How quickly are we re-growing timber?

[Plasmech]

First, a disclaimer: I am NOT a liberal, not an environmentalist douche bag...I'm pro gun, anti big city, anti welfare...you get the idea.

So how fast are we re-growing the timber that Paul Nosak is dropping on people's cars and the Ax Men are trucking out to the mills? I've always wondered this. Are the logging companies regulated in some way so that growth equals or excedes cutting? When they bulldoze those roads in there, do they clean them up when they are done and plant saplings?

How many years does it take to grow a fir for example that is ripe for logging?

Again, please don't flame me for being a tree hugger or a whale saver, I am not!

 

[ATH]

Nationally, we are growing MUCH more than we are harvesting.

If you want to read more, the US Forest Service has a program called Forest Inventory Analysis (or FIA).

Your specific questions:
In general, logging companies are not regulated as to how much they can harvest unless they are working on public land.

Generally, when a road is put in, the road is intended to offer permanent access so it is not replanted. Otherwise, it depends on the forest owner's goals. For short rotation softwood clearcuts, yes, they are replanted.

Growth cycle depends on where you are and what is being grown. In the Southeast, there are pine plantations that are being harvested for pulp at 7 years with final harvest (clearcut) at 20-25 years of age.

 

[joesawer]

Right now we are regrowing much more timber than we are harvesting. The current harvest levels are probably as low as they have been since the very earliest pioneers started harvesting timber.
The Sustainable Harvest Plans in this country came about over 100 years ago. Believe it or not loggers, and saw millers don't want the timber to go away. Just like a rancher does not want all of his cows gone. Google sustainable harvest and Biltmore.
Many states have a severance tax on every log that is cut to help fund reforestation.
I took a forestry history course at Auburn and according to it the forests of the western hemisphere have changed drasticly in recorded history.
Most of the "virgin rain forest" in the Amazon Basin was cleared and under aggriculture when the first European explorers saw it.
The first to record the Eastern N. America said that a wagon could be drivin from the coast to the Ohio river without ever having to get off to cut a tree or move a log.
There where American Bison in Florida at one time, but by the time Andrew Jackson made it to the SE for the Indian wars, the under growth and vegitation was so thick as to be almost impassable.
Many sources claim that there is more standing timber now than when Colombus landed. I know that there is way more now than before WWll.

 

[moss]

If you look at current old-growth vs. historical old-growth distribution in North America it is a fraction of what it was. More so east of the Great Plains it is a miniscule fraction of what it was pre-colonial.

The reason you could drive a wagon from the Ohio River to the east coast in early colonial times is because the forest floor is quite open under hardwood old-growth. Native Americans did quite a bit of forestry/land management thru intentional burns. This was primarily to open garden space, create better feed habitat for deer and other game, and to create better habitat for fruit bearing shrubs and small trees, like blueberries etc. Pre-colonial populations were not large enough to create large areas of "permanent" deforestation or to put old-growth into a small subset of the overall forest.

Pre-colonial eastern bison were adapted to the existing habitat. They did not range in large herds like the prairie bison. It's similar to forest and savannah African Elephants, same animal adapted to different topography and habitat. Colonial era changes to eastern habitat and over-hunting wiped them out much more quickly then the larger prairie herds.

Loblolly Pine harvested in the South for pulp at 7 years shouldn't be considered as coming from a regrown "forest". I'd call it a farm crop. I was just in South Carolina and saw a truck going by loaded up with that stuff, calling that harvest trees is a stretch.

Recreating a diverse mature forest can't be done simply by planting zillions of single species seedlings following a large clearcut. Just go look around Washington or Oregon at secondary (or third) growth in former clearcuts, it ain't pretty. It may be someday, not in our lifetimes.

There is way more standing timber in the east then there was in the late 1800's by which time most of the eastern forest that could be cut using the "technology" of the time had been harvested and the land converted to farming. The question is what is the quality of current standing second and third growth timber compared to pre-colonial old-growth stands.

