WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Lindsay Lights: Michigan’s Big Tree Hunt

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

Lindsay Lights, chair of the Big Tree Hunt, joins Emma Wiermann to discuss the event. This summer, Michiganders are invited to join the adventure of searching for the biggest trees in the state! ReLeaf Michigan’s Big Tree Hunt is a free, family-friendly contest that encourages getting outdoors and appreciating the incredibly large trees around us every day. The contest's deadline is August 22, 2025, making now an ideal time to go hunting for big trees! The 16th biennial Big Tree Hunt is more than a funoutdoor challenge; it's a way for Michiganders to help document, honor, and highlight the state’s most impressive trees.Learn more about the contest and enter your submissions at: bigtreehunt.com

This is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Emma Weirman, and with me today is Lindsay Lights from the nonprofit tree organization, Relief, Michigan. She is also the chair of the Big Tree Hunt. How you doing today, Lindsay? I'm great and happy to talk about trees. Great. All right, so I know that this contest, the Big Tree Hunt, is led by Relief Michigan. Can you tell me more about the organization?

Absolutely. Really, Ifreef, Michigan is a nonprofit. It is a group of foresters and arborists who knew there needed to be more trees in Michigan. And so back in 1988, they came together and formed our nonprofit. And now we work all across the state,

planting trees, teaching about proper tree care, proper tree planting, and then the big tree hunt. Wow, cool. All right. So what exactly is an arborist or a forester? You said that's who makes up this organization. Yes. So an arborist or forester is someone who's had formal training, formal education on how to take care of trees.

Typically a forester gets their title by a four-year degree. And an arborist, there are some two-year degree programs out there. But there's also a statewide organization that certifies arborists. And so they go through, arborists go through a test and make sure they're certified to do the proper tree care. That's a really big thing for us, the right tree, the right place, and proper planting. Wow. Yeah, that's really interesting. I never thought about the amount of thought and care that goes into trees and just making sure they're in the right place and maintaining the right environment for our ecosystem and everything. So we got the big tree hunt.

Can you tell us more about this competition? This contest is so fun. This is the program I'm the chair of, so I get really excited about it. What we're doing is we're asking people to get outside. We're really encouraging that youngest generation, the youth. We want everybody to go outside, get some deep breaths in nature, and go for a walk and look for the biggest tree they can find

or maybe they already have one in their mind at their grandparents' farm or at the local courthouse. So we want them to go out, find that tree, take a measurement of it, take some pictures of it, and then enter it to the contest. Okay. So yeah, that's like a really good point. Why is it important to spend time in nature with trees? Do you think there's something innate in our human nature or special about being with trees or in their vicinity? for something that might be good for the human psyche? Absolutely. On a lot of different levels. For the start of our contest,

it was to really have that very first piece of raising awareness about trees, just getting people to think about them a little more. Yeah. That most simple purpose was our start. But as we go deeper into the contest, the people who nominate these trees, especially if they're on their property

or their family's property, they have a really sincere care to make sure that tree is okay to be happy that it got nominated and might be recognized through the contest. Those people are like a guardian of those trees. Across all of us, exactly what you said, that innate instinct, the kids know to care for trees before we even tell them to. It's just something inside of us. There's also even more studies about being with trees and how. how that literally affects us. For one, we're getting really fresh oxygen into us. That helps

our brains work better. Another thing is trees release chemicals. And especially when you're in a forest environment, those forest chemicals are calming to our nervous system when we breathe them in. It's just part of the air, that natural ground where there's bioactivity. Just being around that, we literally breathe out in their chemicals and it makes us feel better. It sounds like there really is something to being a tree hugger. Like literally just hug those trees and you get all those lovely chemicals and oxygen. I think I should go out and hug a tree. Yes, yes.

Join the contest. Exactly. Where you hug a tree. So imagine we're all walking up to a tree and we put out our arms and given a big hug. Right where our arms go is pretty much where we're asking you guys to measure. It's technically four and a half feet off the ground. Okay. But that's right at chest height for most adults.

It's a historic measurement. It kind of started from the very first days of forestry when those initial surveyors had to go out and measure a bunch of trees. It was easy for them to go up to the tree right at arm's height, throw the tool around, measure the tree, and keep moving. So we still use that height in our contest. This is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Emma Weirman, and I'm talking with Lindsay,

lights from the nonprofit tree organization Relief, Michigan. She is also the chair of the big tree hunt. So, yeah, this big tree hunt, it sounds like you've gotten a lot of counties to actually participate in this over the last, I don't know how many years has it been? Well, we started in 1994. This is our 16th contest because each contest is mostly two years, sometimes three years long. Okay. And yeah, how many communities have we gotten to participate in this? This contest is off to a great start. We have 70 out of the 83 counties, but last contest, it went from 2020 to 2022. Yeah. We had 80 out of 83 counties participate. Wow. Wow. Maybe there's something with like, you know, post-COVID, everyone having to stay inside. There's like a bigger urge. You think maybe to get outside and to appreciate nature? I don't know. What do you think? I think that it was an anomaly year for a lot of things.

