Tuesday, July 12, 2005

A Review of Viabililty of Commercial Thinning of the Bush

At the Confer Management Workshop, I became acquainted with a Forester/consultant who seeks out woodlots for commercial thinning. He gave one of the talks at the workshop. I approached him indicating that according to my Managed Forest plan that I am due for a thinning.

He came by today to examine the forest. The assessment that he gave was that the white spruce (Sw) plantations were probably eight to ten hears away from a first thinning. The red pine (Pr) is ready for a thinning but there is not a large enough plot to make it commercially viable.

Both the Pr and the Sw were planted at the same time yet their growing behaviours are quite different. The Pr will grow at a continuous rate regardless of the conditions while Sw will tend to slow down when the conditions are poor such as poor soil, poor drainage or poor light. Hence Sw also tends to be self-thinning.

The forester recommended that I thin out the Pr and especially take out the damaged trees. Many of the Pr were damaged by porcupine which caused the trees to grow into “Y” shapes.