Present Status of Forest Research in Alaska 



Fires burn an average of a million acres each year in the Interior of 

 Alaska, Bureau of Land Management foresters are gradually decreasing this 

 loss but fire research is needed to help their efforts. A selling job is 

 in order in the Interior to convince Alaskans that there is a resource 

 worth protecting and that fire will not improve the present stands. The 

 average citizen does not realize that much of the best timber is not 

 visible from highways or railroads, as fire has burned and reburned these 

 belts • 



Insects and disease cause at least as much loss of timber as fires, but 

 less can be done about it, A forest entomologist at the Research Center 

 makes yearly surveys to locate possible epidemics of forest insects in the 

 Interior as well as in Southeast Alaska, He determines the extent of 

 damage and whether control measiires are practical. He studies these insects 

 as best he can on funds available. 



Several short trips have been made over the Interior by stateside forest 

 pathologists to get a general idea of diseases present. More detailed 

 surveys and some studies have been made in Southeast Alaska so that at 

 present we have some rough g\n.des for defect allowances on forest inventory 

 work. At present no forest pathology research or surveys are being con- 

 ducted. With full utilization of some 70 billion feet of timber on the 

 Tongass National Forest approaching, the services of a forest pathologist 

 will be urgently needed. 



Forest management studies have been undec way in Southeast Alaska since 

 1948, although on a modest scale considering the value of the resource and 

 the planned investment in pulp mills, Resiilts of research from similar 

 forest types in the states could not be applied. Too many conditions were 

 jiost different enough to call for a great deal of checking and much entirely 

 new research. It is predicted that the Interior will also be too \mique 

 for application of research results elsewhere. To be sure, the white birch 

 and white spruce of the Interior also occur in Canada, the Lake States, and 

 further east, but here we have 20-hour days during the growing season and 

 permafrost over much of the area. The probability of winter logging which 

 does not disturb the seed bed makes regeneration difficult. 



The study of the effect of fire on vegetation, now being published as a 

 government bulletin, gdve some indications of growth rates in the Interior 

 which are as good, in general, as growth rates in similar forest types in 

 southern Ontario and northern Maine, However, there are no adeqixate volume 

 tables for cruising, or growth and yield tables to determine potential 

 growth and length of rotation. It is quite probable that growth rates 

 could be much improved if we knew more about the effects of the important 

 site factors. 



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