A New Start (art, science, and a chainsaw) Timber Stand Improvement

Preference vs. Tolerance

Different trees have different environmental requirements or conditions they prefer, and when they have those conditions, they have a competitive advantage. This principle is not to be confused with another concept  that different trees will tolerate certain environmental conditions better than others, and that tolerance gives them an advantage to grow and thrive.

If you plant a sugar maple and a bald cypress in your yard, generally they will both do fine, grow and produce a beautiful shade tree. If you took a sugar maple and a bald cypress and plant them in a swamp, the bald cypress will thrive, and the sugar maple will most likely wither away. The reason for this is the bald cypress is better designed to grow in the difficult soggy conditions of a swamp.

Shade Tolerance vs. Shade Intolerance

Some trees behave the same way with light availability. Oak trees are in a group of trees called “shade intolerant” trees, as opposed to trees that are “shade tolerant” such as maple, dogwood, etc.  Because of this characteristic, oak trees being shade intolerant, an oak tree must have a lot of sunlight to reach the forest canopy from an acorn to a seedling to a sapling, to a big tall tree.

An oak must have enough sunlight at important stages in growth. If it doesn’t, it will either not grow at all or remain severely stunted until the end of its term.  If a small seedling or sapling persists in the shade for many years, it seems to establish a habitually poor growth pattern that doesn’t change much.

Thankfully, oaks and some other species have been designed to stump sprout, which can be a tremendous advantage in gaining a new start when the timing is right. This design abandons the old established stunted growth pattern if the top happens to be damaged by fire, windfall, deer rub, chainsaw or any manner of disturbance, thereby giving the stump sprout a new start. If this happens when new available light is provided, the new stem has the big advantages of more light and an already well established root system.

So when I’m in the woods doing timber stand improvement (TSI), I attempt not only to cut out the poorly formed and suppressed trees, creating more light for the big trees to use, but also to cut the little stunted oak saplings that have been persisting in the understory for years, giving them a fresh, new start on life in the big woods.