In forestry and silviculture, a sanitation harvest or sanitation cutting is a harvest of trees for the purpose of removing insects or diseases from a stand of trees. [1] Sanitation harvesting is used to prevent the diseases or pests from spreading to other nearby trees. [2] It is a form of intermediate management and is used in order to improve an already existing stand of trees. [3]
Forestry is the science and craft of creating, managing, planting, using, conserving and repairing forests, woodlands, and associated resources for human and environmental benefits. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands. The science of forestry has elements that belong to the biological, physical, social, political and managerial sciences.
Logging is the process of cutting, processing, and moving trees to a location for transport. It may include skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks or skeleton cars.
Coppicing is a traditional method of woodland management which exploits the capacity of many species of trees to put out new shoots from their stump or roots if cut down. In a coppiced wood, which is called a copse, young tree stems are repeatedly cut down to near ground level, resulting in a stool. New growth emerges, and after a number of years, the coppiced tree is harvested, and the cycle begins anew. Pollarding is a similar process carried out at a higher level on the tree in order to prevent grazing animals from eating new shoots. Daisugi, is a similar Japanese technique.
Thinning is a term used in agricultural sciences to mean the removal of some plants, or parts of plants, to make room for the growth of others. Selective removal of parts of a plant such as branches, buds, or roots is typically known as pruning.
Silviculture is the practice of controlling the growth, composition/structure, and quality of forests to meet values and needs, specifically timber production.
Clearcutting, clearfelling or clearcut logging is a forestry/logging practice in which most or all trees in an area are uniformly cut down. Along with shelterwood and seed tree harvests, it is used by foresters to create certain types of forest ecosystems and to promote select species that require an abundance of sunlight or grow in large, even-age stands. Logging companies and forest-worker unions in some countries support the practice for scientific, safety and economic reasons, while detractors consider it a form of deforestation that destroys natural habitats and contributes to climate change.
In forestry, fishing and mining, high grading refers to the selective harvesting of goods to keep only the most valuable items. The term is frequently associated with fraud, especially in mining.
This article is the index of forestry topics.
Forest integrated pest management or Forest IPM is the practice of monitoring and managing pest and environmental information with pest control methods to prevent pest damage to forests and forest habitats by the most economical means. Forest IPM practices vary from region to region and particularly by state, according to the habitat and forests present. Forest integrated pest management or Forest IPM combines cultural, biological and chemical technologies to reduce pest damage to levels below those that of economic damage. Forest IPM is utilized for the whole life of the tree, from site prep to harvest. An IPM treatment is utilized before the cost of the treatment is equal to the reduction in crop value due to past injury, which is called the economic injury level. Forest integrated pest management has a strong emphasis on intensive forest management.
Selection cutting, also known as selection system, is the silvicultural practice of harvesting trees in a way that moves a forest stand towards an uneven-aged or all-aged condition, or 'structure'. Using stocking models derived from the study of old growth forests, selection cutting, also known as 'selection system', or 'selection silviculture', manages the establishment, continued growth and final harvest of multiple age classes of trees within a stand. A closely related approach to forest management is Continuous Cover Forestry (CCF), which makes use of selection systems to achieve a permanently irregular stand structure.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and guide to forestry:
Variable retention is a relatively new silvicultural system that retains forest structural elements for at least one rotation in order to preserve environmental values associated with structurally complex forests.
Shelterwood cutting refers to the progression of forest cuttings leading to the establishment of a new generation of seedlings of a particular species or group of species without planting. This silvicultural system is normally implemented in forests that are considered mature, often after several thinnings. The desired species are usually long-lived and their seedlings would naturally tend to start under partial shade. The shelterwood system gives enough light for the desired species to establish without giving enough light for the weeds that are adapted to full sun. Once the desired species is established, subsequent cuttings give the new seedlings more light and the growing space is fully passed to the new generation.
Even-aged timber management is a group of forest management practices employed to achieve a nearly coeval cohort group of forest trees. The practice of even-aged management is often pursued to minimize costs to loggers. In some cases, the practices of even aged timber management are frequently implicated in biodiversity loss and other ecological damage. Even-aged timber management can also be beneficial to restoring natural native species succession.
When logging began in British Columbia, Canada, in the late 19th century, the overriding concern was to harvest timber in the most economical fashion. Reforestation, aesthetics and protection of fish and wildlife habitat were not issues of great concern.
Forest pathology is the research of both biotic and abiotic maladies affecting the health of a forest ecosystem, primarily fungal pathogens and their insect vectors. It is a subfield of forestry and plant pathology.
A forest stand is a contiguous community of trees sufficiently uniform in composition, structure, age, size, class, distribution, spatial arrangement, site quality, condition, or location to distinguish it from adjacent communities.
The deforestation in British Columbia has occurred at a heavy rate during periods of the past, but with new sustainable efforts and programs the rate of deforestation is decreasing in the province. In British Columbia, forests cover over 55 million hectares, which is 57.9% of British Columbia's 95 million hectares of land. The forests are mainly composed of coniferous trees, such as pines, spruces and firs.
Continuous cover forestry is an approach to the sustainable management of forests whereby forest stands are maintained in a permanently irregular structure, which is created and sustained through the selection and harvesting of individual trees. The term "continuous cover forestry" does not equate exactly to any one particular silvicultural system, but is typified by selection systems. For example coppice with standards and Reiniger's Target diameter harvesting are also continuous cover forestry. Different existing forest stands may require different silvicultural interventions to achieve a continuously productive irregular structure.
A tree plantation, forest plantation, plantation forest or timber plantation is a forest planted for high volume production of wood, usually by planting one type of tree as a monoculture forest.