The Co-op Correspondent

The Newsletter of the Stand Management Cooperative

1st Quarter 2000, CFR University of Washington

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From the Director, David Briggs

As usual for this time of the year the SMC staff has been very busy with the schedule of field work, working on analyses, and writing proposals to attract external funding that leverages off the SMC installations. Gero Becker, Professor at the University of Freiburg, Germany, who has been the Visiting Scholar with the SMC since August 1999, returned to Germany at the beginning of March. He brought with him a database of branch measurements on Douglas-fir that we are using along with our own database to evaluate existing branch profile models. He collaborated with David Briggs and Eric Turnblom in developing a proposal to fund a PhD student to do additional work in this area. He also worked closely with us and graduate student Edie Sonne on an externally funded project to examine the effect of biosolids and thinning treatments on lumber yield and quality in a Douglas fir stand. Bob Gonyea, who has been the leader for SMC field work announced that he plans to retire at the end of May but will continue to work with the SMC on an hourly basis in the future.

Silviculture TAC Meeting in March

The Silviculture TAC met in Seattle at the University of Washington’s Center for Urban Horticulture. The agenda included a discussion on increasing the number of western hemlock installations, performing needed vegetation surveys, and future staffing changes. The latter was prompted by Bob Gonyea’s retirement announcment. A summary of minutes will be published in the next issue. SMC Spring Policy Committee Meeting, April 5-6 The Spring meeting will be held again at McMenamin’s in Troutdale, Oregon. A major portion of the 5th will be devoted to TAC meetings, progress reports on projects, and developing ideas for new, short term projects that members would like to undertake. The SMC funded six such projects during 1998/99 that are essentially completed so it is time to examine new possibilities. The 6th will be a business meeting. A summary of minutes will be published in the next issue.

SMC Fall Policy Committee Meeting, September 20-21

This meeting will be held in Lacey at the Saint Martin’s College. Accommodations can be booked at either the Comfort Inn, 360-456-6300, or the Holiday Inn Express, under the Stand Management Cooperative. Both hotels are within 1-2 miles of the college, and are offering a government rate of $58 for a double room. The 20th will be a business meeting and technical session and the 21st will be a field trip. Agenda

Update on the Dean search at the University of Washington College of Forest Resources

The past several months have been very busy as a committee composed of faculty, staff, students, alumni, small and large industry and public agency representatives have been contacting potential applicants, reviewing applications, and conducting interviews. I have been one of the members of that committee and we have begun the process of bringing a group to campus for intensive 2-day interviews. I will keep you informed of developments.

In This Issue

This issue contains updates on the Fall River Long-Term Productivity Study, by Gage Wagoner. This project is currently in the middle of its second year of the 40-year projecttimeline. Project installation os now nearing completion. At present, an exclusion fence is being installed at the study site to protect it from elk, deer, and humans. Planting with Douglas-fir stock is scheduled to take place begining March 20.

The second article, When does Competition Begin and the “Crossover” Effect End? by Eric Turnblom and Sam Pittman, " examines the benefits many plant species reap from neighboring plants durning juvenile growth. This has been referres to as the crossover effect.

In 1991, the Stand Management Cooperative (SMC) Silviculture Project began establishing permanent plots in a series of spacing trials (Type III SMC installations), which were planted in the mid- 1980's to early 1990's. The permanent plots are expected to provide information about the effects of initial spacing on the growth and development of juvenile stands of pure Douglas-fir, pure western hemlock, and 50-50 mixtures of the two species. We now have two more measurements, two-years apart on most of these same plots. The response variables examined were net increment in QMD, in basal area, in dominant height (avg. height of 40 largest trees by DBH), increment in QMD of survivors and the increment in QMD of the 40 largest diameter trees per acre. The basal area growth is largely correlated with density (stems per acre) at this age (the more stems there are, the more basal area growth there is) and so is omitted from Turnblom and Pittman's report. The report focuses on increment in QMD of survivors.

Field Notes

The SMC received this year’s supply of fertilizer ( 5000 lbs. of urea) as a contribution from PRODICA LLC. , formerly Unocal. We especially want to thank them because after 31 years of support to the Coop, this will probably be their last year as a member. PRODICA LLC is being purchased by Agrium pending approval by the FTC. If this sale is approved there will be 2 producers of urea in North America, Agrium and Coastal St. Helens Chemical. Both are members of the Coop. Primarily due to the mild winter, the field crew is ahead of schedule and will soon be finished with this year’s remeasurement schedule. Now that all treatment regimes have been checked, we know that 15 Type I plots were marked for thinning (2 for the second time), one Type II and 2 Type IIIpa’s. One Type IIIpa was pruned.

Database Update

The 1999-2000 field season has proceeded quite well so far. A total of 48 installations will be visited this season for plot measurements and / or thinning trigger checks. At this point all but one of the plots that were nearing their thinning triggers have been visited and of those, a total of 13 plots have been marked for thinning. Data loading awaits the completion of all sampling work on an installation. At this writing, field work on 30 installations has been completed and the data from all of those installations have been brought on line. As there is no substantial backlog of data left to be loaded, database staff are now engaged in refining the system processes and working on various data analyses. The current data loading happens when all work on an installation is completed.

The Stand Management Cooperative Home Page is provided by the College of Forest Resources. To find the contact you need, please check the Members or contact David Briggs, SMC Director, or Megan O'Shea, SMC Program Manager, SMC Cooperative, University of Washington Box 352100 Seattle, WA 98195, 206-206.543.1581. © 2000-2001, University of Washington, Stand Management Cooperative, including all photographs and images unless otherwise noted.