It is true that plenty of the Amazon forest was probably cut before Europeans got there. It was done in a rotating patchwork manner, likely that in ten thousand years of human occupation there was never more than a very small percentage of the total forest cleared at any one time. There is no comparison to the current rate of deforestation going on there in the last 25 years.
-moss

 

[joesawer]

Moss slow your roll and check your facts.
First the OP did not mention old growth. Read his question one more time.
The Amazon population was huge and there where sustained long term agg in large sections of it.
The eastern North American population was devastated and reduced to about 10% of its numbers in the 14th century. At one time they cleared and maintained large sections of land for agg. The biggest reason for the change in forest types was that after the population collapse the forest was not regularly burned in order to remove the undergrowth.
An African Elephant is an African elephant no matter where he lives. The Southeast was much different 400 years before Jackson.
I have no argument that pine plantations are not natural old growth forest. But they are sustainable and they are beautiful, and they take a lot of pressure off of natural forest.
The normal rotation on loblolly pine is not 7 years. First cuttings usually start around seventeen years. The only reason for cutting it at 7 years would be to cull it and restart a new crop. Many acres are clear cut and replanted at around 25 years because the growth rate starts to slow down and producers are looking for volume per year returns.

 

[windthrown]

In the context of the OP, regarding the PNW logging on the show AxMen...

From my conversations with the forestry planner that prescribed our 85 acre forest plan, the PNW is growing far more trees now than were here when David Douglas was stomping around here in the 19th century (before the first lumber cutting). Modern planting and clear cutting is intensive, and it puts a huge amount of biomass on the soil, and it grows far faster than it would under normal 'old growth' circumstances, or compared to continually thinning or 'select cut' harvesting. Clear cutting is the main type of harvesting, and what they are doing on the show.

The first year that the show was filmed mainly around the area of the Tillimook State Forests. That area completely burned up through the 1940s and 1950s. No one wanted it. So the state took it over and planned a clear-cut harvesting methodology that is being used there today. One or two of the first year epsodes showed one of the logging company owners cruising a stand that was planted in wrong-type doug firs after the Tillimook fires. They found that seeds planted from doug firs from other areas were not nearly as fast growing or as healthy as trees planted from seeds harvested from cones growing in the same area and at the same elevation that they are planted in. The coast range and west slope of the Cascades are planted in far more trees now than they had any time before, and with the fastest growing local types.

Now, for the great plains forests or the north east forests, I cannot say. Overall though the forester said that the current US tree stands growing is way more now nationally than it was about 100 years ago, comparing 2000 to 1900. So along with urban and suburban sprawl, we have added forest sprawl.

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

In Michigan we grow roughly twice what we harvest.

This is the trend all across the US, because more intensive forest management scenarios have made the forests more productive. Toss in market conditions, recycling, forest conservation and new building materials and its easy to see how we are growing more than we are cutting.

 

[moss]

Moss slow your roll and check your facts.
First the OP did not mention old growth.

I understand the thread is about timber growth rates. I mentioned old-growth in response to your comment about rolling a wagon through the eastern forest, an open understory is a typical characteristic of old-growth hardwood forest. I think you're over-selling the effects of Native American fire management on the eastern forest, it was just part of the picture. Same for the Amazon, you're talking theory not proven for massive simultaneous development of the Amazon in pre-colonial times. The timber growth rates are so rapid in the Amazon that it's not very useful for discussing temperate zone forest regeneration.
-moss

 

[S Mc]

This is a subject I have been trying to research for a class I am taking. The problem I keep running into is where the "facts" are coming from. All the forestry information has us "looking good" and others may have a different opinion.

There is a book Wild Foresting in which is illustrated a managed forest in Canada which has been in existance for 168 years. Some interesting facts: The annual growth increment is approximately 80,000 bd ft; it has been logged 168 times, once a year since 1840; approximately 7.5 million board ft of timber have been harvested; the standing merchantable timber volume is about two million board feet. They state that if this 100-acre lot had been clear-cut in 1840 and again in 1890, 1940 and 1990, the total harvest would have been, at most 5.5 mil board ft, and the quality of the second, third and fourth harvests would have been much lower than the wood harvested by the annual selection methods. Of course, there would be no standing merchantable timber today. They then state "You can do the math."

It has been said by more knowledgeable folk than I that clearing cutting here in the Bitterroot (Montana) does not work. We simply do not have the precipitation for regrowth. This certainly seems to be the case in that years after these methods, hillsides are still struggling to reforest and visible.

