Treesearch

Forest management goals and objectives have vastly expanded in recent decades. Many managers and silviculturists are challenged to produce more than just timber from our nation’s forests. Future forests are expected to deliver complex and often integrated management objectives such as providing a unique sense of place and naturalness, 2022 National Silviculture Workshop Foundational Concepts in Silviculture: Emphasis on Reforestation and Early Stand Improvement wildlife habitat and forage, and resilience to disturbance and global change - all in addition to renewable forest products.

Traditionally, the primary focus of cleaning has been to equally space residual trees to maintain full stocking (e.g., 12 x 12 ft or 14 x 14 ft) by removing competition. Preferred species are western white pine, western larch, and ponderosa pine; however, when these species are not sufficiently abundant, shade tolerant species are left to maintain full stocking.

Throughout the range of ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), clearcut harvesting and planting through the late 20th century resulted in widespread even-aged forests, which excelled at regenerating shade-intolerant species and producing wood in an operationally simple way. Two decades into the 21st century, timber production objectives are now also balanced with a variety of nontimber objectives such as increasing resistance and resilience to disturbances and managing wildlife habitat.

Reforestation on the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest on the Powers and Gold Beach Ranger Districts is driven by the need to accelerate the development of late successional habitat in stands less than 80 years old. Prior regeneration harvest emphasized clear-cutting with regeneration of Douglas-fir. Douglas-fir is not a shade tolerant species and will not regenerate naturally under canopy cover. Therefore, to develop a multilayered canopy, reforestation of shade-tolerant species like western hemlock, grand fir, and Port-Orford-cedar is needed. Multilayered canopies provide habitat for...

In the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming, establishment of natural ponderosa pine regeneration can be prolific. The density of trees in the early stages of stand development affects their growth and sets the basis for future forest dynamics. Underestimation of growth by simulation models could delay scheduling of precommercial thinning and lead to loss of growth or stand stagnation.

Silvicultural practice is founded on density and composition management and the potential for individual tree and stand volume growth (Smith 1962). Thinning reduces overall stand volume but, in the process, releases more growing space for the residual trees. In situations where economic markets are positive, such reallocation of growing space takes advantage of the price increases as a function of diameter (Assmann 1970) and increasing total value per area.

Moist mixed-conifer forests of the northern Rocky Mountains often contain thousands of stems per acre following stand-replacing disturbance. Many of these trees are shade tolerant species such as grand fir and western hemlock, even though current management objectives aim to increase density of early seral species such as western larch. Managers are faced with questions on how best to manage these overstocked stands and thinning is often a proposed solution. Knowledge on changes in stand structure over long periods of time following thinning are limited in these forests. This study applied...

In eastern woodlands, frequent, low-intensity disturbances are needed to achieve desired woodland management objectives: an abundant and diverse ground flora, rich with herbaceous and graminoids species and minimal or isolated-dense patches of woody mid-story cover. These traits are integral to the structure and function of woodland communities. Prescribed burns are commonly used to meet these objectives; however, prescribed fire use can be limited by many constraints (e.g., risk, smoke, limited seasonality, legality), especially at the wildland-urban interface. Targeted goat browsing may...

White oak regeneration is both disturbance dependent and advanced growth dependent (Clatterbuck 2019). “The answer to the question of how to ensure oak regeneration … is not the development of some radically new method of cutting, but recognition that all cutting operations in a stand, from the very first, should have as some of their objectives the creation of an environment, largely light conditions, favorable for oak regeneration … and furthermore … ensure that cuttings occur frequently enough to maintain growth of oak regeneration” (Hodges 1989).

Red maple was once a minor component of eastern deciduous forests. It is now the most abundant and widespread tree species in the eastern United States (Oswalt et al. 2019). The increase in red maple is attributed to its adaptability to a wide range of environments and the current management policy of forest fire suppression (Abrams 1992). On most sites, red maple seedlings tend to outgrow the regeneration of more desirable species, especially oaks.