Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Ponderosa Pine Saplings Respond to Control of Spacing and Understory Vegetation
Recent forest inventories indicate that about 5 million acres of commercial pon derosa pine forest land east of the Cascade Range in Washington and Oregon have a dense understory of suppressed trees.l On many additional acres, the overstory has been re moved, leaving dense thickets of 40 to 80-year-old, sapling-sized trees. Some man agers have chosen to thin these residual stands while others, still hesitant about the invest ment in thinning, have elected to let the understory develop naturally. Most agree, however, that if these stands are to make reasonable progress toward producing a merchantable product, they must be thinned.
The type of precommercial thinning selected for these stands may imply the product mix of a multiple use manager or the anticipated market of a private com pany. If a forester chooses a narrow spacing, he is forecasting a market for small trees by the time the next thinning is needed. On the other hand, choice of a wide spacing implies that the forester is aiming toward larger trees suitable for sawing or peeling or that he is interested in increasing forage and/or water yields. Both routes may be equally productive.
Since optimum tree spacing depends on product objective, the forester must know the growth possibilities at a number of spacings to satisfy varied management objectives. In addition, he needs to know the competitive effects of understory vegetation, soil moisture availability, and limb development, all of which can affect the production of useful wood.
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