And for our contest, it was we had the most number of entries in that contest. Even in Hillsdale County, last time we had eight entries from you guys. I checked before this interview and you guys don't have any entries he had. Oh, no. All right, Hillsdaleans, you better get out there. Where are the big trees at? We got to measure them. I heard that, yeah, last competition, I think 2020 to 2020.

Our Hillsdale winner was named Adam Craft of Somerset Center. And was it that he found an eastern cottonwood with a circumference of 270 inches. Is that right? Yeah. He found a couple trees. He also found a potential state champion in your guys' calendar. Whoa. Yeah.

How big is that? 270 inch circumference, like how many people would it take to fit around that, just a visual? That would be four people, four six foot tall people going around the tree hand to hand. That is a really large tree. Pictures can be found on our website, big treehunt.com, B-I-G-T-R-E-H-U-N-T-T-com. There's a lot of photos there and also the online entry form. Oh, okay, okay. So people can go online. line to enter and then is there also like something like a pamphlet they can print out to enter I think I saw

yeah that's our brochure those were printed on sustainably certified paper and we mailed out 19,000 copies to nature centers libraries all the state parks they're everywhere and on those there is a paper and mail-in entry form we have really good feedback on the brochures but i'd say still 90% of the people want to head to that to that big tree hunting. and enter online. The generation, I guess. Okay. Yeah. Let me see.

I heard recently that studies have shown that investments in trees provide a five to one return for communities through the benefits they provide. So that sounds crazy to me. How exactly does that work that the trees can be bringing back five times the benefit

of planting one? Could you talk about that a bit? Absolutely. So we have a couple different locations. We have a neighborhood location. So let's start there. When people plant trees in front of their house, the property values increase. When there are trees along a whole entire street, property values also increase. It's a shady environment. There's more people outside exercising, creates that community. In downtowns where there are more trees, visitors spend 9 to 12% more

in those businesses in downtown. Oh, wow. Same thing. It's a shady environment. People are happy. They're not so warm and like being really, really sweaty walking around. Oh, yeah. Hearing heavy things that doesn't make for a good time.

But those trees, like they just, they just give us shade. They give us good air. And they're so generous. And that's a couple of the ways that they directly save on economics. There's also storm water runoff. So every time it storms, the very first beginning of the rain, there's a bunch of chemicals on the road from the cars driving around. And so when it first rains, all those chemicals get washed away. They either get washed away into the grass or they might get washed into our drain.

When there's more trees, it slows the rate of the water that falls to the ground because of the leaves and the branches. but it also slows the rate that the water goes down into the ground because of the roots and there's maybe getting a little scientific here, but there's some negative connections and negative ions out there that grasp that stormwater runoff and slow it from going down. So when our infrastructure has less water to process, less stormwater to process, that's also a direct savings. So when there's a tree and it's shadier and we don't need to use as much air conditioning,

we save money on those as well. Wow. So good for the wallets, good for the vibes. Honestly, I think we should just like live in a forest. That might be ideal. I mean, I know whenever I'm going to walk, I always like just instinctually I dart to the nearest tree and try to stay in the shade as long as possible.

It just feels like so good just to be under there as opposed to out on the sidewalk and just the same. sun blaring down on me. So yeah, I'm all for that, man. I love, I love trees. I think they should be in all our neighborhoods. They're so beautiful. We've planted in over 700 communities all across the state. So we have a planting program where we partner directly with a community and we both bring some of our resources to the table. And we do public plantings where people come and our arborists and foresters teach the proper way to plant, and then we go with little groups, the volunteers break into groups, and we teach everyone how to plant. And the holes are pre-dug, so it's just so fun.

That's awesome. I heard that you guys actually tend to plant trees that are more substantial in size, that they have a high rate of survival and more immediate environmental impact. How do you plan a tree that's like on the bigger sides? Like, how big are we talking here? Oh, I love that question. Thank you so much. Yeah. So what happens is the trees are delivered from the nursery. And the city or the community we're working with is responsible for having maybe a forklift or maybe a skids there with forks or even a bucket. And they have to offload the trees and get them to each location right next to the hole that is already pre-dub. Yes, we're talking big. Yes, yes. They're about five to ten foot tall. We use ball and burlap and potted plants.

So sometimes they vary. The ball and burlap can be over 300 pounds. Sometimes the potted ones can be picked up by two people without struggling. So it always depends on nursery availability. We're sourcing these from all across the state. So there is some variability. But then on planting day, the people break off into groups and go do one tree at a time. And then we roll the tree on its side.

And then someone holds the trunk to kind of steer it like a boat. And then two to three other people will push the root fall into the hole and get it in there. But only after we've checked for the right depth. This is Radio Free Hillsdale, 101.7 FM. I'm Emma Weirman. And I'm talking with Lindsay Light. from the nonprofit tree organization, Relief, Michigan. She is also the chair of the big tree hunt.