I always try to remember when someone makes a comment about what it was like "back then"...our frame of reference is simply not up to the task of translating a comment like that accurately. I believe Moss has a definite point in the old growth appearance allowing a wagon to go from the east coast to the Ohio river without "ever having to get off to cut a tree or move a log". The east coast was a dense forest precolonial times, at least according to what I have read. The prairies of the midwest, did not have many trees at all and so of course, the shelter belts that people have planted have made a significant impact in "forested acreage".

One of the statistics that I have wondered about is are they reporting "forested land" being on the increase when all you need for an acre to be classified as "forest" is 10% treed. Therefore, 100 acres of minimal qualification could sound better than 20 acres of maximum; whereas the tree count with 20 acres would be far greater. (Have I lost everyone yet?)

A tree plantation may be a good manner in which to produce a product; but has a price all its own. Trees harvested prior to maturity never reach their full potential as carbon sequesters; and their management and harvesting methods are more closely related to agriculture than forest ecosystems. Therefore, even though they would classify as "forested" land and sound "ecologically friendly", are they truly?

Sustainability is more than are we producing as much or more than we are consuming. You have to look at the whole picture, not just part of it; cost of production and long term consequences are integral to the equation.

Sylvia

 

[HS Climber]

Well everything depends on whos land your on. is it state, private or federal there all going to be different.

 

[Plasmech]

This is a subject I have been trying to research for a class I am taking. The problem I keep running into is where the "facts" are coming from. All the forestry information has us "looking good" and others may have a different opinion.

There is a book Wild Foresting in which is illustrated a managed forest in Canada which has been in existance for 168 years. Some interesting facts: The annual growth increment is approximately 80,000 bd ft; it has been logged 168 times, once a year since 1840; approximately 7.5 million board ft of timber have been harvested; the standing merchantable timber volume is about two million board feet. They state that if this 100-acre lot had been clear-cut in 1840 and again in 1890, 1940 and 1990, the total harvest would have been, at most 5.5 mil board ft, and the quality of the second, third and fourth harvests would have been much lower than the wood harvested by the annual selection methods. Of course, there would be no standing merchantable timber today. They then state "You can do the math."

It has been said by more knowledgeable folk than I that clearing cutting here in the Bitterroot (Montana) does not work. We simply do not have the precipitation for regrowth. This certainly seems to be the case in that years after these methods, hillsides are still struggling to reforest and visible.

I always try to remember when someone makes a comment about what it was like "back then"...our frame of reference is simply not up to the task of translating a comment like that accurately. I believe Moss has a definite point in the old growth appearance allowing a wagon to go from the east coast to the Ohio river without "ever having to get off to cut a tree or move a log". The east coast was a dense forest precolonial times, at least according to what I have read. The prairies of the midwest, did not have many trees at all and so of course, the shelter belts that people have planted have made a significant impact in "forested acreage".

One of the statistics that I have wondered about is are they reporting "forested land" being on the increase when all you need for an acre to be classified as "forest" is 10% treed. Therefore, 100 acres of minimal qualification could sound better than 20 acres of maximum; whereas the tree count with 20 acres would be far greater. (Have I lost everyone yet?)

A tree plantation may be a good manner in which to produce a product; but has a price all its own. Trees harvested prior to maturity never reach their full potential as carbon sequesters; and their management and harvesting methods are more closely related to agriculture than forest ecosystems. Therefore, even though they would classify as "forested" land and sound "ecologically friendly", are they truly?

Sustainability is more than are we producing as much or more than we are consuming. You have to look at the whole picture, not just part of it; cost of production and long term consequences are integral to the equation.

Sylvia

Good post man. You know the REAL "solution" (if we in fact need a solution, perhaps I pose the 'ol answer in search of a question yada yada yada) is to not build houses out of wood but to use composite material such as Trex. Of course that means oil...so what we need is a corn based composite wood.

