Silviculture Of Ponderosa Pine In The Pacific Northwest

Research interest in the forests of Oregon and Washington east of the Cascade Range can be traced back to 1897, when Fredrick V. Coville of the Division of Forestry, U.S. Department of Agriculture, reconnoitered the Cascade Range Forest Reserve to report on forest growth and sheep grazing there in an 1898 report. Subsequent forest survey in the late 1890s and early 1900s was stimulated by anticipation of the timber boom that would follow arrival of a railroad. In 1908, Gifford Pinchot's new Forest Service sent young Thornton Taft Munger to study the encroachment of lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta Dougl. ex Loud.) on the more valuable ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Dougl. ex Laws.) stands. By the end of the year, Munger was in charge of the North Pacific District's one-man Section of Silvics, which evolved to become the Pacific Northwest Forest Experiment Station in 1924 with him at the helm. The forest research effort east of the Cascade Range picked up speed with establishment in 1931 of the Pringle Falls Experimental Forest to research the ecologically and economically viable silvicultural systems that would convert the stagnant old-growth forests into more-productive secondgrowth forests. During the ensuing six and one-half decades, a small group of Forest Service researchers and their university counterparts working at the experimental forest and, beginning in 1963, the Bend Silviculture Laboratory, pioneered and pursued the practical silvicultural research that both led and responded to the evolution of their science.

In August 20-23, 2004, a conference was held in Kamilche, WA, with the title S2Productivity of Western Forests: A Forest Products Focus. S3 The meeting brought together researchers and practitioners interested in discussing the economic and biological factors influencing wood production and value. One of the underlying assumptions of the meeting organizers was that management activities would be practiced within a framework of sustaining or improving site productivity; thus, several papers deal with methods to protect or improve productivity or discuss new studies designed to test the effects of various practices. This proceedings includes 11 papers based on oral presentations at the conference, 3 papers based on posters and 2 papers describing the Fall River and Matlock Long-Term Site Productivity study areas visited on the field tours. The papers cover subjects on forest harvesting activities, stand establishment, silviculture, site productivity, remote sensing, and wood product technologies.

Forest residues often require treatment to meet land management objectives. Guideline statements for managing forest residues are presented to provide direction for achieving these objectives. The latest research information and the best knowledge of experts in various land management disciplines were used to formulate these statements. A unique keying system is provided for determining which guidelines apply to a particular management activity, for a given site in a given location, and within a given forest species association type.