The Co-op Correspondent

The Newsletter of the Stand Management Cooperative

4TH Quarter 1998, CFR, University of Washington

 

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In This Issue

    • From the Director, David Briggs

    First, all of us at the SMC office hope you had an enjoyable holiday season. As we start the new year please note the SMC meetings on March 15-16 and September 23-24. These dates were announced in the cover letter accompanying the minutes of the Policy Committee meeting. There were requests to move the March meeting to the 16th-17th as announced in the Fall 1998 Correspondent but new conflicts arose including the fact that the 17th is St. Patrick’s day and many potential facilities were booked. As a result we have returned to the 15th-16th. Also note the change of location to McMenamin’s in Troutdale, OR. This location has easy freeway access, parking, and numerous places to stay within reasonable distance. Rooms will also be reserved at McMenamin’s for those who wish to stay at the Inn. I have contacted the project leaders and asked them to develop agendas for their TAC meetings on the 15th. These will be mailed with registration information and an agenda for the planning/business meeting on the 16th in early February.  

    On another important matter, on December 7, I received materials on the Sustainable Forestry program of AGENDA 2020 indicating that 5 page proposals are due on March 1, 1999. An article summarizing the request for proposals is elsewhere in this newsletter. As you know, the SMC has been working with other cooperatives in the region to develop a new set of installations in Douglas-fir and hemlock breeding zones that will focus on the long-term interactions between genetics, silviculture, and quality. This proposal would seem to best match with part b of the Basic Physiology of Forest Productivity research area. A steering committee consisting of members of these cooperatives is being formed and by early January will begin refining the draft proposal presented at the Fall Policy Committee meeting for submission. As this is developed, we will need your help as the proposal requires evidence of industry support including cost sharing and letters of support.

    Professor Gero Becker, Director of the Institute for Forest Utilization, Forest Ergonomics, and Forest Engineering at the University of Freiburg in Germany will be on sabbatical at the UW College of Forest Resources from July 1999 to April 2000. He will be fully funded by German sources and will primarily be involved with SMC researchers in analysis of the stem and wood quality data being gathered from the SMC installations. He has extensive experience with these topics in plantations of Douglas-fir and other species in Europe.

    Finally, I would like to remind all of you that, in spite of our efforts, we are receiving relatively little in the way of contributions to this newsletter from those outside the UW. Please remember that this is your newsletter and if you know of new publications or meetings that are relevant or of interest to SMC members, please send them along to us so they can be shared with the rest of the membership. Thanks.

    Articles in This Issue

    This issue contains two articles. One is a summary of the materials I received on the Sustainable Forestry program of AGENDA 2020 indicating that 5 page proposals are due on March 1, 1999. The other is Effects of Organic Matter Retention and Management on Long-term Productivity of Pacific Northwest Coastal Douglas-fir Plantations. The authors are Robert B. Harrison, Associate Professor of Forest Soils, Robert L. Edmonds, Professor of Soil Microbiology, Dale W. Cole, Professor of Forest Soils, Amy Sidell and Barry Flaming, Graduate Students College of Forest Resources, University of Washington,
    Thomas A. Terry, William Scott, & Ron Heninger, Senior Scientists, Alex Dobkowski, Senior Research Forester Weyerhaeuser Corporation, and Richard Miller, Emeritus Soil Scientist USDA Forest Service, PNW Station.

    Field Notes

    One of the most observable effects between the treatments on Type I and Type III installations is the size, number, and retention of branches. The only branch data previously being measured as part of the routine remeasurement was “height to live crown”. It is presumed that, because of some of the very wide spacing treatments, branch size and numbers will detrimentally affect log value. At the past SMC Policy Committee meeting the SMC staff proposed to add these measurements, suggesting that it could be done at no or near negligible cost. This proposal was adopted and began with this years remeasurements.

    On each “height” tree (42 per plot), size of the largest branch and numbers of branches in the node and internode (that are >1/2 the largest diameter) are measured in the first whorl above breast height. By the end of this measurement season we will have data on 25% of the Type I installations and 50% of the Type III’s. Future and more detailed studies will correlate these measurements to log quality.

    Recording all measurements has been facilitated this year by recording all data on electronic data recorders. The switch to this mode was finally made possible when at last years (’97) Policy meeting it was voted to eliminated the option of “In-kind day”. The SMC has hired seasonal help that we have trained to operate the recorder. This has eliminated the need for additional data entry at the office and has reduced the potential for error. The data recorder is also programmed to check our measurements in the field. The type of field recorders we purchased are the RHC-44E Paravant, loaded with EASYDC software written and supplied to us by R. White Woods Inc. Data can be directly downloaded to the database and is ready to generate summaries or be used for analysis almost immediately.

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