Pierce County High School FFA member Elizabeth Griner was named national champion in the Agricultural Proficiency award area of Forest Management and Products at the 98th National FFA Convention in Indianapolis.
Students who create an Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) in Forest Management own the enterprise, or work for a business that includes the best management practices available to conserve or increase the economic value of a forest and/or forest products through such practices as thinning, pruning, weeding, stand improvement, reforestation, insect and disease control, planting, harvesting, Christmas tree farming, making and selling cedar shakes, firewood, wood chips/mulch and working for local, state or federal forest management agencies.
Griner’s SAE involved working with her family’s agribusiness, Diamond G Forest Products, LLC, located in Patterson, Georgia. Since its founding in 2011, Diamond G has aimed to revive the once-booming turpentine industry in South Georgia. The company specializes in harvesting raw pine oleoresin (pine tar or pine gum) from Slash Pine trees (Pinus elliottii) using the sustainable borehole extraction method.
Griner’s SAE chronicled her personal growth in the area of Forest Management and Products. “My roles and responsibilities at Diamond G Forest Products have radically transformed over time.” said Griner.
“In 2011, when the business began, I was too young to be in the woods each day during the summer months, so I helped my mother prepare lunch and deliver it to the woods crews. By age ten, I began spraying a stimulant in the hole bored into each tree and attaching the hardware to the trees in order to efficiently collect the oleoresin,” said Griner. “As we have mechanized the process over the years, my job duties have grown to include ordering and transporting supplies such as drill bits, collection bags and stimulant mixture to the production crews on various tracts of timber. I am also involved in weighing and recording each producer’s barrels of oleoresin.”
Most recently, Griner has begun helping educate landowners and the general public about the sustainable practices they utilize to harvest oleoresin. In this process, she and her father meet the landowner on their tract of timber. They identify the species of pine trees on the tract and determine if the forest has the potential to produce the desirable oleoresin. If so, they schedule a meeting at the office to thoroughly educate the landowner and iron out all of the details.
“As my knowledge base and years of experience have increased, my roles and responsibilities have also increased,” said Griner. “I look forward to seeing what the future holds for me at Diamond G Forest Products, LLC.”
In addition to the daily operations at Diamond G Forest Products, Griner has also launched Forest and Fields. The goal of Forest and Fields is to offer educational resources to empower others to become more responsible and informed land stewards.
