Sound Forest Management Practices
Our professional foresters are knowledgeable and skilled and committed to help you match the appropriate forest type with the soils and topography of your forest with your own preferences and goals. In many cases a forest management plan will require some type of harvest. Several harvest techniques will help make that optimal match.
Selective Harvest
A selective harvest (all-aged management) is a thinning method used to
release trees from competition and allows remaining trees to grow greater
in diameter. It results in a tree community(stand) made up of different
aged trees and mimics the natural processes often observed in forests
but with an accelerated rate. This harvest technique is used for the management
of oak, some pine and mixed hardwoods, including maple, birch and beech.
Small diameter trees are harvested during one phase. This allows the larger
trees to grow bigger. From 15 - 20 years later a second harvest occurs
to take some, but not all of the largest diameter trees. This allows the
remaining trees to continue to grow to full diameter or old age.
This management technique gives you the following positive
results:
1. A forest full of healthy, desired trees of mixed ages.
2. A forest optimal for regenerating young trees which need shaded areas
during their early years, while maintaining older trees.
3. A more open forest for viewing wildlife, especially songbirds.
4. A trail system will be created to for hiking, hunting, ski-touring,
snowshoeing, or snowmobiling.
Regeneration Harvests
Cutover patches of forest land are optimal for aspen, birch, jack pine
and may open spaces for white pine regeneration. This harvest type entails
a full removal of the trees in the patch which makes it most efficient
for new growth of these species of trees which need greater sunlight to
grow. Aspen and birch have relatively short lifespans and if they are
left beyond their healthy life, they degrade and the forest will transition
to other tree species, such as red maple, balsam fir and white spruce.
This technique is also used for mature pine plantations or for stands
that are to be converted to pine forest. The ground is made ready for
the desired regeneration method.
This management technique will give you the following positive
results:
1. A forest garden ready to grow healthy, desired trees.
2. A forest optimal for regenerating new shoots of trees which need sunlight
during their early years.
3. A patch of forest with young saplings that offer browse for deer, elk,
rabbits, grouse and other wildlife as well as habitat for many songbirds.
4. A patch of forest that is favorable for grouse, deer or other small
game hunting.
Seed Tree and Shelterwood
This method uses wind and a dispersal of seed from genetically superior
trees in the woodland to regenerate your property to the desired tree
species that are best suited to the soils and topography of your woodland
property. A science-based harvest plan can be designed to remove lesser
quality or undesired trees in patches. This helps you simply speed up
the natural transition of a forest area from current conditions to the
optimal forest type for the land and soil.
This management technique will give you the following results:
1. A forest ready to grow healthy seedlings of the tree species that match
the soil and terrain.
2. A forest garden for nurturing seedlings for the optimal future forest.
3. Some songbirds will inhabit this area immediately and although it may
have limited wildlife value for some time, the regenerated forest will
be home to other wildlife.
4. A trail system will be created for hiking, hunting, ski-touring, snowshoeing
or snowmobiling.
