The Co-op Correspondent The Newsletter of the Stand Management Cooperative Fall 1998, CFR, University of Washington

SMC Home | SMC Publications | Events Calendar | Research | Staff and Members | Other Web Sites | College of Forestry    From the Director, David Briggs   In This Issue Update on SMC Meetings Field Notes Articles of Interest Pulping Characteristics of Young Genetically Selected Western Hemlock Results of Branch Measurement Trial on Two SMC Installations Abstracts of Publications Update on SMC Meetings Be sure to mark your calendar for two important SMC meetings. The Policy Committee has decided to institute a Spring meeting to bring the SMC TAC's together for individual and joint discussions, conduct business as needed, and create an opportunity for planning future directions.This meeting will be held at the Bureau of Land Management Offices in Portland, Oregon on March 15-16, 1999. Details will be forthcoming. The next Annual Policy Committee will be held on September 23-24, 1999. The Location is scheduled to be in British Columbia. We are working on details that will be announced later. Articles in This Issue This issue contains two articles. One is the result of a test of a branch measurement procedure that was developed by the Wood Quality TAC, applied to the King Creek and Longbell Road installations, and briefly summarized at the Policy Committee meeting. The procedure has been adopted and the field crew is gathering data as installations are remeasured. The other article summarizes results of pulping a 15-year old progeny trial in western hemlock that was conducted by UW graduate student Brent Petersen for his Masters Thesis. Top of Page Field Notes Since September the SMC field crew has been concentrating their efforts on measuring those installations that require or may require some measure of work being done by the landowner. This would be primarily pruning or thinning. Each Fall those plots that are approaching a Relative Density thinning trigger are targeted and measurements taken. If a plot has reached its trigger, the plot is marked to its appropriate "RD", and d/D. Information on the "Cut/Leave" trees is sent to the landowner. It is the landowner’s responsibility to have the thinning completed by the start of the next growing season. Pruning plots are pruned every four years. Measurements must first be taken and then the "height to prune to" is calculated and that data is supplied to the landowner. Again, it is their responsibility to have the pruning completed by the start of the next growing season. Measurements for this set of installations have been completed and the data is being sent out to landowners this week. This year six plots have reached their RD trigger and were marked for thinning. Five installations (fifteen plots) are scheduled to have a second pruning lift done and one installation (three plots) will have a third lift. Top of page Abstracts of Publications Steve Wilson, Wind Stability of Naturally Regenerated and Planted Douglas-fir Stands in Coastal Washington, Oregon, and British Colombia. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Washington, College of Forest Resources 1998 Risk of wind damage is an important factor influencing forest management throughout the world. Managed forest landscapes of the coastal Pacific Northwest are undergoing a transition from dominance by naturally regenerated second-growth stands to Douglas-fir plantations. This analysis evaluates the impacts of the managed forest transition on risk of wind damage. Experimental plot data are used to compare tree size variability and stand stability between naturally regenerated and planted stands. In addition, a landscape-scale wind risk rating system is developed to evaluate the impact of stand and management transitions at both stand and larger spatial scales. Naturally regenerated stands tend to develop greater variation of tree sizes compared to plantations. Limited size variation in plantations makes them more susceptible to developing high height to diameter ratios (H/D same units) in the dominant trees. The H/D of a tree is a relative measure of stability under wind and snow loads. H/D can be lowered in plantations through reduced planting densities or early thinning. The higher the initial density the shorter the period during which thinning can effectively lower future H/D values. Thinning requirements in dense plantations make their management inflexible. The flexibility with which a stand can be managed describes the rigidity of intervention requirements and/or potential range of stand development pathways. Shorter rotations in plantations compared to naturally regenerated stands offset much of the increased risk of wind damage caused by higher H/D values. The transition from naturally regenerated to planted stands typically increases the diversity of stand ages within a landscape. Even-aged landscapes have distinct periods of high and low risk, as all stands in the landscape move through susceptibility stages together. Uneven-aged landscapes never reach the same levels of landscape risk; however, some portion of the landscape is typically at high risk. As the transition from naturally regenerated to planted stands continues wind damage may be more common but have a reduced potential for devastating a landscape. Louise De Montigny, An Investigation into the Factors Contributing to the Growth-Check of Conifer Regeneration on Northern Vancouver Island. Ph.D. Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1992 Conifer plantations established on cutovers in the CWHb1 zone on Northern Vancouver Island grow well initially, but coincident with the reinvasion of salal on sites formerly dominated by western red cedar and western hemlock (CH phase) the trees become chlorotic and growth stagnates. These symptoms are not seen on sites dominated by western hemlock and amabalis fir (HA phase). This study examined some site and soil chemical factors which could be responsible for differences in forest productivity by: (1) documenting physical differences between the CH and HA phases; (2) documenting morphological and chemical differences between the organic horizons found in forest floors of CH and HA phases; (3) determining seasonal trends in free phenolic acid concentrations of soils under salal on CH cutovers; and (4) determining if solutions of phenolic acids at field concentrations or of salal leachates have a negative effect on conifer seed germination, growth and short term phosphorus uptake. The HA phase was found to occur on higher topographic positions making them drier and more susceptible to windthrow events than the CH phase. This windthrow process appears to generally improve site conditions. Six distinct humus horizons were identified on the basis of origin and on degree of decomposition. The proportion of humus horizon types on the CH reflected ecosystem maturity and lack of disturbance; that of the HA indicated repetitive windthrow events. The CH humus horizons tended to have higher concentrations of K, Ca, and Mn; and the Ha humus horizons were found to be higher in available N and P. Tannin signals from C NMR spectroscopy were found in the Fm horizons of both CH and Ha, but the intensity was greater for the CH. The source of tannins appears to be salal. Concentrations of phenolic acids originating from angiosperms (presumably salal) were significantly higher in summer months, coincident with greater physiological activity of salal. Phenolic acids are known to cause root membrane dysfunctioning in some situations. The germination values of seeds and the biomass of seedlings of Sitka spruce, western hemlock and western red cedar tended to be lower given treatments of either a phenolic acid solution at field concentrations or a salal leachate solution compared to a control of distilled water. Kelly Kirkland, Using Adaptive Management Strategies to Evaluate Silvicultural Prescriptions for Achieving Late Successional Characteristics. MS Thesis, University of Washington, College of Forest Resources, 1998 With late successional characteristics as a desired goal for management, silvicultural prescriptions are used with adaptive management strategies and comparisons made between the different prescriptions. Changes in forest management that require a shift in management strategies are examined and, after looking at definitions as well as how adaptive management is currently applied, an attempt is made to show how these strategies would be applied to silvicultural prescriptions, especially through the calibration of a growth model (FVS) within the Landscape Management System (LMS). After statistically determining whether model calibration is necessary, growth projections are compared to find which prescription reaches late successional characteristics the soonest.   SMC Home | SMC Publications | Events Calendar | Research | Staff and Members | Other Web Sites | College of Forestry