QUITMAN, GA (WALB) -
When you think of Georgia's top agriculture products, you may think of peanuts or cotton or maybe even chickens, but forestry is the state's number one ag industry.
Forestry professionals say it's critical to our economy to get young people interested in careers in the industry. WALB News Ten's Lydia Jennings has the story from Quitman.
Georgia is the largest timber-producing state in the southeastern United States, and Georgia foresters want to keep the next generation of young foresters interested and educated in this booming industry.
Today nearly 200 high school students from nine south Georgia counties competed and performed real tasks of professional foresters.
"I spend my time on the forestry team coming to these competitions because I feel like it prepares me for that career," said aspiring forester, David Carver.
Today, Langdale Company held its 31st Annual Forestry Field Day competition in Quitman. Through ten different stations, students learned everything from identifying tree diseases to measuring land for tree production.
Students also learned how to properly plant pine tree seedlings. How accurately they plant the seedlings will determine how well the pine tree grows.
"They have to look at a tree decide whether they're going to harvest it, leave it, deaden it, whether its got diseases, insects, is it crooked, malformed, many different things they have to determine," said Forestry teacher, Danny Bartlett.
And for a generation bred on computers, Bartlett says this is the generation forestry needs as it advances in technology. "Agriculture is on the leading edge of technology some of the ways we used to cruise timber we do it completely different now using the technologies available today."
Carver says he's just following in his family's footsteps.
"My great uncle was a forester and it was because of him that I've gotten a passion to do it because I've seen how much he's enjoyed it, going out and being able to work outside, because I don't like being stuck in a building all day," said Carver.
Georgia Foresters graded the student's results and passed out awards to the winning teams.
Langdale's competition kicked off the south Georgia Future Farmers of America's forestry competition season.
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