11/24/2021
Author: Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities
Forest Friday: Commercial Thinning Increases Growing Space, growing better trees into the future.
Commercial Thinning projects like the Missoula Field Office's Cow Saddle Terrace Stewardship are designed to increase the growing space and available resources for the trees remaining on site. With the increased space and available resources (sunlight, water and nutrients), the remaining trees will grow at a faster rate, gaining much more height and diameter than they would in an untreated condition. The emphasis on growing bigger trees into the future is not just good for a future timber supply, but also pushes the trajectory of the stand back to what would have likely existed there prior to modern human intervention: large diameter widely spaces trees. Without intervention it's unlikely a dense stand like this would ever achieve that goal.
The dramatic change in growing space can be hard to grasp when looking at a treated and untreated stand from the ground, but these drone images supplied by our operator really bring the home the point.
Photo Credit to Mikey Stoker , Hatt and Sons Logging.
Thanks for reading and have a great day! 😎🌲