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Long-term Soil Productivity
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Soil physical properties
Overview
Projects
Publications
Ministry Contact
Harvesting and soils
Overview
Sustainable forest management relies on defining and monitoring ecosystem
parameters to evaluate the response to practices such as access development and
harvesting. Soil-based parameters, and particularly soil physical properties, are
important in this regard because they underpin many important ecosystem
processes, are relatively resistant to change in natural systems, yet can be strongly
affected by forest management.
Our ongoing project features a comprehensive approach using both field and
laboratory investigations to explore new measures of soil physical conditions and
their effect on soil productivity and ecological sustainability on a variety of site types
in BC.
Our objectives are to
(a) identify soil physical conditions that are consistent with productive forest
growth on disturbed and undisturbed soils in a variety of ecosystems,
(b) develop and introduce management tools for the rapid evaluation of soil
physical conditions in BC’s forests, and
(c) describe, for a range of site and soil types in BC, a comprehensive picture of
physical factors affecting the growth of tree roots and its variation throughout
the growing season.
Projects
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Soil physical properties research supported by FIA.
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Maximum bulk density (1)

Maximum bulk density and relative bulk density (2).
Recent Publications
link to all physical properties publications
Zhao, Y.S., M. Krzic, C. Bulmer, M. Schmidt 2008. Maximum bulk density of British
Columbia forest soils from the Proctor test: relationships with selected physical and
chemical properties. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 72:442-452.
Blouin V., M. Schmidt, C. Bulmer and M. Krzic 2005. Effects of mechanical
disturbance on soil properties and lodgepole pine growth in British Columbia’s
Central Interior. Can. J. Soil Sci. 85:681-691.
Bulmer, C.E. and D. Simpson 2005. Soil compaction and moisture content as factors
affecting the growth of lodgepole pine seedlings on clay loam soil. Can. J. Soil
Sci.85:667-679.
Ministry Contact
Chuck Bulmer