6
Curtis, R.O. 1998. Harvest options for production forests. In: The Co-op Correspondent. Seattle, WA:
University of Washington, College of Forest Rescourses. Stand Management Cooperative. Spring 1998: 6-9.
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Harvest Options For Production Forests
A Cooperative Project of Washington DNR AND PNW Research Station
Robert O. Curtis PNW Research Station, Olympia, Washington
The wood-producing roles of state, industrial, and
private forests have become increasingly important
as harvests from National Forest lands have declined.
The Washington Department of Natural Resources
(DNR) is one of the largest non-Federal forest owners
in the Northwest, and has a legally defined management
objective to generate income in perpetuity for trust
beneficiaries, which consist of educational and other
state and county institutions. Expanding population,
social changes, and related pressures and conflicts affect
DNR as they do other managers of production forests.
Visual effects of harvesting activities are major
considerations in management decisions, especially
along major travel routes and in areas with much
recreational use. Desire to retain public support and
reduce conflicts have stimulated interest in and limited
application of a variety of alternative harvest practices
for which little or no management experience or
research exists. Obligations to trust beneficiaries (DNR)
or owners (industrial and private) require that managers
consider financial trade-offs and effects on long-term
forest productivity.
This note describes a project being jointly installed
on Capitol Forest near Olympia by DNR and Pacific
Northwest Research Station (PNW). This is an integrative
effort designed to provide experience with contrasting
silvicultural systems and to evaluate the biological,
economic, and visual effects associated with alternative
timber harvest patterns and management regimes.
DESIGN:
The project is a stand-level experiment that also
provides components for various assessments at
the landscape level. It compares six treatments in a
randomized block design with a planned minimum
of three replications. Treatments are designed to
create highly contrasting stand conditions. They will
provide comparative data on biological responses and
economic aspects; they will also permit evaluation of
foreground visual effects and will provide photographic
images that can be used for graphic landscape
simulations. Treatments are applied in harvest units of
30 to 80 acres each.
The treatments are: (see figures 1-6)
1.
Clearcut--a conventional even-aged system
widely used in the Northwest and elsewhere.
2.
Retained Overstory--a two-aged system that
esembles a shelterwood, but with the
overwood carried through the next rotation to
provide some large, high-quality trees.
3.
Small Patch Cutting--an even-aged system
applied in patches of 1-1/2 to 5 acres, with
thinning to maintain stand densities of RD40RD60.
4.
Group selection--an uneven-aged system in
which trees are cut in groups occupying less
han 1-1/2 acres, and regulation is by volume
ather than area.
5.
Extended Rotation with Commercial
Thinning--takes advantage of the capacity of
thinned Douglas-fir to maintain high growth
rates for extended periods. It defers regeneration
harvest which would eventually be accomplished
with any of the above systems.
6.
Unthinned Control
Individual trees or small areas are reserved in all
treatments to meet specific requirements for wildlife,
wetland, and riparian areas as defined in the DNR’s
habitat conservation plan. Regeneration will be primarily
planted Douglas-fir, with some supplementary natural
regeneration.