Friday, October 29, 2004

Woodlot Management Plan

The woodlot comprises a total of 79.39 Acres (32.13 ha.) Of it 16 acres (6.47 ha.) is Official Conservation Land being an old riverbed. The Lot is part of Rideau Township (formerly North Gower Township) Concession 2, Lot 30 now part of the City of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
The rough geographical position, by GPS is Latitude: 45degrees 07 minutes north, and Longitude 75 degrees 39.1 minutes west.

A woodlot owner can acquire tax savings if he manages the woodlot as per a Forestry Management Plan. In this case the management plan has to follow rules set by the Province of Ontario, Canada. The Plan for this lot, created by a Professional Forester in the spring of 2003 was divided into 9 compartments (or parts) as follows:

Part A. Plantation of White Pine (Pw) [Pinus strobus L.] and White Spruce (Sw) [Picea glauca] covering 9.25 Acres (3.74 ha.). Although that is what was on the forestation plan of 1973 there is also accidental planted Red Pine (Pr) [Pinus Resinosa]
Part B. Plantation of mostly Sw covering 4.78 Acres (1.93 ha).
Part C. Lowland covering 12.94 Acres (5.24 ha).
Part D. Wet area with a plantation that was generally not successful covering 4.32 Acres (1.75 ha)
Part E. Plantation of pure Sw covering 6.90 Acres (2.79 ha).
Part F. Old riverbank adjacent to the old riverbed covering 17.46 Acres (7.07 ha).
Part G. Cutover, mostly clearing covering 3.04 Acres (1.23 ha).
Part H: The old riverbed of 16 acres (6.47 ha) deemed conservation land.
Part I: A usually wet open field of 3.7 Acres (1.5 ha) with Buckthorn along the edges and a very high concentration of purple loosestrife monoculture through the rest. The field has been farmed within the last decade. There are plough furrows reamaining and have never been harrowed or dressed since and let go fallow.

One acre around a residential building must be excluded from the management plan.

For each compartment above a work plan is required and summarised as follows:

Part A: Forestry Plan (F/P) Release and prune, 700 trees
Part B: F/P Release 300 trees
Part C: Environmental (Env.), 4 inspections per year.
Part D: Wildlife, trail development.
Part E: F/P Thinning
Part F: Env. Trail development
Part G: Wildlife, Planting 500 trees (Pw) and 50 shrubs (high bush cranberry).
Part H: N/A
Part I: Wildlife 4 inspections per year.

Thursday, October 28, 2004

Trees with a Past: The History of Ottawa's Urban Forest

Attended a lecture given by Dr. Dean of the Department of History, Carleton University, about trees in Ottawa and the history of the municipal policies and developments that affected trees in the City. It was an eye opener in that it gave an uncommon perspective to the many issues and events that evolved. The lecture was hosted by the Ottawa Historical Society.

When: October 28, 2004 8:00 PM-9:30 PM (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
Where:
National Library and Archives of Canada
395 Wellington Street
Room 156

Sunday, October 24, 2004

Inspection of the field, Area I

Did a thorough inspection of Area I. There is probably an solid acre of buckthorn in the area, and purple loosestrife. Found numerous deer beds among the loosestrife. These are small clearings about 1 m. across or larger and the most recently used beds still have the grass flattened out in a clockwise swirl. They must circle around like a dog before they bed down. The southern fence line is a single barb wire about a metre above the ground fastened to trees.

Sunday, October 10, 2004

Trail Cutting

With a hand axe, cut and cleared about 100 metres of trail along the south border of Part B. Much of the brush was buckthorn, ash some willow and white spruce.

Sunday, October 03, 2004

Renfrew County Outdoor Woodlot Conference

Held at: the H. David Dick Property, 522 Scotch Bush Rd. Balaclava. Ontario (near Dacre).

Today Carroll and I attended this Conference. It was quite interesting, and operated like an outdoor workshop. It rained pretty hard in the afternoon so we huddled under an army tent undeterred. Got myself some chaps for chain-sawing and picked up some materials from exhibitors and suppliers such as the Ducks Unlimited, Ontario Woodlot Association, Forest Gene Conservation Association, Wetland Habitat fund and there were many others including commercial exhibits. We are both quite physically tired from much standing, walking over trees branches and twigs, and getting damp and cold so it is nice to be home.

The theme of the Conference was “Woodlot Sustainability in Action” and was organised by the Renfrew County Stewardship Council and the County Municipality of Renfrew.

There were sessions on White Pine Biology and Economics; White Pine Silviculture Treatements; Low Damage Logging; Poplar Management; and Utilisation of Balsam Fir and Cedar. This included walks up into the mountains to look at actual logging operations. Various types of operations were displayed including skidding of logs using a full sized Catapillar skidder, logs skidded by a team of horses, as well as a smaller low impact tractor with catapillar treads that I think is called a Forcat 2000, or looks like it anyway. The on site session ended with a demo of scarification using “barrel and chains”. Scarification is the process of disturbing the forest floor thus allowing new seeds to naturally germinate.

At lunch Algonquin College, Pembroke did a timbersports demonstration.

The overall approach of the conference was towards treating the Woodlot as a business and covered many practical business aspects.

The topography of the Renfrew area is quite different to North Gower with its beautiful hilly precambrian outcrops, while this area in North Gower is made up of basically gently sloping drumlins. Much of the Renfrew area is only good for woodlot unlike here were it is has been extensively farmed once the erratics – displaced rocks strewn all over and left behind by receding glaciers - are removed. The fall colours were at their best too.

Though we left cold and damp, it was definitely worth the one-hour drive down and back. I plan to go again next year.