Your management plan describes the silvicultural treatments to be carried out to ensure the health and improve the quality of your forest. Since it is written in a forester's language, it is helpful to understand the forester's technical terms, what the treatments are, why they are carried out and how.

It is important to realize these silvicultural activities can be performed by First Nation members. The practice of silviculture on reserve, therefore, not only helps your forest but also provides jobs and supports businesses in your community.

As most of these activities require special skills, training members to do the work successfully and safely is critical. Trying to undertake it without training, and without an experienced foreman/forewoman to guide workers, is a recipe for failure. Fortunately, training programs are available, as is funding to cover training costs.

The following sketches and commentary explain the seven principal silvicultural treatments, or tending activities, in a forest. The first four are called basic activities and the last three intensive activities.

Basic activities are designed to ensure "free-growing" trees, either following natural regeneration or after seedlings have been planted. In other words, basic activities carried out during the first five to 10 years of the new tree's life ensure that these trees have a good start and that they are higher than competing vegetation. In contrast, intensive treatments are designed to improve the value of an already free-growing stand of trees, and to enhance other forest resources as well.

Basic Silvicultural Activities

Site Preparation

Site preparation involves the removal of vegetation or logging debris from the area to be seeded, called the seedbed. It prepares the soil for planting or natural regeneration, reduces fire hazards and controls pests and diseases.

Site preparation may involve manual clearing, burning or breaking up logging slash or windfall _ _ all obstacles to successful reseeding. It can involve the use of heavy machines to remove competing vegetation or expose mineral soil to create a favourable seedbed.

The method selected depends on the site conditions, silviculture system and management objectives for the area. Since there are many technical factors to consider and a range of costs, on-site consultation with an experienced forester will help you choose timing, methods and equipment.

Seedling Care

Obtaining, growing, transporting and storing seedlings or cuttings correctly for reforestation are crucial activities of seedling care.

Precautions

Seedling care, between the day the stock leaves the nursery and the day it is planted, is extremely important. Overheating is the biggest danger. A forester can advise you on shipping, storing, thawing and handling container and bare root stock.

Planning Ahead

Since seedlings take from one to five years to produce, they must be grown, or ordered from a supplier, at least a year and a half before planting. If you harvest this fall, prepare the site next fall and plant the following spring, you start growing your container stock the same year you harvest so the seedlings will be ready for planting. The schedule would be laid out in your forest management plan.

Some First Nations have successfully transplanted wildlings (naturally produced seedlings). It is a relatively inexpensive way to replant small areas where natural regeneration has been uneven. If you set up a "bush nursery" you can grow your own wild stock for fill-in planting.

Checkups to see how the new crop is progressing, known as silviculture surveys, are carried out on young plantations and naturally regenerated stands when seedlings are at least five years old. These assessments measure height, condition and freedom from competing vegetation. They determine the follow-up action, fill-in planting, brushing or juvenile spacing needed to ensure that the trees are growing freely. As these surveys are complicated and require a thorough knowledge of silviculture, assistance from a forestry consultant is recommended.

Reforestation

Reforestation means establishing a free-growing stand of trees, either artificially, by planting, or through natural regeneration.

There are four ways to approach reforestation.

• Let nature handle it (natural regeneration) - the cheapest but slowest way.

• Assist nature (seed tree selection and site preparation) - more expensive.

• Jump-start nature (artificial regeneration by planting trees) - the most expensive but quickest method.

• Combine the above methods for another approach.

Your goals, the species of trees you want, what can grow on the site and the method of regeneration you prefer will determine your approach. Are you just filling in a clearing in the forest with a species you want to retain? Or do you want to start with a new species? Do you want trees to improve the wildlife habitat? To improve the stability of the soil and the stream bank? To create windbreaks? To produce fuel wood? Sawlogs? Christmas trees? Do you want a mix of species, such as hardwoods for annual firewood harvest and softwoods for long-term investment in a future crop?

Natural Regeneration

In a managed forest you can help natural regeneration (seeds carried by wind, birds or animals) by preparing a seedbed. Later on, when the trees are growing, you can help again by periodically removing competitive growth in order to enhance the preferred species. The intensive treatments for periodic removals are described later in this section.

Artificial Regeneration

Artificial regeneration (by seeding or planting seedlings) gives you maximum control over the species, spacing and timing of regeneration. You can choose between seedlings and seeds. In general, seedlings ensure regrowth more quickly because they have a one-to-five-year head start on plants sprouted from local seed. The type of stock, the age of seedlings to plant and any required on-site supervision depend on several factors _ _ namely, brush competition, the soil and the potential for browsing by livestock or wildlife. A forester can advise on these matters.

Planting costs vary with the size and type of stock, the number of trees recommended per hectare, the site preparation needed and the ground conditions which affect the speed of the planters.

Quality means everything in planting. Since it is expensive, you want to do it only once, and correctly.

Reforestation cannot be considered successful until the trees have survived infancy and early competition from other vegetation. It could take from five to 10 years, depending on the site and severity of brush competition, before they are truly free-growing.

Brushing

Brushing means controlling competing vegetation. Properly done, it ensures that seedlings mature into a free-growing stand.

Brushing is usually carried out in spring or summer. Foresters say stands must be treated before brush starts to compete with seedlings. It is not necessary to own large machines to do the job. Manual cutting with brush hooks, brush saws or power saws works well. In fact, manual brushing is best for sensitive sites such as stream banks, recreational areas, mixed stands where selection cutting is the silviculture system used, or specific problem pockets of the woodland. For small areas even brushing with grazing animals is being tried; sheep are preferred as they do less damage to young plants than cattle. In exceptional cases, brushing by the application of herbicides might be justified.

