Introduction

The purpose of my blog is to share with you what I have learned based on my experience as a practicing forester in California and Washington and as the general contractor in our former homestead in Mendocino County, California and our current homestead in Kittitas County, WA. As a forester, for more than a decade, I have practiced forestry within the context of a strong land ethic that endeavors to balance economic return with the beauty, clean water, clean air, wildlife habitat, recreation and carbon storage offered by well managed forests. As home and property owners, my family and I challenge ourselves to make our footprint smaller, through conservation, sourcing quality materials from well managed sources as close to home as possible and use of alternative technologies within a budget. Thank you for visiting my blog and I hope that the information provided will help you as a steward of the forest and in the place that you call home.

October 29, 2006

The Mendocino County Fire Safe Council Needs Your Help

By Thembi Borras

Fall is here and many of you are switching gears preparing for the winter ahead. However, despite the cooler weather, we are not beyond the fire season. In fact, this is the worst time of year for fire because the vegetation has been drying out since the spring and until we get a good soaking, we are not out of the woods. Memorable fires that started in the latter part of October include the Oakland Hills Fire of October 20, 1991, in which 25 people died and almost 3,000 homes were burned and the Southern California Firestorm of 2003, which began on October 25, in which 22 people died and 4,000 homes were burned.

In January 2004, three months after the Southern California Firestorm, 90 Mendocino County residents gathered to express their concerns about wildfire. Attendees waved both hands and money in the air to support founding a countywide Fire Safe Council.

Nearly three years old, the Mendocino County Fire Safe Council is now a recognized, effective, and efficient fire safety organization ready to tackle the projects laid out in the recently completed countywide Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP), which can be viewed on the web at www.fire.ca.gov/FireEmergencyResponse/FirePlan/pdf/Mendocino.pdf. But because expected funds were diverted elsewhere they lack the financial resources to implement those projects sooner than later. Projects awaiting funds include (1) the development of local chipper programs; (2) wildfire education, including for children, new residents, and absentee landowners and (3) improved address signs because every year lives and property are lost when emergency responders can't find the locations.

The Allen-Heath Memorial Foundation, a charitable family foundation, has pledged $20,000 for the Fire Safe Council's projects in 2007. The foundation is challenging local residents and businesses to match that amount.

Approximately 70% of County residents live in the wildland/urban interface, areas that are at very high risk of wildfires. The task of educating the County’s residents and protecting its 3,500 square miles will take your help. To lend your support, send your donation to POB 1488, Ukiah, CA 95482. If you'd like to become involved in local fire safety activities, contact the council at 462-3662 or firesafe@pacific.net.

October 15, 2006

Measuring Growth and Age of Second-growth Coast Redwood

By Thembi Borras

A while ago I was told the outrageous story of a man who cut down the oldest tree to the remove the increment borer he had gotten stuck attempting to determine it's age. It was a bristlecone pine tree in Southern California that was approximated to be 4,000 years old. An increment borer is a long cylindrical hollow steel tube with a drill on one end and a handle on the other. An extractor as long as the tube is used to remove the core. Foresters use increment borers to measure a trees total age and/ or radial increment, a means to ascertain volume growth. Total age is used to recreate stand management history, history and pattern of natural disturbance and with tree height determine site productivity. To measure total age, the increment borer must be long enough to reach the center of the tree. I carry a 12" increment borer, which is comfortable and adequate for measuring the increment of the last ten years and with it, I can also get total age on a tree less than 18" in diameter at breast height.

A tree grows by laying a cone of xylem, within the bark, each year atop the previous years cone of xylem. When viewed in cross section these rings are easily distinguishable by the growth ring boundary, which is where the previous years small, thick walled cells of the latewood meet next years large, thin walled cells of the earlywood. So it is logical to think when the rings of a tree core taken at the base of the tree from bark to center are counted that the result will be the age of the tree.

However, in a paper recently published in the Canadian Journal of Forest Research, authors Kristen Waring and Kevin O'Hara caution drawing conclusions about a trees age from increment cores of second-growth coast redwood due to discontinuous or missing rings. A total of 157 cross sections were analyzed from 22 trees to reach several conclusions including, 40% of the time the rings counted in a core of a codominant second-growth redwood will be less than the trees actual age. For a suppressed tree this number climbs to 85%. This error can be minimized, but not eliminated, by modifying collection methods, which include taking the core on the outside of a sprout clump where growth rings are usually larger. How many rings are missing in a core? According to Dr. Kevin O'Hara, in his experience, more than a few, but this number is more difficult to quantify. Ultimately the concern is that, "growth and yield estimates based on tree cores will overestimate growth, because ages or time intervals are underestimated."

A portion of this production was gleaned from the paper entitled, "Estimating relative error in growth ring analyses of second-growth coast redwood", written by Kristen Waring and Kevin O'Hara.

October 8, 2006

Forestry and Logging

By Thembi Borras

Forestry and logging go hand in hand. Forestry ultimately comes down to cutting and growing trees, the forester usually has a vision of what a forest in the future will look like and outlines steps to reach it. Without the logger, the vision would not become a reality.

After the forester has finished marking the trees, infrastructure and sensitive areas, the logging starts with the timber faller. The timber faller is responsible for falling the tree and limbing and bucking it into preferred lengths. On a good day all the trees go exactly where they are aimed, there is minimal breakage, the leave stand is not damaged and no one gets hurt.

Once the trees are on the ground and made into logs, logs are picked up by grapples, large ice tong like devices, on the back of cats, skidders or on a helicopter line. Or more commonly, where the skill of a choker setter is employed, the bell end of a cable, called a choker, is wrapped around one end of the log. Then the eye end of the choker is attached to a hook on the skidder, cat, carriage or helicopter. The operators of these machines then navigate skid trails, cable corridors or the air to bring the turn of logs to the log landing. The type of skidding equipment used is, in part, a function of skidding distance, steepness of slope, density of logs, lay of the land, accessibility and location of sensitive resources, such as watercourses.

At the landing, landing men unhook the turn from the machine. Depending on the size of the operation the same person may also be the knot bumper who cuts any remaining limbs off the logs. A loader then loads enough logs onto the truck to make a load, determined by weight. The landing is connected to the truck road by which logging trucks travel to the highway and to the mills, where they are unloaded and the cycle begins again.

Because soil, sun and water enable the leave trees and new trees that are planted or naturally regenerate in the openings created by the disturbance to grow, it makes sense to protect the leave stand, leave nutrients on site, minimize the movement of soil and slow, disperse and collect water. All of which can be enhanced or diminished by the skill of both the forester and the logger.