Agenda
September 20
($30.00 includes materials, facility, lunch, etc.)
Worthington
Conference Center at St. Martins College, Lacey, WA.
SMC
Business Meeting
An
Overview of the Virginia Tech Growth & Yield Cooperative
Reports
by Committees and Projects
Virginia
Tech Coop Meeting
September 21 (Field
Trip # 1: $40.00 includes transport, lunch, & BBQ)
7:30
Vans depart hotels
8:30 Blue Ridge Cooperative Silvicultural Regimes Study
11:30 Lunch
12:30
Depart for SMC Type III Installation 943 (South
Shaw Creek)
1:30
SMC Installation 943
2:30
Depart for SMC Type I Intallation 703 (Longbell
Road)
3:30 Depart for UW Pack Forest & visit old-growth
stand and other experiments
6:00 Social & Salmon BBQ
8:00 Depart for Hotels
September 22
(Field Trip # 2: $ 20.00 includes transport & lunch)
7:00
Vans depart hotels
8:30 Whispering Ground Douglas-fir spacing x genetics
test site
10:30 Red Alder spacing & pruning test site
12:00 Douglas-fir realized gain trial
1:30 Langsetter spacing & thinning site and
examples of riparian requirements
2:30 Delzene Creek timing of thinning
4:30 Arrive at hotels
Field Trip Sites
September 21, 2000
1. Blue Ridge Cooperative
Silvicultural Regimes Study
Forestry operations in the PNW have been severely impacted by public opposition that arises in part from the high visibility of past clearcut harvesting. The Blue Ridge study was established in 1998 and is the first replication of an operational-scale comparison of even-aged, two-aged and uneven-aged silvicultural regimes begun in 70-year-old Douglas-fir. It is intended to provide quantitative evaluations of comparative tree and stand development, harvesting and treatment costs, public acceptance of visual effects, and some wildlife effects of management regimes designed to produce widely contrasting stand conditions. The treatments include a clearcut, uniform retention (15 trees/acre), patch cuts (1.5-5 acres), group selection (0-1.5 acres), thinning and no harvesting. The study was motivated by the urgent need to develop and demonstrate alternative management regimes that are operationally feasible and that can provide reasonable levels of timber production while reducing conflicts with a public increasingly concerned with visual appearance and with real and imagined ecological effects of timber harvesting. This is a cooperative endeavor, primarily of the Washington Department of Natural Resources and USFS Pacific Northwest Research Station, but also involving the University of Washington (visual effects, public response and economic assessments) and the University of Idaho (harvesting costs).
2. SMC Type III Installation # 943, “South Shaw Creek”
Type
III installations are based on six planting densities of at least 3 acres
each at 100 (21x21), 200 (14x14), 300 (12x12), 440 (10x10), 680 (8x8), and
1210 (6x6) stems per acre. In addition to testing the effects of initial planting
density on growth, these will contain plots subjected to future thinning or
pruning prescriptions. This installation is located near Adna, WA and is owned
by the Washington Department of Natural Resources and the six planting densities
were established in January 1994 with 2-0 Douglas-fir seedlings. Douglas-fir
fifty-year site index is estimated to be 124. In addition to the basic SMC
installation design, DNR created a 3x3 planting, plantings with 1-1, 2-0,
and 2-1 stock to study differences in planting stock type, and plots to monitor
the effect of maintaining weed-free growth conditions.
3. SMC Type I Installation # 703, “Longbell Road”
Type I Installations are created in previously planted stands at a time close to the onset of crown closure. Seven treatment plots, representing the original stand density (ISPA), re-spacing to 50% of the original density (ISPA/2) and re-spacing to 25% of the original density (ISPA/4), are allocated to subsequent thinning prescriptions based on Relative Density as shown in the table. Type I installations may also include additional treatments associated with fertilization, pruning, and method of selecting trees during the initial re-spacing.
Basic 7 Type I Treatments
|
Treatment |
Definition |
Thinning Regime |
|
1. ISPA |
Initial stems per acre |
None |
|
2. ISPA/2 |
Re-spaced to 50% of ISPA |
None |
|
3. ISPA/4 |
Re-spaced to 25% of ISPA |
None |
|
4. ISPA “minimal thin” |
One thinning |
RD55 è RD 35 |
|
5. ISPA/2 “minimal thin” |
One thinning |
RD55 è RD 35 |
|
6. ISPA “light thin” |
Multiple thinnings |
RD55 è RD 35; RD55 è RD 40; RD60 è RD 35; … |
|
7. ISPA “heavy thin” |
Multiple thinnings |
RD45 è RD 30; RD50 è RD 35; RD55 è RD 40; … |
The
Longbell Road installation, located near Morton, WA, is owned by the Washington
Department of Natural Resources. It was planted to 630 stems per acre with
2-1 stock in 1980. Site index is estimated to be 130. The re-spacing took
place in 1987 so the installation densities are 630, 315, 157 stems per acre.
When the re-spacing was conducted, an additional plot of ISPA/2 and ISPA/4
was created to compare the effect of choosing the best tree rather than adhering
as closely as possible to the distance dictated by systematic removal. Finally,
an extra plot of ISPA, ISPA/2 and ISPA/4 was created for pruning experiments.
1. Whispering Grounds sec 36 17N 6W
Planted 1990 with 6 half-sib top performing families base on the 1986 volume rank and a non-select (wild) seed source.
Experimental design: Randomized Block with a split plot on families – seed source.
Replicates = Blocks 50 acre
Densities 120, 240, 360, 550, 750 and 1200 tpa = whole plot = 8acres each density.
Families/seed source = subplot = 1 acre
2. Red Alder Variable Density Plantation – Rock Creek sec 14 16N 6W
Planted in1990-91 season
Densities 250, 435, 725, 1200 tpa
Pruned in 1996 250 tpa plot only
3. A-6000 Douglas-fir Variable Density Plantation and Realized Gain Trial
Sec 21/22 16N 6W
Planted 1989 1+1 Stock
(A) Variable density 120, 240, 360, 550, 750 and 1200 tpa mix of top 10 families
Talk about the early size density effect