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Meeting Landscape-level Objectives with Mature and Aging Lodgepole Pine

"Beetle-Proofing" Research in the East Kootenays.

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Canadian Forest Service - Pacific Forestry Centre

Lodgepole pine stands make up an important part of forest cover in the interior of British Columbia. They consistently provide nearly 25% of total provincial forest products annually, and often dominate landscapes important to many users. Because of the current age-class distribution, and past history of heavy mortality to mountain pine beetle in over-mature stands, forest planners are concerned with increasing susceptibility of maturing lodgepole pine stands to epidemic outbreaks. Past research suggests that thinning age-class 4 and 5 (60-100 years old) stands may reduce tree and stand susceptibility to mountain pine beetle epidemics. Thinning aging stands could improve planning for multiple values by maintaining mature lodgepole pine cover until a scheduled harvest date, if it is needed for landscape-level diversity, wildlife habitat, visual quality, or community watershed protection, while still allowing access to wood fibre within constraints of the B.C. Forest Practices Code.

In 1992, researchers at the Canadian Forest Service and FERIC, in partnership with Crestbrook Forest Industries Ltd., Galloway Lumber Company Ltd. and the Province of British Columbia, established a project to investigate partial cutting (commercial thinning) and fertilization of age-class 4 lodgepole pine on three sites in the East Kootenays. Objectives of the research are to determine:

• how tree and stand susceptibility to mountain pine beetle, and other forest health agents, is affected by thinning and fertilization;
• if fibre recovery is economically feasible with current equipment profiles;
• if residual stand growth responses will increase yield or quality in this rotation;
• if conversion to a mixed species shelterwood system for the next rotation is possible through release of existing advanced regeneration or by under-planting of thinned stands; and,
• how wildlife habitat and visual quality are affected.

This presentation summarizes what study leaders have determined in the first 5 years. It was first presented at the Canada - B.C. Intermountain Forest Health Committee Workshop in Radium B.C. on April 13th, 1999. It has subsequently been presented at Forest District and Licensee field offices at various locations across the south central interior of British Columbia.

For further information, please contact:

Roger J. Whitehead
Research Silviculturist
Canadian Forest Service
Pacific Forestry Centre
Victoria, B.C.

This research is funded (in part) by Forest Renewal BC