The 1457 cogongrass spots encompass a total of 373 acres. The status and treatment for each spot is at varying levels. The Georgia Forestry Commission recognizes a spot as eradicated after three consecutive years of finding no cogongrass resprouts.

Mulch is organic material placed on the soil’s surface around trees and plants to enhance their growing conditions. Mulch helps maintain soil temperature and moisture, reduce water loss from soil, reduce weed competition, improve soil structure, and give landscapes a clean appearance. Often overlooked, spreading mulch around your trees is one of the easiest and most beneficial techniques that can have great impact on the health and vitality of your trees.

The Georgia Forestry Commission has begun the 15th year of its campaign to fight the exotic, invasive weed known as cogongrass. Forty three new detections have been confirmed from January 1, 2021 through March 17, 2021 in Georgia, bringing the statewide cumulative total to 1,501 cogongrass spots. This number is moderately higher than the 31 detections made during this same time period in 2020.

The National Weather Service (NWS) determined an EF-4 tornado crossed Heard, Coweta, and Fayette Counties in the late hours of March 25, 2021 and into the early hours of March 26, 2021. The tornado touched down at approximately 11:37 PM EDT, west of Franklin, Georgia, ending at approximately 12:30 AM EDT just north of Peachtree City, Georgia

Georgia Forestry Commission Forest Health experts say moving firewood has been linked to the spread of destructive, non-native insects and diseases to forest ecosystems. While these pests can’t move far on their own, they can travel hundreds of miles when people move firewood, logs, chips, and mulch. Forest pests can kill our native trees and be very expensive, if not impossible, to control.