TREE RESEARCH AND EDUCATION ENDOWMENT FUND CELEBRATES 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF FREE WEBINARS

Tree Research and Education Endowment Fund (TREE Fund) will celebrate the tenth anniversary of its free TREE Fund Webinar Series this March when the first webinar of the year takes place on March 11.

TREE Fund’s Webinar Series began in the spring of 2015 as a new way to present the research and feature the researchers that received funding from TREE Fund grant programs. The series – which is co-hosted by the Alabama Cooperative Extension System – has grown in size over the ten years, with over 5,000 participants viewing the webinars live in 2024.

“It has been fantastic to see the growth of the webinar series over the years and seeing it become, really, the premier webinar series on arboricultural and urban forestry topics in the whole world,” said Beau Brodbeck, Assistant Director for Field Operations at Auburn University, former TREE Fund Trustee, and brainchild behind the series. “One of our traditions to kick off each webinar is for everyone in attendance to put their location in the chat and it is always fascinating to see arborists from all over the world tune in to see some of the latest research funded by TREE Fund.”

Viewers of the live webinars who are certified arborists through the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) are eligible to receive one, free Continuing Education Credit (CEU) for attending. Brodbeck credits much of the growth of the series to the global pandemic in 2020 when arborists were not able to go to training sessions in person and needed to keep up classes for their certifications.

“Disseminating the new knowledge gained from tree research is part of the mission of TREE Fund and we are thankful to the ISA for partnering with us with their CEU program to help make these webinars free and even more popular,” said Paul Putman, TREE Fund President and CEO. “Our TREE Fund Webinar Series is one of the biggest ways that we are able to reach out to arborists, tree researchers, the tree care industry, and supporters all over the world and show them the results of the important work we are funding.”

In addition to being presented live, each webinar is recorded and posted to TREE Fund’s website in the Webinar Archive section for future viewing for no additional charge.

The eleventh season of the TREE Fund Webinar Series kicks off with a presentation titled, “A pumping-test analogue for characterizing root-zone and plant integrated hydraulic systems based on above-ground measurements” featuring Dr. Huade Guan of Flinders University on Tuesday, March 11 at Noon CT. Webinars are also scheduled for April 8 and May 6. Pre-registration is required and available on TREE Fund’s website, www.treefund.org.

TREE Fund is a non-profit organization whose mission is to support scientific discovery and dissemination of new knowledge in the fields of arboriculture and urban forestry. TREE Fund promotes scientific inquiry designed to benefit commercial, residential, utility and consulting arborists, urban foresters, and other professionals in related fields in their shared work to create, support and sustain vibrant urban canopies. TREE Fund hosts ten grant programs and six scholarship programs. More information can be found at www.treefund.org.