Chemical Spraying

[Dukeoflawnchair]

Many thanks @slowjo!

I’m pleased to see that you are someone who is able to listen to a different perspective and alter your opinion. The cognitive dissonance is strong with many in the internet.

in the end, it’s usually not the silviculture company themselves, but the forestry company who chooses what to allocate for resources and what to prescribe for treatment. I am pleased to see that many are turning around. We’re even adding sheep grazing .

[happyhunter]

Many thanks @slowjo!

I’m pleased to see that you are someone who is able to listen to a different perspective and alter your opinion. The cognitive dissonance is strong with many in the internet.

in the end, it’s usually not the silviculture company themselves, but the forestry company who chooses what to allocate for resources and what to prescribe for treatment. I am pleased to see that many are turning around. We’re even adding sheep grazing .

Ive heard sheep don’t work well for brush control but goats work very well. Why use sheep?

[Dukeoflawnchair]

@happyhunter, the sheep VS goats equation comes down to what species composition of vegetation you want to feed them. I'm not as familiar with goats being utilized myself, though appreciate that they are known to have a heartier constitution. For Sheep, there is an order of palatability that they are able to comfortably browse before they find themselves eating crop seedlings (I have a handy chart).

They have a preference for Fireweed, fresh Calamagrostis (they shy away once it gets thick and gross), and rose species, which we tend to have in abundance up here. They have a disliking for Salal, Thimbleberry, Thistles, Trailing Raspberry, Salmonberry, etc - which are easy to avoid around here. Trapper's tea, Lab tea, Baneberry, Lupine, Snowberry, and Rhododendron species are poisonous for them.

As for why use sheep - it will work with what we have up here (in specifically prescribed cases) and we want to support local community food security initiatives where we can.

[happyhunter]

Interesting. Goats have been used for Invasives around these parts but nobody at the moment is using sheep or goats for silviculture treatments, as far as I know so far. Sounds like your on the cutting edge out there.

FYI I Have heard that goats can actually eat toxic plants in small quantities, and they can regulate the amounts themselves

[MattB]

I would like to suggest that many people have a misguided understanding of modern forest practices. A lot has changed the past 10 years, let alone the past 30 years. For the record, silviculture practices no longer leave barren conifer monocultures - I know that the “old boys” would spray once for site prep, once for establishment, and a final administrative treatment or two for good measure, but nowadays, “pure” conifer stands usually include 10+% deciduous composition, let alone mixedwood declarations.

I’ve officially been managing reforestation for over a decade now, and not just on the ground planting trees or leading crews. As a Silviculture Forester, (RPF with Masters degree), I’m the one who’s been prescribing what treatments our cutblocks get - including the budgets, signing and stamping of declarations, and meeting the legal objectives and sustainability certification standards as required. For the operations that I manage, we will be using somewhere around 15% of the aerial herbicide this summer that we would have used a decade ago. I’ve been aggressively pioneering mixedwood stand management (actually) and I imagine most of you would be floored by how much more money I’ve been allowed to spend to do things “right” as opposed to doing things cheap. I think you’d all also be surprised by how biodiversity is being maintained these days under proper management.

Harvest The Land, I would like to suggest that your proposal of prescribed burning would be detrimental to establishment in many, many circumstances. If you’re up north hunting one of these years, I’d be happy to show you what reforestation of fire salvage blocks look like. In a nutshell, 2+0 512’s don’t have a chance in hell and no amount of manual brushing would help. While I am most certainly familiar with nutrient release and serotinous cones, I think you’ll find that the herbaceous layers (calamagrostis, fireweed in some cases, etc) would capture these nutrients first and strangle out planted seedlings far quicker than natural regen would benefit in regions like mine. This creates circumstances where herbicide is the only way to get seedlings started.

In the end, herbicides used correctly are fantastic at what they’re supposed to do. There are many circumstances where there are no other options. I think instead of fire bombing the industry as a whole for what misconceptions many have, I would instead suggest that you find the companies who rely exclusively on herbicide for brushing practices, in lieu of companies who utilize herbicide judiciously as a component of a truly integrated pest management strategy.

If if anyone would like to know more or to see how biodiversity is maintained and can find their way up this direction, I’d be happy to show you what I mean.

