Stand Management Prescription Guidebook

A stand management prescription is a document for describing actions to be carried out on a free-growing site to see that stand management activities are planned and implemented to maintain or enhance site productivity, to ensure that resource values are identified and taken into account, and to set out a series of stand management activities to produce a stand that meets the management objectives. This guide provides a logical sequence of steps on how to prepare and administer a stand management prescription in accordance with the Forest Practices Code of British Columbia. These steps include identification and collection of background information, setting of stand-level resource objectives, conducting fieldwork, preparation of the final prescription, production of the stand management prescription map, and administration.

Assists in the preparation and administration of SMPs that are required under the Forest Practices Code of British Columbia Act and the Operational Planning Regulation (OPR).

A silviculture prescription is a site-specific plan that describes the forest management objectives for an area. A prescription prescribes the method for harvesting the existing forest stand and a series of silviculture treatments that will be carried out to establish a free growing crop of trees in a manner that accommodates other resource values as identified. This document describes the contents of what silviculture prescription plans must contain in British Columbia to comply with the Forest Practices Code. It includes information on general requirements for the plan as well as specific requirements for tenure identification, management objectives, degree of consistency with other plans, ecological and resource information, forest health assessment and prescription, soil conservation, actions to accommodate forest resource values, silvicultural systems, harvesting, fire hazard abatement, silviculture treatments, stocking standards, and mapping.

This guide is a technical support document intended to help forestry practitioners collect the information they need to prepare a silvicultural treatment regime and silviculture prescription in accordance with British Columbia Forest Practices Code legislation. It deals primarily with the collection & stratification of site-specific field data. After information on office preparation, stratification, plot establishment, and mapping procedures, the guide presents data collection procedures for silviculture prescription field forms. Copies of forms are included in the appendix. The data cover such matters as site characteristics, understorey & overstorey, soils, riparian & watershed values, soil & fire hazards, silvicultural systems & objectives, harvesting, forest health, stand tending, and forest resource values.

Provides direction on how to prepare operational plans and prescriptions that require specification of limits for various types of soil disturbance during forestry operations.

This guidebook is intended to assist forestry practitioners in British Columbia to meet the requirements of the provincial Forest Practices Code with respect to spacing, or the cutting of undesirable trees within a young stand to reduce competition among the residual trees for water, nutrients, and sunlight. Chapters of the guidebook cover the regulations regarding spacing, the maximum density required by the silviculture prescription, biological criteria and operational considerations for including spacing in stand management prescriptions, fire protection, maintenance of stand-level biodiversity, considerations for post-treatment densities, manual and mechanized methods of spacing, selection of crop trees, monitoring, and reporting. The appendices include stand selection guidelines for use in stand management prescriptions.

The Forest Practices Code guidebooks help forest resource managers plan, prescribe and implement sound forest practices that comply with the Forest Practices Code. This guidebook assists forest managers in meeting the requirements of the Forest Practices Code with respect to the use of pruning to meet forest health, wildlife and high timber value objectives.

This guide is designed to provide a reference for identifying, detecting, assessing, and treating pine stem rusts in managed forest stands. The major rusts covered in the guide are western gall rust (Endocronartium harknessii), Comandra blister rust (Cronartium comandrae), stalactiform blister rust (C. coleosporoides), sweet fern blister rust (C. comptoniae), and white pine blister rust (C. ribicola). It gives keys to identification and information on rust behaviour and stand dynamics, rust management techniques and treatments, and criteria used for assessing individual trees in a free-growing survey of rust damage. The appendix contains a table indicating stem rust hazard and risk by British Columbia forest region and guidelines for pruning of white pine.