And so, yeah, we were just talking about planting those trees. What have you noticed in communities where you guys have gone in and put some trees in? Have you noticed any direct impacts or changes after the fact? Yes. So there's a couple calculated values that we keep track of, and then there's some more intrinsic ones. The calculated ones are right after planting, we can use this free public tool called I-tree. And we can calculate exactly where those 20 to 25 trees were planted and exactly the species in size they were, how much stormwater runoff they'll help collect, and how much carbon dioxide they'll pull out of the air. And so right away, we can get those numbers and we project them over the next 25 years.

That's awesome. And then more on the, you know, anecdotal, what we notice is they want us to come back. They either want us to come back and plant again or maybe they want us to come back and do one of our homeowner presentations, such as I like that tree. Is it right for me or proper pruning or proper general maintenance? So that's what happened. Okay. Yeah, this sounds great. So let's say, you know, I have a property and I'm interested in this or not even planting one on my property.

but just going to one of the public areas where you guys are going to have a planting session, how could people find out about this and get involved? The most direct way would be to head to our website and go to the contact page and sign up for our newsletter. We'll send them out monthly by monthly and that'll have all the upcoming events. We also have Facebook where we post every events. We also have a Facebook events page that's reliefmichigan.org slash events. Our whole website is full of so many good things, including the big tree hunt.

But that's how they get started. And if they're wanting the planting to be for themselves, there's just a couple guidelines. It has to be somewhere that's accessible to the public or that's already public property. And we partner with the municipality that could be the township or the city parks department. There's just some sort of official partnership there. Okay, awesome. So back to the big tree hunt. I hear there's all different prizes for different types of trees you could find. Am I right in hearing that there was a prize if you could find Michigan State Tree specifically, like the largest one of that? That is one of our top categories when people find the State Tree of Michigan, our beautiful, tall, sweet little giant, the Eastern White Pine. Eastern white pine? Yeah.

Okay. What does that look like? How can one identify if they've found the eastern white pine? Well, so you'll know it's, it'll have that Christmas tree form. Okay. And its needles are really soft. They are about the length of our middle finger. And if you look up close, like if you go to touch it, it won't poke you so hard.

It's really soft. They'll kind of bend. It's a hugable tree. Sounds beautiful. And you'll also, if the needles are reachable and you can get up close and get them on your hands, the little needles are in bundles. And on a white pine, the needles are in a bundle of five. You can remember that, white pine, white, W-H-I-T-E, five letters. And then the needles are five in a bundle.

Oh, well, it's perfect to remember. It sounds really beautiful. What are some of your favorite? Michigan trees? The white pine has my heart. A sad story in our Michigan's history, but it's also just taught us to take care of our trees. It's just such a giant. So a white pine comes up into the forest after there's already been shade.

So you'll have your tall trees in the forest, like a tulip tree. That's 125 feet tall, or sugar maples, maybe even some tall oaks. But then once the white pine comes, it comes up slowly and it grows taller than any of their tree in the forest. And it just becomes our giants. And our statewide forest used to be dominated by them. And it kind of, they were really all taken down. Oh, no. They built our economy and they built our lumber industry.

But there's just a big history. I also really have a thing for oaks. A lot of oaks are really big in the contest. And it takes the oaks at least over 200 years, maybe 300 to 400 to 400 years to get to the size of being a champion. And so they've seen a lot. That's around when like the Revolutionary War was going down before we even were maybe in Michigan. So just knowing those those oaks are cool, they also have really long branches and they just resemble strength to me. I like those trees a lot.

Yeah, that's really cool when you think about how old trees are, the things that they have been able to see that they've been here before us and they'll be here after us. They are absolutely amazing when I actually think about it. And it's awesome what you guys are doing and working to preserve them for our state. And I think it's really important. So is there anything else we should know today about the big tree hunt or maybe you want to like to say one more time how someone can get involved if we have any late listeners? Yeah, I got a couple, I got both of those things. Our big tree hunt, it's a statewide contest. We're looking in every county for the biggest tree by the circumference measurement,

the distance around the trunk of the tree, basically where you'd go up and give it a big old hug. You can enter your trees, measurements and photos at big treehunt.com, B-I-G-G, T-R-E-H-U-N-T-com. And it's a fun contest that has been going on since 1994. Last contest, we had 80 out of 83 counties participate. And we couldn't get this done without our help. There's our verifiers who we have about one in every county who goes out and finds those top trees again and make sure they're the right size and make sure they're the right

species and they all volunteer to do that. We also have our sponsors, Consumers Energy, Meyer, Archangel Ancient Tree Archangel Ancient Tree Archive, Michigan Botanical Foundation, and the CCF Foundation. They are the ones who make it possible for us to put that much time in there, to organize the tree assignments to send to the verifiers and to get the word out. Thank you too to the media and you, Emma directly for giving us the direct mic to get the voice out and just share about this awesome program, getting people outside. Absolutely. Well, you've got me excited for it. I think I need to go find myself a tree and make sure Hillsdale's involved in this program. Get them on the map. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much for being with us today, Lindsay.

Our guest has been Lindsay Lights, the chair of the Big Tree Hunt with the Relief Michigan Nonprofit Tree Organization. And I'm Emma Weirman on Radio Free Hills. Willsdale 101.7 FM.