Happy Thursday,

Good post. Realistically the issue at hand currently is stocking standards and the requirements of a free growing tree. If we can come to a consensus on an acceptable height to diameter ratio for conifer species when overtopped with deciduous competition then that would go a long ways at mitigating any issues with herbicide or brushing use. When I see people blaming forest licensees for spraying or brushing a block it makes me shake my head - lets target the real problem and come to a solution that will fix it (i.e. stocking standards and free growing conifer requirements).

[Huntingtyler123]

You ever hear of steel studs bro? Welcome to 2019, where 85% of lumber in homes has been replaced by recycled steel studs. If it ain’t a window or a door way why would you ever use lumber? You like things that are heavier, more expensive and catch fire?

Not true at alllllllllllll not sure where you get that info. Framed houses for 8 years and now build sets for the movies for 5 year now. All homes, houses , apartments are wood framed. Only thing different now but not new is wide open concept rooms, no partition walls. Tons of steel beams throughout. Commercial buildings would be more steel studs

[MattW]

I would like to suggest that many people have a misguided understanding of modern forest practices. A lot has changed the past 10 years, let alone the past 30 years. For the record, silviculture practices no longer leave barren conifer monocultures - I know that the “old boys” would spray once for site prep, once for establishment, and a final administrative treatment or two for good measure, but nowadays, “pure” conifer stands usually include 10+% deciduous composition, let alone mixedwood declarations.

I’ve officially been managing reforestation for over a decade now, and not just on the ground planting trees or leading crews. As a Silviculture Forester, (RPF with Masters degree), I’m the one who’s been prescribing what treatments our cutblocks get - including the budgets, signing and stamping of declarations, and meeting the legal objectives and sustainability certification standards as required. For the operations that I manage, we will be using somewhere around 15% of the aerial herbicide this summer that we would have used a decade ago. I’ve been aggressively pioneering mixedwood stand management (actually) and I imagine most of you would be floored by how much more money I’ve been allowed to spend to do things “right” as opposed to doing things cheap. I think you’d all also be surprised by how biodiversity is being maintained these days under proper management.

Harvest The Land, I would like to suggest that your proposal of prescribed burning would be detrimental to establishment in many, many circumstances. If you’re up north hunting one of these years, I’d be happy to show you what reforestation of fire salvage blocks look like. In a nutshell, 2+0 512’s don’t have a chance in hell and no amount of manual brushing would help. While I am most certainly familiar with nutrient release and serotinous cones, I think you’ll find that the herbaceous layers (calamagrostis, fireweed in some cases, etc) would capture these nutrients first and strangle out planted seedlings far quicker than natural regen would benefit in regions like mine. This creates circumstances where herbicide is the only way to get seedlings started.

In the end, herbicides used correctly are fantastic at what they’re supposed to do. There are many circumstances where there are no other options. I think instead of fire bombing the industry as a whole for what misconceptions many have, I would instead suggest that you find the companies who rely exclusively on herbicide for brushing practices, in lieu of companies who utilize herbicide judiciously as a component of a truly integrated pest management strategy.

If if anyone would like to know more or to see how biodiversity is maintained and can find their way up this direction, I’d be happy to show you what I mean.

Happy Thursday,

Great post.
A thought I've had is this...given that past practices actually used more potent (or broader spectrum) herbicides with less regulations on timing and frequency of use and the consensus seems to be that we also were enjoying healthier moose populations, maybe this spraying is not the biggest problem we have going on.

[Dukeoflawnchair]

@MattB, I hear you there. The "Free From Brush" requirements, in my opinion, are fairly antiquated from when timber values were the only values being managed. Don't get me wrong - I absolutely appreciate the importance of maintaining a sustainable fiber supply (it pays my mortgage), but it's safe to say that absolutely everyone nowadays appreciates that myriad of other values provided by crown forest land.

I'm fortunate to be operating in a region where we have landscape level management tools and conifer, mixedwood, and deciduous reforestation standards. This provides a ton of flexibility that I am advocating for being applied province wide. Our free growing standards are being met and our best modeling suggests that our Predicted Merchantible Volume is usually head and shoulders above the Target Merchantible Volume from our landscape populations.

@MattW, I agree - there is a lot to it. It's safe to say that it's a multivariable equation.

Some researchers such as Lautenschlager out of Ontario have found that a brushing treatment further increases moose browse over time because of accessible vegetation heights being reset partway through:

Untitled by MattD, on Flickr

(from Effects of Conifer Release with Herbicides on Wildlife, by R.A. Lautenschlager)

...though I would argue that wholesale broadcast application of herbicides would badly impact browse availability for localized moose populations. Temporarily, but temporary during a low winter forage season still leads to mortality.

