Treesearch

An analytical description of the ROUTES computer program is presented. ROUTES is part of the integrated preliminary harvest- and transportation-planning software package, PLANS. The ROUTES computer program is useful where grade and sideslope limitations are important in determining routes for vehicular travel. With the program, planners can rapidly identify route locations on large-scale topographic maps. The program uses a digital terrain model, created by using the MAP computer program in the PLANS package, to produce profile plots and estimates of grades and sides lopes along projected...

Costs for shipping lumber, plywood, and paper by rail are used by the USDA Forest Service in periodic timber assessments to measure the average cost of transporting forest products from producing locations to the point of final consumption. The Staggers Rail Act of 1980 authorized deregulation of the Nation's railroads. The purposes of this study were to determine whether changes in transportation costs have occurred since deregulation and to analyze the effects of deregulation on transportation costs between regions. The effects of the Staggers Rail Act on rail freight rates and services...

Highlights are presented from a large cooperative study to determine the combined effects of nursery cultural practices on the initial size and subsequent field performance of 2+0 Douglas-fir seedlings. The study involved seven sources of stock produced in three different nurseries and field plantings made over 3 years on 28 sites in southwestern Oregon. Seedbed density had more effect on the size of seedlings produced and on subsequent 4-year field survival and growth than did variations in irrigation frequency or undercutting and wrenching.

During winter 1982-83, five silvicultural treatments were applied on Willow Island (near Fairbanks, Alaska): two types of shelterwood cuttings, a clearcutting, a clearcutting with broadcast slash burning, and a thinning. The effects of these treatments on vegetation, soil temperature, and frost depth were followed from 1983 through 1985. In 1984 and 1985, logged plots had significantly higher soil temperatures than did the controls; clearcut and burned sites had the greatest increases. Vegetation composition was profoundly changed on the clearcut and burned units and altered to a lesser...

Energy values, BTU's (British thermal units) per ovendry pound, were determined for whole-tree and crown materials from western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla (Raf.) Sarg.), coast Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco var. menziesii), and western redcedar (Thuja plicata Donn ex D. Don). Samples were collected from small-diameter stands in northwest Washington where whole-tree harvesting is underway. Samples of crown material representing each diameter class were composited into a single sample for each species. The whole-tree sample, collected from a van being loaded with hog fuel...

We located and studied 123 pileated woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) nests from 1973 to 1983 in northeastern Oregon. Pileated woodpeckers excavated nest cavities in late March and early April, incubated eggs as early as 13 May and as late as 15 June, and fledged young between 26 June and 13 July. These birds nested at 1 year of age, and some lived at least 9 years. Juvenile recruitment into the population was at least 8 percent. Mean annual adult survival was at least 64 percent, and mean annual adult mortality was at least 9 percent. This information is incorporated into management...

A thinned and fertilized noble fir plantation produced 3,450 cubic feet per acre 30 years after it was planted in western Washington. More than half of this volume was in trees with diameter at breast height of 10 inches and larger. Current annual increment the last 6 years was 295 cubic feet per acre. Ornamental boughs have been harvested annually for about a 15-year period within the 30 years of the plantation's existence. The measured yield of the noble fir plantation was compared with the estimated yield of a Douglas-fir plantation of the same age; total noble fir volume was about 5...

Grade-specific price projections were developed for Douglas-fir lumber produced in the Douglas-fir region. These grade-specific price projections can be used as an aid in evaluating management practices that will affect the quality of saw logs that are produced.

Steel cable can be used to bind rocks and logs together to construct fish habitat structures in streams. Cables must be securely anchored if structures are to withstand floods. This paper describes a way to anchor cables into bedrock or ballast boulders. Anchor tensile strength ranged from 7,500 to 36,500 pounds and was related to type of resin and embedment depth. After a major flood, we examined 127 instream structures that had been secured to rock with this technique; only 0.02 percent of the 300 individual anchor points had pulled out. The resin was toxic to rainbow trout {Salmo...

The annual variation of degree-days and early summer phenology of Douglas-fir tussock moth, western spruce budworm, and their host trees was monitored over five to six seasons at two locations in the Blue Mountains. Accumulated degree-days and the phenology of bud burst and larval development were consistent and comparable at the two sites. Either degree-days or shoot elongation can be used to time simultaneous larval sampling of these two insects.