It’s been a tough couple of years for Iowa’s tree canopy, between terrible tornadoes, derechos, and killer insects like the emerald ash borer wiping out tens of thousands of trees. Chip Murrow, an urban forestry program specialist at the Iowa DNR, says the agency’s now offering 900-thousand dollars in competitive grants for Iowa communities to plant trees.
The grants do not require matching funds and are being awarded in amounts of between 10- and 30-thousand dollars per community. Murrow says the trees to be planted have to come from the D-N-R’s list of approved species, which is on the agency’s website. He says a group of Iowa foresters created the list of about 85 species, everything from the black maple to the Serbian spruce.
Iowa’s seen more than its share of severe weather this year, with a record of 127 tornadoes, and many towns still haven’t replaced all the trees they lost during the “land hurricanes” known as derechos in recent years.
The funding for communities comes through the I-R-A Iowa Tree Planting Grant. The deadline to apply is December 30th. Learn more at the Iowa DNR’s Urban Forestry website: www.iowadnr.gov/Conservation/Forestry/Urban-Forestry.
