Welcome back to the Porpo's Almanac. Once again, this is Andy, and today we're talking with Dr. Eric Burkart from Penn State about

forest farming.

This is a really fun conversation we get to jump into some of the more niche areas of ecosystem

stewardship.

The goal was to talk about ramps and some of the really interesting research he's spearheading,

but we end up talking at length on some of his other research, including

ginseng and ghost pipe, and even the impacts of invasives on forest health. If you've been waiting

for us to dive deep into ecology, this one is for you. Check out Eric's work in the show links,

and go follow him on Instagram where he posts about a lot of free seminars that he offers

through Penn State at the

Instagram handle, PA botany and ethno botany. Go take a listen and let us know what you think.

Eric, thanks so much for joining us. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Hey, it's good to be here. Yeah, where to begin? I guess what people should know is I'm from

Western Pennsylvania. I grew up in Ohio River Valley, if you will, just north of Pittsburgh,

blue collar raised, and a lot of my interests and kind of connectedness to Pennsylvania

stems from an early childhood all the way up through,

I guess, late teenager. My early 20s, I moved out west for a little while, but that whole

formative period was really rooted in the woods of western Pennsylvania. From there, I actually

went on to Idaho State University in the West and studied ethnobotany,

which we'll talk, I'm sure, a little bit more about today.

But essentially what I did is pursued a dual degree in anthropology and botany to study this kind of field that, you know,

is this interrelationship between people and plants.

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