Personally I like cutting the damn trees down, it's much more fun

 

[smokechase II]

Stand replacement fires and Stand replacement clear-cuts

"If you look at current old-growth vs. historical old-growth distribution in North America it is a fraction of what it was. More so east of the Great Plains it is a miniscule fraction of what it was pre-colonial."
........................
"Recreating a diverse mature forest can't be done simply by planting zillions of single species seedlings following a large clear-cut. Just go look around Washington or Oregon at secondary (or third) growth in former clear-cut’s, it ain't pretty. It may be someday, not in our lifetimes."

================

A couple thoughts.

Stand replacement fires aren't pretty either.
(Trivia: Western Washington and Western Oregon are one state - Eastern Oregon and Eastern Washington are a second state with regard to forests.)
I live in the forests of Eastern Oregon and Eastern Washington where we very seldom clear-cut but our forests look like hecck because of insect, disease and fire. Our best looking stands are ones that were thinned from below about 15 years ago and underburned deliberately about 5 years back.

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In the state of Western Washington and Western Oregon, where they clear cut some - not as much as 20 years ago. There is the argument that there is more old growth there now than several hundred years ago.
Reason: Fire suppression has saved more than logging has taken. The tree ring data shows huge stand replacement fires that wiped out stands on a regular basis. These large fires didn't happen every year. There might be 50 years between big fire seasons, but if those bad years took out enough that could be a larger rotation than we see today.

{Think of a climax forest as not one where the largest trees provide habitat for all gentle creatures, but a CROWN FIRE environment where everything living above ground is killed. We use the term moonscape.}

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Life is too complex for just one thread.

Let's look at the Bull Run watershed that provides water for Portland.
It is West side (Wet side). Big trees and pretty.
That is just an illusion.
It will burn fabulously. I can say that without hesitation. I cannot provide a date.
Our current management there is to do nothing and hope for the best.

We could harvest in horizontal rows there by helicopter - across slopes to break up crown fires. The rows could be replanted with hardwoods that don't support said crown fires - as we have learned over and over. Helicopter logging would be too expensive for right now but would avoid the evil of roads in a watershed.

Simply. Our failure to log and replant there in an intelligent manner is going to destroy that watershed for somebodies lifetime. Portlanders are going to be drinking black ash and I'll get to say I told you so.

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I didn't say going in there and clear cutting would be a good idea. Too much increased fire risk among other things.
(The Tillamook Burns mentioned earlier were all started by loggers.)

***************

Does anyone want to start and finish the what is old growth thing?

 

[BC WetCoast]

The term old growth requires an arbirtray definition. In BC, it varies by species. Most coastal species are 250 years.

The saying goes, forest management isn't rocket science, it's a lot more complicated. There are many demands on a forest some of which are mutually exclusive in the same patch of trees. Then you have to manage over the 'landscape'. Here are some things that foresters try to account for in developing a management plan:
- timber production - maximizing vs sustainable vs value
- recreation
- wildlife - those species that utilize a forest edge and those species that require a certain timber stand size or distance from an edge
- fish
- water quality
- jobs, mill requirements, market demands
- old growth

You have to find the tradeoffs and that's the challenge.

 

[Frank Boyer]

Replacement of 200-1000 year old trees takes a while. We have many redwood stumps that are 10-15' across. Much of the Santa Cruz mountains was clear cut around 100 years ago. The trees that grow up from the stumps form a round group often referred to as a Cathedral. There is a big difference between a managed pulp wood forest/farm and an old growth forest.

 

[Cedarkerf]

Recreating a diverse mature forest can't be done simply by planting zillions of single species seedlings following a large clearcut. Just go look around Washington or Oregon at secondary (or third) growth in former clearcuts, it ain't pretty. It may be someday, not in our lifetimes.
-moss

Actually the opposite is true a lot of the time. alders maples, and others will fill in areas of a replanted clear cut but as the forest matures the conifers will take over and crowd everything else out. Go walk thru some of the big old growth on the Olympic peninsula and all you will see under the canopy are some scraggly rhododendrons here and there some ferns and a lot of moss.

