Treesearch

Wood (or timber) mats are portable and temporary modular platform assemblies that spread short duration heavy loads from construction equipment out across large areas, protecting the environment from rutting and erosion. They are used throughout the United States and around the world. These assemblies facilitate access to construction sites and provide stable working surfaces during infrastructure and construction projects. Some examples of these types of projects include dragline operations, pipe- and transmission-line building and rebuilding, wind and cellular tower construction, crane...

Structural insulated panels (SIPs) are an important construction material that has been developed through many years of research at the USDA Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory. There are concerns, however, related to the in-service performance of this important construction material. More data are needed to determine creep performance of these panels to help the industry address these concerns. This report describes a test method that was developed to measure the creep performance of SIPs. Topics covered in this report include a summary of the development of sandwich-type structural...

Whitebark pine (WBP, Pinus albicaulis) is a white pine of subalpine regions in the Western contiguous United States and Canada. WBP has become critically threatened throughout a significant part of its natural range due to mortality from the introduced fungal pathogen white pine blister rust (WPBR, Cronartium ribicola) and additional threats from mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae), wildfire, and maladaptation due to changing climate. Vast acreages of WBP have suffered nearly complete mortality. Genomic technologies can contribute to a faster, more cost-effective approach to the...

Forest management practices designed to meet varied landowner objectives affect wildlife habitat and may interrupt the life-cycle stages of disease vectors, including the black-legged tick, Ixodes scapularis Say (Acari: Ixodidae). Ixodes scapularis transmits multiple pathogens including Borrelia burgdorferi, the causative agent of Lyme disease, which is the most common tick-borne disease in the United States. There is evidence that a range of active forest management practices (e.g., invasive plant removal, prescribed burning) can alter tick densities and pathogen transmission. However,...

Understanding the complexity of forest community dynamics is essential in forest management planning and stewardship, yet lowland northern white-cedar (Thuja occidentalis L.) are often managed as homogenous communities. Through this study, we defned lowland white-cedar forest community types in unharvested and harvested forest stands within the State of Michigan and examined community type associations with ecological variables. Data collected in unharvested stands revealed three whitecedar community subtypes: (1) cedar-deciduous, (2) cedar-conifer, and (3) cedar-shrub. These unharvested...

Urban tree planting initiatives (TPIs) have become a prominent form of public work that has the potential to increase the livability and sustainability of cities. However, if not sufficiently resourced and thoughtfully planned and implemented, these high-profile programs may fail to achieve intended goals. To promote successful implementation of TPIs, we offer recommendations for the pre-planting, installation, and postplanting phases. During each of these phases we present five cross-cutting themes: ensuring adequate funding for all project phases; cultivating place-based landscape...

A changing climate offers new opportunities to expand agriculture in northern latitudes, and understanding forest-to-agriculture land conversion impacts is critical to ensure soil sustainability. Using the Comprehensive Assessment of Soil Health (CASH) framework, we identified a minimum suite of indicators with little collinearity to reliably predict soil impacts during the conversion of boreal forest to agriculture and a time since conversion gradient (forest, <10 years, >10 and <50 years, and >50 years since conversion). We sampled paired forest and agricultural sites and used multiple...