It is undisputable that some form of cumulative impacts of our land use is impacting moose populations negatively in many areas. I know that wolf and hunter access has been paraded as a major contributor, but it is something that industry (Forestry, Oil and Gas, etc) are striving to improve on.

[MattW]

@MattB, I hear you there. The "Free From Brush" requirements, in my opinion, are fairly antiquated from when timber values were the only values being managed. Don't get me wrong - I absolutely appreciate the importance of maintaining a sustainable fiber supply (it pays my mortgage), but it's safe to say that absolutely everyone nowadays appreciates that myriad of other values provided by crown forest land.

I'm fortunate to be operating in a region where we have landscape level management tools and conifer, mixedwood, and deciduous reforestation standards. This provides a ton of flexibility that I am advocating for being applied province wide. Our free growing standards are being met and our best modeling suggests that our Predicted Merchantible Volume is usually head and shoulders above the Target Merchantible Volume from our landscape populations.

@MattW, I agree - there is a lot to it. It's safe to say that it's a multivariable equation.

Some researchers such as Lautenschlager out of Ontario have found that a brushing treatment further increases moose browse over time because of accessible vegetation heights being reset partway through:

Untitled by MattD, on Flickr

(from Effects of Conifer Release with Herbicides on Wildlife, by R.A. Lautenschlager)

...though I would argue that wholesale broadcast application of herbicides would badly impact browse availability for localized moose populations. Temporarily, but temporary during a low winter forage season still leads to mortality.

It is undisputable that some form of cumulative impacts of our land use is impacting moose populations negatively in many areas. I know that wolf and hunter access has been paraded as a major contributor, but it is something that industry (Forestry, Oil and Gas, etc) are striving to improve on.

Thanks for that info. That's interesting and something I wouldn't have thought of.

[adriaticum]

I would like to suggest that many people have a misguided understanding of modern forest practices. A lot has changed the past 10 years, let alone the past 30 years. For the record, silviculture practices no longer leave barren conifer monocultures - I know that the “old boys” would spray once for site prep, once for establishment, and a final administrative treatment or two for good measure, but nowadays, “pure” conifer stands usually include 10+% deciduous composition, let alone mixedwood declarations.

I’ve officially been managing reforestation for over a decade now, and not just on the ground planting trees or leading crews. As a Silviculture Forester, (RPF with Masters degree), I’m the one who’s been prescribing what treatments our cutblocks get - including the budgets, signing and stamping of declarations, and meeting the legal objectives and sustainability certification standards as required. For the operations that I manage, we will be using somewhere around 15% of the aerial herbicide this summer that we would have used a decade ago. I’ve been aggressively pioneering mixedwood stand management (actually) and I imagine most of you would be floored by how much more money I’ve been allowed to spend to do things “right” as opposed to doing things cheap. I think you’d all also be surprised by how biodiversity is being maintained these days under proper management.

Harvest The Land, I would like to suggest that your proposal of prescribed burning would be detrimental to establishment in many, many circumstances. If you’re up north hunting one of these years, I’d be happy to show you what reforestation of fire salvage blocks look like. In a nutshell, 2+0 512’s don’t have a chance in hell and no amount of manual brushing would help. While I am most certainly familiar with nutrient release and serotinous cones, I think you’ll find that the herbaceous layers (calamagrostis, fireweed in some cases, etc) would capture these nutrients first and strangle out planted seedlings far quicker than natural regen would benefit in regions like mine. This creates circumstances where herbicide is the only way to get seedlings started.

In the end, herbicides used correctly are fantastic at what they’re supposed to do. There are many circumstances where there are no other options. I think instead of fire bombing the industry as a whole for what misconceptions many have, I would instead suggest that you find the companies who rely exclusively on herbicide for brushing practices, in lieu of companies who utilize herbicide judiciously as a component of a truly integrated pest management strategy.

If if anyone would like to know more or to see how biodiversity is maintained and can find their way up this direction, I’d be happy to show you what I mean.

Happy Thursday,

If what you say is true, it will take many decades before forests have a natural mix of trees again.
I am still seeing whole mountain tops leveled and everything replanted with pine where I hunt in regions 3 and 8.
Now this may be also because I hunt in heavily pine beetled areas so maybe they are just ripping every out so the forest recovers.