closest town to the farm has a similar population of around 3500 people.

[Stephen Alford]

Hey Dezian glad to have you around. Looking forward to your photo's and posts.  Stephen.

[JimMoore]

Welcome to the FF Dezian.

[WDH]

Welcome Dezian.  It is always good to have another perspective.

[tonich]

Looking forward to your photo's and posts. 

I'd love to see your photos too.
Welcome aboard!  ;)

[Dezian]

Once more, thank you for such a nice welcome I promise to place here some photos, as soon as possible. And I hope soon it will be, because city life doesn't consist of sweet things only. I have my room shared with 2 other persons,that are reasonable and we understand each other...but I used to sleep with open window,or at least half-open. They don't, for it's cold. So,often the window is closed, and during night I feel like sleeping in oven. And even if I get a permission to open the window, roar of car engines makes a racetrack out of our room :D Well, finding drawbacks and complaining would be easy and maybe even justified, but it brings no solution, so I'm trying not to do this  ;) The one thing that really makes me sick is air. I'm having some troubles with coping with that.

[Sparty]

Dezian-
I have read about a portion of "primordial forest" that, if I remember correctly, is somewhere on the eastern border of Poland, possibly shared with Belarus?  Have you been there? Perhaps my recollection of the geography is incorrect.  It is an amazing place, one of the last virgin forest areas in all of Europe.  It is towards the top of my "bucket list" places to visit. 

Welcome aboard the Forum!

[Dezian]

That's true Sparty, on our border with Belarus there is "Bialowieza Forest". It's over 150 000 ha, from which over 60 000 ha lay in my country. I've never been there yet, so I can't shre any photos with you. Still, I've read about it, here's handful of info about this unique place:
The forest stand is composed of spruce and pine (both circa 25% as I recall), Alnus Glutinosa (17% as Wiki states), pedunculate oak forms 12%, and two birches (pendula & pubescens) 11%. And yes, part of the wilderness is made of primeval forest. It's worthy to mention, that the biggest mammal in Europe - wisent, ows his survival to the forest. In a critical moment, right after I world war ending, the last wisent living in the wild got killed. It took mostruous effort to bring it back to forests, but at this moment in Poland alone live over 1 000 specimens (almost 700 at liberty). I'd love to visit this forest, and not only once. One day, if things go right, maybe....hah I'll better keep my mouth shut so my luck won't hear  :D

Sparty, I hope you're not gonna need bucket list to see the Bialowieza Forest  ;)

[SwampDonkey]

I had to look up what a wisent was. It's a European Bison? Never even knew about it. Tells how isolated some of us really are in the west.  ;)

[tonich]

Yeah! You can refer to so disliked source of information here – the Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisent
:D :D :D :D :D

[Elevendy]

Hello!

Sorry for kidnapping your thread Dezian, but if you are talking about the european bisons, you must mention here the famous żubrówka and the more famous wódka żubrówka! ;) Sadly, here in Hungary, the last bison was killed in 1762 :(

[Dezian]

Hah it's not a duty, but a pleasure to mention about it  :D Well, żubrówka is a species of grass, perennial. However, european bisons do not feed on it. Still, it's quite important one - its blade is added to each bottle of Vodka Zubrowka. This is one of most popular vodka in my country, and quite cheap, considering its quality    It is said that it tastes best with apple juice, yet I can't say as I've never tried it. I'm curious if it's known in your parts guys?

[BrandonTN]

Welcome, Dezion! 
I'm a student in the U.S., in Tennessee. I have heard of Crakow...I have a friend that now lives in Canada that was born in Crakow.

I may be studying in Finland next year. I look forward to seeing how you Europeans do forestry.  ;D

You'll find that the people on this board are great sources of info and experience. Kick back, and soak it up! And feel free to ask questions...they haven't kicked me off the board yet for asking too many.  ;)