MANAGEMENT PLAN
A good woodlot management plan will highlight the areas that should be treated and provide you with recommendations. These recommendations may relate to timber, ecological values or personal enjoyment and may be part of an overall forest management plan.
There are two options available for developing a management plan; the first simply involves walking through the woodlot with the owner visiting each stand and recommending a treatment for each; the second is a detailed written plan. If the woodlot is relatively small - say under 20 acres - a walk through plan will probably be sufficient. If the woodlot owner has a map and/or an aerial photo covering their property, the owner can request a walk thru from a forest professional and make notes for future reference.
Although it is possible to carry out forest management activities without a plan for the whole woodlot, it is always best to prepare a management plan before beginning any work. It is likely that most of the programs available will be involved. The written plan will include a description of each stand as well as a prescription to maximize the return from it.
PARTIAL HARVEST OPERATING PRESCRIPTION
This program is designed to address areas which may need a sound silviculture intervention, but there may not be funding and/or a program available to the landowner. It is also to continue good forest management practices on private woodlots. This may entail a harvesting activity (such as, salvage cutting, single tree selection, group selection, sanitation cuts, liberation cuts, etc.) or an intermediate cutting (in which there would be no merchantable wood harvested for revenue) to improve for future merchantable timber and private forests.
COMMERCIAL THINNING
To improve the growth and quality of desired stems in plantations and precommercially thinned stands by removing stems with lower potential and releasing the remaining desired stems which increases growth rate and promotes higher valued products.
PLANTATION PROGRAM
Following a harvest operation not all stands will regenerate naturally in a reasonable amount of time or with the desired species. Planting, then, becomes a viable alternative for the woodlot owner. Planting gives the land owner control over the species and the spacing of the final crop, two critical pieces governing the quality and quantity of the products harvested. However, planting is not without its challenges. Often it is not a simple matter of deciding to plant an area since some degree of site preparation may be required before planting and depending upon the plant species already established on the site, it may be obvious that competition control will be required later. The woodlot owner must therefore, be willing to do all the things that are necessary to make a plantation a success or there is no point in starting - it will simply be a waste of time and money. There are examples throughout the province where plantations have not been cared for and today it would be next to impossible to find any of the trees that were planted. Nature is very prolific and very efficient at getting ground cover established quickly after a stand is removed. Usually, the species Nature establishes are not the species we, the land managers want. Therefore, we have to make a commitment to maintain the plantations before we make the decision to plant.
Site Prep
To use trenching, dragging or plowing equipment to expose suitable mineral soil for planting seedlings and to reduce undesirable natural regeneration which will compete with the planted seedlings. This treatment may not be required on certain planting sites.
Weed Control / Early Tending
To control regeneration forecasted to compete with planted seedlings or desirable natural regeneration by applying an herbicide product registered for forestry applications, using aerial or ground based treatment methods. The only options available at this time are mechanically cutting them, or with the use of herbicides. Herbicide is the most cost-effective method but more and more land owners do not wish to use chemicals on their land so the only option left is to cut them. The tool most often used for doing this is the brush saw, with special care being required not to cut the new seedling in the process.
Plantation Cleaning:
To reduce undesirable natural regeneration on a site using a thinning saw, allowing the remaining planted crop trees to maximize their growth.
PRE-COMMERCIAL THINNING (SPACING)
To reduce the number of trees on a site using a thinning saw, allowing the remaining crop trees to maximize their growth.
Pre-commercial thinning has one of the best returns on investment of all forest management activities. In order to get a good rate of return, the timing of the thinning is critical; if it is done too early competition will establish in the open areas and compete for light and nutrients with the desired species; if left too late the crop trees will not release properly - they will not respond with an increased growth rate. As a general rule; the trees must be between 2 and 7 metres in height for softwoods and between 4 and 9 metres in height for hardwoods, and have more than 10,000 stems per hectare in order to qualify for pre-commercial thinning.