The best brushing method for each woodland depends on:

• the extent of vegetation control you are trying to achieve;

• constraints of the terrain;

• the location of the brush and trees you want to remove; and

• the impact your chosen method might have on other resources _ _ animals, plants, water and recreational areas.

Many First Nations are influenced in their choice of method by the job opportunities and the chance to acquire skills that each brushing technique offers.

Mechanical brushing, most common in preparing sites for planting after clear-cuts or fire, uses heavy equipment, such as tractors or skidders mounted with special cutters to clear brush and slash.

Intensive Silvicultural Activities

Intensive treatments are designed to improve the overall forest environment and increase the value of trees. By practising intensive silviculture, First Nations can maintain their timber revenues, even when prices fall, because they are producing and selling products of higher value.

As with basic activities, these treatments are labour intensive. They create jobs in the community and build skills that are also marketable off reserve.

Thinning/Spacing

Thinning removes specifically marked, small-diameter trees, usually by cutting, so light and nutrients are concentrated on the trees that are left. Thinning yields a variety of excellent results: diseased or infected trees are removed; small wood products such as poles, stakes and firewood are salvaged regularly for sale; the major, end timber-crop which is still growing is improved; wildlife habitat is enhanced; areas for forage crops can be created and zones or trails for recreation can be opened.

Thinning also accelerates the growth of the forest. It produces better crop trees to saleable harvest-size in less time _ _ in some cases 75 percent less time _ _ than it would take in an unmanaged forest. In managed stands, the thinnings themselves become saleable products. In unmanaged stands, the commercial value of the trees that should have been thinned out is lost because many of these trees die through competition, squeezed out by hardier neighbours.

Your forest inventory and management plan identify both the trees for thinning and the trees for the final crop. They are, therefore, your guide to producing ongoing, periodic revenues while waiting for the major income crop to mature.

Generally speaking, if there is a local market for small wood products, it is easier for small-scale operators, who don't have the high maintenance costs of heavy machinery, to make a profit from cutting small diameter trees with lower sale value. Many First Nations are in this position.

Deciding how often to thin depends on your own circumstances and the prospects for local sales. First Nations which have occasional markets, or which have to contract out the job, prefer heavy thinnings taken infrequently. Others, who have constant nearby markets for small wood products and First Nation members to do the work themselves, opt for light thinnings taken more frequently. The jobs and experience they gain in doing the work and the salaries earned are spin-off benefits to the community. Most often, thinnings can be timed to meet good log markets or your specific timetable.

For First Nations that carry out regular thinning, good roads to their stands are essential so they can go in and out without damaging the end-crop trees or compacting the soil.

Thinning is done at many stages in the development of a stand. It is given different names, depending on the characteristics of the material removed. The first thinning is usually called juvenile spacing since it removes very young stems. Juvenile spacing includes sanitation thinning, that is, the removal of diseased or defective stems.

The challenge in juvenile spacing is to know which trees to leave, since all future treatments focus on the remaining trees and final crop returns depend on them. Logically, the trees left should be the strongest and healthiest ones, already so identified in your inventory and management plan.

The danger is thinning for firewood, or for lumber for residential construction, without a management plan that indicates which trees to cut. Unguided, indiscriminate thinning like this puts at risk the trees that would produce major income later on when they mature. In contrast, with a plan in place, final crop trees are identified and can be protected.

Conifer release is another thinning treatment. Deciduous trees that are overtopping and therefore, suppressing the growth of the more valuable conifers, are removed thus "releasing" the conifers.

Fertilization

Fertilizing adds nutrients to the soil of a forest to increase its growth rate and disease resistance.

While most silvicultural treatments focus on maintaining a continuous supply of light, water and soil nutrients, trees sometimes require more nutrients than there are on-site. Nitrogen (N), phosphorous (P), potassium (K) and sulphur (S) are then applied in early spring or late autumn. Two common nitrogen fertilizers, urea pellets and ammonium nitrate crystals, can be spread by hand over small areas with a small cyclone seeder. Like all chemicals they must be applied strictly according to instructions.

Although the laboratory analysis of leaves to see if fertilizer is needed is cheap, the actual fertilization can be expensive over large areas. A screening trial, which takes about a year, is usually done first to establish the trees' ability to take up nutrients. Absorption will be best in spaced or open-grown stands.

Pruning

Pruning: removing live or dead branches from the stems of specific crop trees to produce knot-free timber for high-value sawlogs or veneer and to open trails for recreation and wildlife. Branches are pruned from the stems of trees to produce clear, knot-free timber for high-value sawlogs or veneer, or to open up trails for recreation and improve access for hunters.

Pruning the lower branches is used also to control pests and, because the lower branches act as conveyor belts carrying ground fires to the treetops, it also reduces the potential for more extensive damage from ground fires.

Cold weather, when growth is minimal or the tree is dormant, is the time to prune. A small-toothed pruning saw or pruning shears are recommended.

Pruning, like thinning, requires skills and knowledge. Understanding the differences among species, and how much live crown should be retained on each, is essential. Too severe pruning limits the tree's ability to produce food, thus reducing its growth and vigour.

It takes years to improve wood quality by pruning. Before adopting a pruning program, it is a good idea to obtain a professional opinion on its potential for increasing timber value in your particular stand.

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