Silvicultural Treatment Opportunities 



The DSL, Forestry Division, developed a procedure to analyze data record- 

 ed on the field location that would place the sampled stand into one of 

 several categories. Each of these categories represented a set of silvicul- 

 tural treatment opportunities. As a result of this analysis it was determined 

 that 60 percent of the commercial timberland offered silvicultural treatment 

 opportunities to improve the forest's condition and ultimately increase timber 

 yields. An estimated 5'fO,200 acres, or i*S percent of the commercial softwood 

 timberland, were placed into categories that imply silvicultural treatment 

 opportunities other than harvest are available. When silvicultural treatment 

 opportunity by timberland quality class was investigated it was discovered 

 that the leading individual treatment opportunities existing on excellent and 

 good timberlands were: harvest - low risk (90,900 acres), overstory removal 

 (85,800 acres), precommerci al thinning (73,100 acres), harvest - high risk 

 (72,200 acres), and no treatment due to productive condition (65,900 acres). 



The Forestry Division has developed a procedure for using using forest 

 inventory data to assess silvicultural treatment opportunities. As a part of 

 this procedure, 12 treatment opportunity categories were selected, each 

 representing a group of stands with similar characteristics. Each category 

 was given a treatment code number and a treatment name, such as "20 - Pre- 

 commercial thinning." 



Despite its appearance, a treatment name does not prescribe a treatment 

 — it is merely a label for a group of stands that exhibit common characteris- 

 tics. These characteristics differentiate one group of stands from another. 

 Although these labels have a silvicultural basis, the limited amount of stand 

 data used to derive these categories restricts the use of the process to plan- 

 ning. 



To some degree, the treatment names used here reflect the forest man- 

 agement policies of the Forestry Division since different stand conditions and 

 forestry goals demand different management techniques. Other forest manag- 

 ers might apply different names to these categories, or possibly combine two 

 or more of them under a single heading, depending on their management 

 objectives. 



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