35 year DF cycle nowadays?

[bigbarf48]

the west side, which seems to recover on its own
My wife loves to point out to easterners who see a clearcut and moan about 'killing trees' that this side of the cascades alder and DF are basically big 'weeds'., ...........esp alder.

WA state appears to be actually improving their forest management, a few years back I recall all they wanted was your money to do anything with your own land <G>
http://www.dnr.wa.gov/programs-and-services/forest-resources/silviculture-state-lands

Easterners? Keep in mind that most environmental extremism is coming from the PNW, and that the southeastern US is the wood basket of not only the country, but the world as well

 

[Deleted member 110241]

You know good and well that I'm with you on this one. Let's thin at, say, 75-year intervals, such that we get 1200-yr results at 500 yrs! Forestry is not about the quick returns.



That is exactly what I expected. Variable Retention is currently the most defensible harvest method; it looks forward to at least the next thin entry. It has its flaws, namely that DF doesn't like to grow back under any shade at all, but its major strength is that it makes money now, it leaves trees to make money later, and it leaves trees to stabilize slopes.

I'm working on a prescription method now that addresses the weaknesses of Variable Retention Harvesting and builds on its strengths. I've got 3 seasons with field crews using it now and have had to almost completely re-write it twice as many times. When I have it mostly figured out, I'll post it here. I rely heavily on my crews to break my procedure and to challenge and refute my assumptions. You'll see them all credited in the acknowledgements. I couldn't do this alone.

I expect the first cut marked this way to come down in 2019. It'll be another 10-15 years before I can assess how well it worked. I am basing it on a lot of different procedures, most notably "Crop Tree Harvest" from the Northeast.

About the bold part, if variable retention means what I think it sounds like there is another + side to it, it increases the diameter growth because the trees are getting more space and sunlight. A good thing if you happen to live near a pulp industry...

We have a mandated lowest clearcutting age, depending on site index and location. I think it's 60-65 years for fir, but I'd guess that the average cutting age is about 90 years for fir and maybe 80 for spruce. By that age the forest has been thinned at least once but often twice and in some cases three times.

 

[Skeans]

Don't tell that to Weyco's shareholders. Isn't 35 years what they were pushing after 50 (and 75 years before that)...?

I thin for Weyco Fibre it's 45+ year cycle.

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[Skeans]

Odds are that's the boundary for a commercial thin. Not my land, not my sale, so I'm just speculating here, but I'd bet they're going to thin to either a spacing or a basal area, in order to release space between crowns and accelerate the growth of the remnant stand. The bid part is the interesting part. In times of a strong pulp market, that's easy money. This is not one of those times. It's possible that it'll go up for bid more than once before it sells.

I would not bet on this they were talking of some clear cuts up around the area for some different trials is what we were told.

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[madhatte]

Interesting. I'll be curious to see how it works out.