Forest TSI for Timber Production (Art, Science, & a Chainsaw)

I enjoy teaching. While doing TSI today and thinking through the process, I imagined a question someone might pose, and now I want to work through an answer that might make sense to an average forest landowner. I’ll attempt to explain what I do as a forester to help along a natural but fairly ordered forest system to produce in ways that meets that landowners objectives.

The question often asked:  “Why are you cutting that young tree? If you leave it, won’t it grow big enough to harvest some day?”

So with this post I want to tackle some underlying assumptions held by many in order to answer this question. The false assumption often held is that small trees = young trees. Small trees CAN be young trees, but not ALL small trees are young trees.

All trees have a lifespan, and the objective for a landowner that wants to grow and harvest the most good quality trees during a managed timber sale, is to get as many of his trees as big as possible within that lifespan. The art and science of forestry is to help the best trees gain access and maintain access to sunlight within a limited growing space.

So, today, I DID cut down that smaller tree not too far from the bigger tree, and hopefully my on the fly investigative reporting will shed some light on why. I didn’t have anything to measure with, but I did have a smartphone and an ashtray with a few gate keys and four or five .22 long rifle rounds. A quick google search revealed what I suspected. A .22 long rifle bullet is one inch long, and a perfect scale object. Off we go down the hill to take some pictures.