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Forest Silviculture
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Simply put, silviculture is the art and science of sustainably growing trees to meet needs. These needs may be human needs for pretty scenery, wood products, or safe places to recreate. Conversely, these needs may be ecological, such as, providing a suitable place to live for a particular type of animal or sustaining a particular type of forest. The people who practice silviculture, silviculturists, use tools such as chainsaws, fire, and fertilizers to ensure that the forest is able to meet these needs. The practice of silviculture starts with knowing what currently exists in an area of the forest. Collecting this information is called inventory. After inventory describes what exists in an area, we can begin to compare what exists with what is needed in an area. If there is a difference between the two, activities may be conducted in the area to ensure that the identified needs are met. These activities are called treatments. Treatments are only implemented after we try to determine what the public wants from the forest and we analyze what effects the treatment will have on the forest. This is called planning.
Inventory
Determining the type, size, age, and health of the trees in the forest and how they aredistributed is the goal of silviculture inventory on the Kootenai. Foresters usually cannot record information on every tree on every acre, rather they must rely on specialized tools to select individual trees and then use statistics to expand the sample to represent the entire area. As a result of over 20 years of forest inventory, the Kootenai maintains a database of tree and stand information that is used in land management planning activities.
Treatments
The inventory and planning we do on the forest often identifies opportunities for improvement in the vegetation to provide particular types of wildlife habitat, to make areas more resistant to insect attacks and disease, to maintain shade in camping areas, to ensure people have a safe place to recreate, and to maintain or improve the quality of products coming from the forest. Silvicultural prescriptions are applied to timber stands and landscapes to provide managers with the means to achieve goals of land management.
Timber Harvest
Timber products are an important part of the Kootenai's resource programs. Timber harvest is a tool used in managing the forest to achieve desired conditons, such as reducing fuel loading near residential areas, removing insect or disease infected trees to improve the health and vigor of the forest, and thinning forests to maintain growth of the more desirable species. Forest managers use a variety of logging systems depending on the terrain and the objectives of the harvest.
Tree Planting and Reforestation
Tree planting is an important activity on the forest to regenerate harvested stands, or stands that have been killed by fire, wind, insects, or disease. For harvested units, the Forest Service is required to assure adequate regeneration, which can include planting or natural seeding to achieve prescribed stocking levels for a given area. Both bare-root and containerized trees are planted depending on site conditions. Most trees planted on the Kootenai are grown at the Coeur d'Alene nursery in Coeur d'Alene Idaho from seed collected on the Kootenai. Tree stock is hand-planted by contract tree planting crews. Replanted units are inventoried at intervals until certified as stocked, with supplemental plantings if necessary. The Kootenai National Forest plants approximately 2,500 acres per year with over 1 million seedlings.
Timber Stand Improvement (TSI)
Timber stand improvement includes any intermediate treatment, commercial or precommercial, after establishment and before the final harvest to improve composition, structure, condition, value, and increment of the stand. Timber stand improvement is an important part of managing timber stands to achieve management goals and objectives for forest vegetation. Trees may be thinned to a specified density to attain desired species composition and stand structure. Release of individual desired trees may be called for if there is an undesirable component of overtopping vegetation. Benefits to other resources, in addition to increased production of usable wood fiber, include:- Increased forage/browse production.
- Enhanced aesthetic values.
- Increased production of usable water supply.
- Reduced fire spread potential.
- Maintenance of healthy ecosystems.
- Reduced probability of insect outbreaks.
- Reduction of tree diseases
Insect and Disease Management
Insect and disease management activities are important to prevent the spread of insects or diseases, or to protect valuable trees, such as pruning blister rust infected branches from western white pine, or trapping bark beetles to reduce the local effect of insect outbrea ks. The Kootenai employs a variety of treatments to mitigate insect and disease through silvicultural practices such as use of pheremones, pruning, thinning, harvesting, and girdling.
Genetic Tree Improvement
The Kootenai National Forest features western white pine, western larch, ponderosa pine, Douglas-fir, lodgepole pine and whitebark pine in its genetic tree improvement work. Superior trees are selected for disease resistance, form, and growth. Genetic material is collected from these trees, and in cooperation with the Coeur d'Alene nursery, other forests, agencies and the private sector, this material is used in breeding programs to produce superior disease resistant planting stock. As a result of breeding efforts in western white pine, a species almost eliminated from our forests by an introduced disease, millions of disease resistant white pine seedlings have been planted.
USDA Forest Service - Kootenai National Forest
Last Modified: Wednesday, 26 November 2003 at 09:53:04 EST