Treesearch

This publication provides an overview of forest resources in New Hampshire based on inventories conducted by the U.S. Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program of the Northern Research Station. For annual inventory years 2002-2013, the sample length was equal to 5 years. Beginning in 2014, the cycle length was changed to 7 years. For the 2016 inventory, estimates for current variables such as area, volume, and biomass are based on 1,164 samples (1,052 forested) collected from 2011-2016. Change variables, such as net growth, removals, and mortality, are based on 893...

This publication provides an overview of forest resources in West Virginia based on inventories conducted by the U.S. Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program of the Northern Research Station. For annual inventory years 2002-2013, the sample length was equal to 5 years. Beginning in 2014, the cycle length was changed to 7 years. For the 2016 inventory, estimates for current variables such as area, volume, and biomass are based on 2,430plot samples (2,095 forested) collected from 2011-2016. Change variables, such as net growth, removals, and mortality, are based on...

Forest roads are a concern in management because they represent areas of elevated risks associated with soil erosion and storm runoff connectivity to stream systems. Storm runoff emanating from forest roads and their connectivity to downslope resources can be influenced by a myriad of factors, including storm characteristics, management practices, and the interaction of management practices and successive storm events. Mitigating sediment export and ensuring that storm runoff has negligible impacts on downstream resources requires a more complete understanding of forest road erosion and...

Longleaf pine is known as an unpredictable seed producer, with adequate or better seed crops occurring once every 5 years or longer. However, in the spring before seed fall, good cone crops can be predicted by visually counting green cones in the canopy, which by then are large enough to be seen, especially when binoculars of suitable power are used. During the spring of 2014, cone surveys in eastern Texas suggested that the autumn longleaf pine cone crop there could be a bumper crop. As a result, staff of the National Forests and Grasslands in Texas, in cooperation with Southern Region...

Forest restoration efforts in the intermountain west of North America generally seek to promote the continuation of pine dominance, enhance wildlife habitat, and decrease hazardous fuels, thereby mitigating catastrophic losses from various stressors and disturbances. We propose a method of focal tree release thinning that partitions the competitive neighborhood to provide alternative approaches to managers. Specifically, we sought to examine how competition index (CI) derived harvest simulations alter forest structure, composition, and variability, and evaluate the ecological implications...

North American tribes have traditional knowledge about fire effects on ecosystems, habitats, and resources. For millennia, tribes have used fire to promote valued resources. Sharing our collective understanding of fire, derived from traditional and western knowledge systems, can benefit landscapes and people. We organized two workshops to investigate how traditional and western knowledge can be used to enhance wildland fire and fuels management and research. We engaged tribal members, managers, and researchers to formulate solutions regarding the main topics identified as important to...

The resistance drilling technique has been in focus for assessing the specific gravity (SG) of young Eucalyptus trees from plantations for pulpwood production. Namely, the data of 50 34-month-old and 50 62-monthold trees from Eucalyptus grandis × Eucalyptus urophylla clonal plantations was evaluated, while the relative resistance profiles were collected with the amplitude in a scale from 0 to 100% of each tree at the breast height. For laboratory determination of SG and moisture content (MC), 3-cm-thick disks were taken at breast height. The average resistance amplitude of a full drill...

The flexural properties of wood–plastic composite (WPC) deck boards exposed to 9.5 years of environmental decay in Hilo, Hawaii, were compared to samples exposed to moisture and decay fungi for 12 weeks in the laboratory, to establish a correlation between sample flexural properties and calculated void volume. Specimens were tested for flexural strength and modulus, both wet and dry, at 23°C and 52°C. Some specimens degenerated to only 15% of original flexural strength. UV radiation had no impact on flexural properties of field-exposed boards; loss occurred mainly on the side opposite to...

Key message Field methods for rapid determination of wood density in trees have evolved from increment borer, torsiometer, Pilodyn, and nail withdrawal into sophisticated electronic tools of resistance drilling measurement. A partial resistance drilling approach coupled with knowledge of internal tree density distribution may offer an alternative solution for wood density surveys in the future. Context Finding ways to nondestructively assess wood density in trees has been a quest by foresters and wood scientists around the world. In the past several decades, traditional increment borer...

The availability of spatially referenced environmental data and species occurrence records in online databases enable practitioners to easily generate species distribution models (SDMs) for a broad array of taxa. Such databases often include occurrence records of unknown reliability, yet little information is available on the influence of data quality on SDMs generated for rare, elusive, and cryptic species that are prone to misidentification in the field. We investigated this question for the fisher (Pekania pennanti), a forest carnivore of conservation concern in the Pacific States that...