 

[windthrown]

I do not know about the Bull Run area burning. Or the Bull of the Woods. The snow pack is really heavy up there right now. So it is not likely to happen this year. If they do burn, there are examples of larger areas that had massive fire destruction and they have recovered completely. The Tillimook area had a series of huge fires from the late 40's though the early 60's. When I was a kid that area was a moon-scape fire-burned area that was easy to see from Highway 26. I go up there a lot to off-road, and I cannot see any evidence of the fires any more. That area has been transformed into a logging and recreation use area by the state. The lowly state. In my view, Oregon manages that area better than the national forest system does in the Cascades, or the BLM in places like Coos County where they allow massive scale clear cutting. They did a lot of clear cutting in the Tillimook area, as well as in the Trask and Smith River areas, and Elk Creek areas or the Sisters areas in the Umpqua and Rogue River areas up until last year. Oregon requires smaller area limits to slicking off trees though, and they require replanting shortly after cutting. In a lot of the more heavilly cut areas of the Coast Range, I cannot see how a major fire could sweep through any of those logged areas. There is too much variation in tree size and age. It is a patchwork of tree farms, and too many natural fire breaks. Not that fires will not stop happening there, quite the contrary. If we get a drought here in the PNW any time soon, a lot of areas will indeed go up in a lot of flames.

Lately though I have been reading about all the damage of the pine beetles, and all the stands of dead pines in the western states. Seems like thay are going to be ready to go up in smoke pretty fast. That seems to be a major fire hazard to me. Are they going to log those areas, or let the dead pines stand in place, like they did down around San Diego?

 

[HS Climber]

I live just east of 26. the tillamook fire was beacuse of alot of logging and drought. i think that now it just is to wet to have a big fire in the PNW. i am a firefight at a volunteer fire dept and we have had a few fires in the mountains but they dont burn hot enough to acutally take off we seem to always catch it.
In school we have been doing some research about the pine bark beetle. the pine bark beetle is so bad now because all our pine forest are all the same age which is not a good thing to have. you want your forest to be spread out all aged different. You cant really log it beacuse there is no market over there for it. and if you have the money you can take out the older trees because thats what the beetle likes older trees. and with a absence of fire there its even harder to control some of the forests you get alot of under brush and juniper trees invading. so its kinda a bad situation.

 

[BC WetCoast]

Lately though I have been reading about all the damage of the pine beetles, and all the stands of dead pines in the western states. Seems like thay are going to be ready to go up in smoke pretty fast. That seems to be a major fire hazard to me. Are they going to log those areas, or let the dead pines stand in place, like they did down around San Diego?

Lodgepole and jack pine requires fire to regerminate naturally. There is a a pitch on the cones that leaves them closed for years and require the heat from a fire to soften the pitch allowing the cone to open and the seeds to pop out.

So how did we end up with thousands of hectares of reasonably even-aged pine. By fires that happened 120- 160 years ago. What caused those fires? Probably lightening strikes in areas where there was some beetle killed wood.

In beetle killed stands, there are 3 stages, green attacked, red attacked and grey attacked. In the green and red attacked, the fire hazard is the greatest as there are still large amounts of fine material (needles) in the canopy. Once the tree reaches grey attacked, the amount of needles in the canopy is almost nil, and as the branches fall off the fire hazard reduces more. Tough to get a crown fire going in a stand of telephone poles.

 

[HS Climber]

Great point. but the only thing is, is that the cones need heat not fire. when a fire crowns it burns the branches, cones everything. so instead of the fire helping the pine trees reproduce and reseed itself it burns the seeds up. so when the fire is over with and years to come all it is brush and you have to replant your forests.
I was reading a little about the beetle and about 100 years ago there was an outbreak in pine bark beetles killing millions and millions of trees. just like what is going on now. so that is something that contributed to the even aged trees and by logging.

 

[BC WetCoast]

Great point. but the only thing is, is that the cones need heat not fire. when a fire crowns it burns the branches, cones everything. so instead of the fire helping the pine trees reproduce and reseed itself it burns the seeds up. so when the fire is over with and years to come all it is brush and you have to replant your forests.
I was reading a little about the beetle and about 100 years ago there was an outbreak in pine bark beetles killing millions and millions of trees. just like what is going on now. so that is something that contributed to the even aged trees and by logging.

You're right the cones need heat to melt the pitch, but there are often cones on the ground that wouldn't get burned in a fire. Also you have lower temperature ground fires.