Laurel County Extension Office hosted the 2017 Woodland Owners Short Course on Saturday August 12^th. The WOSC is the largest woodland owner educational program offered in Kentucky and is supported by more than 10 forestry and natural resource agencies and organizations. The WOSC program is targeted at Kentucky’s private woodland owners and is designed to assist private woodland owners in the management of their woodlands. The program included classroom and field programming for new and inexperienced woodland owners and experienced woodland owners who have been managing their woodlands for a while. Laurel Co. has 174,653 acres of woodland and 65% of that is privately owned. The net volume of sawtimber trees in Laurel Co is over 50% grade 3 or lower. This lower grade distribution indicates a high potential for improving the quality of trees on forestland. The WOSC attended by 45 woodland owners with 4,817 acres of woodland owned by registrants. A pre and post-test was administered to determine the short term impacts. 

• Woodland Management Practices                       86.67%
• Wildlife Management Practices                           76.32%
• Financial and Technical Assistance Programs      73.33%
• Mushrooms and More                                          69.57%
• ID and Control of Invasive Plants                          63.16%
• Hunt Leasing                                                         60.53%
• Timber Sales and Trespass Issues                         55.26%
• Tree Identification                                                26.67%
• Invasive Alien Invaders of Your Woods                 26.09%
• Food Plots                                                             17.39%
• 100% of participants indicated that attending the program better prepared them to manage their woodland. 
• 100% of the participants indicated they would utilize the educational information they received at the program.

Comments from participants collected on evaluations:

• Great way to learn from experts and also share ideas and learn from experiences of other landowners
• If you are a woodland owner you need this course
• Should be a requirement as land owner to attend one of these sessions
• Time well spent
• Best course I have attended
• Best 8 hours I spent this year