Is Southern Oregon still cutting down its old growth / ancient forests? (Medford: taxi, income)

[skiffrace]

There never were any ancient forests in Southern Oregon. It's a fire climax ecology. A tree is lucky to survive to be 100. The best commercial tree is Douglas fir, which is a short lived opportunistic weed that needs bare ground and direct sun to reproduce.

"Trees to 90(100) m; trunk to 440 cm diam"
"Douglas firs commonly live more than 500 years and occasionally more than 1,000 years."

It only takes about 40 years for a tree crop to mature, so land that was clear cut in 1974 is ready to go again.

"It often takes 70–80 years for the trunk to be clear to a height of 5 m (16 ft) and 100 years to be clear to a height of 10 m (33 ft)."

Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii (coast Douglas-fir) description
Douglas fir - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://seattletimes.com/html/restles...stless05m.html

To the OP, when was the last time you were in an old grown forest? Did you see much wildlife?

"An old-growth forest ...is a forest that has attained great age without significant disturbance and thereby exhibits unique ecological features and might be classified as a climax community.[1] Old-growth features include diverse tree-related structures that provide diverse wildlife habitat that increases the bio-diversity of the forested ecosystem. The concept of diverse tree structure includes multi-layered canopies and canopy gaps, greatly varying tree heights and diameters, and diverse tree species and classes and sizes of woody debris."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old-growth_forest

[Steve Pickering]

Someone's info is skewed. My great uncle cut and planted trees in the Willamette Valley and Coast Range for over seven decades. He harvested two crops in those 75 years.

[Steve Pickering]

And ..... Another one is ready on Phelp's Hill right now.

[Billy_J]

Note the big timber companies have large plots of land where they grow experimental trees - see which will grow the fastest - be immune to disease, etc. Just like they have experimental food crops - agriculture.

I forget how many years it takes to grow one of those new "designer" (if you will) trees? But quite an improvement over mother nature as I recall!

[oregonwoodsmoke]

Fir trees are a farmed crop, just like broccoli.

Oregon has virtually no old growth forest left, if there ever was any to begin with. The Lost Forest, out in Christmas Valley is an ancient forest, and it is protected by law.

If you go up to Washington, on the Olympic Peninsula, they have a rain forest with some huge old trees. That's protected by law also.

All that happened when the "ecologically friendly" started to file lawsuit alter lawsuit to stop logging, was that the big forest fires started. The soot from those huge fires lands on the ice caps and causes them to melt. Too much interferance with Mother Nature wthout enough understanding of what will result.

[Steve Pickering]

The New Forest

40 to 50 years.

[Larry Caldwell]

Originally Posted by Billy_J

Note the big timber companies have large plots of land where they grow experimental trees - see which will grow the fastest - be immune to disease, etc. Just like they have experimental food crops - agriculture.

I forget how many years it takes to grow one of those new "designer" (if you will) trees? But quite an improvement over mother nature as I recall!

There are a lot of different strains of tree being planted. The "supertrees" came in about 30 years ago, and some of them are already being harvested. All of the mills have been re-tooled to accept small logs. It's almost impossible to get rid the big old logs any more. When I logged my place last year there was a 25% dock for any log larger than 26" at the butt, and the mill paid nothing for any log larger than 30". I have one big old tree that is over 5' dbh that nobody will ever cut. First, it's gauchy (too many limbs), it lost its crown in the Columbus Day Storm 52 years ago, and it's probably mostly rot. It does serve as a seed reservoir for the land.

Some timber companies have identified micro-strains of doug fir that have evolved in niche micro-climates over the last few thousand years. Before they log the area they send seed collectors in to preserve the seed strains, grow seedlings from those strains, and plant them back in the same area. The theory is that the trees are best adapted to the area that they have always grown in.

There has also been quite a bit of interest in mycorrhizal mushrooms, both as a growth stimulator for the trees and as a secondary crop. Chanterelles are mycorrhizal with fir trees, boletes are mycorrhizal with pine trees, both of which are excellent edibles that promote faster tree growth. Recently there has been a lot of interest in Oregon truffles. I inoculated 2500 fir seedlings with a variety of Oregon truffle spawn 18 years ago, and have been getting a small but very gourmet crop each year. Once the truffles are in the ground, voles eat them and spread the spores to new seedlings.

The critical thing about replanting new seedlings is to suppress competing vegetation for 1-3 years, until the seedling gets fully established. Once it is established, it can out-compete brush and grass.

[Larry Caldwell]

Originally Posted by oregonwoodsmoke

Fir trees are a farmed crop, just like broccoli.

Oregon has virtually no old growth forest left, if there ever was any to begin with. The Lost Forest, out in Christmas Valley is an ancient forest, and it is protected by law.

If you go up to Washington, on the Olympic Peninsula, they have a rain forest with some huge old trees. That's protected by law also.

All that happened when the "ecologically friendly" started to file lawsuit alter lawsuit to stop logging, was that the big forest fires started. The soot from those huge fires lands on the ice caps and causes them to melt. Too much interferance with Mother Nature wthout enough understanding of what will result.

The Valley of the Giants outside Falls City is another old growth reserve.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_...Giants_(Oregon)

[Nell Plotts]

One of the justifications for prohibiting harvesting of old trees was that they are habitat for the Northern Spotted Owl. After years of attempting to 'save' the Northern Spotted Owl this way it appears that their biggest threat is the Barred Owl territorial behavior.

[AZDesertBrat]

Originally Posted by Steve Pickering

You cut 'em and use them or you stand and watch then burn. They are a crop, and if the crop gets too old it rots.

Something I think a lot of people...maybe most...don't even think about is that if there are trees that are dead, dying or diseased they wreak havoc on the trees around them. In 1991 my ex and I bought 20 acres of, pretty much, virgin forest land. We were determined to NOT cut a bunch of trees and keep it 'as is'. Well, my ex worked for the forest service and knew we would probably have to do some work on our land, and we did. We had a guy come out and go over the whole thing. We had trees that really needed to just go! And so they did. I can remember truckloads of logs going down the road, a lot of 'slash' taken off to make sawdust, etc. and we took several pickup loads of cedar to MT for cedar shakes. Cost a bundle to get that all done but our place was really so much better when we were done. We made quite a bit of money on all the sales too but spent more than we made. And we had enough slash piles to supply wood for heat for a hundred years! No clear cutting either. I hate clear cuts. It just looks sick and naked!

I lived in OR when timber was THE 'big deal' and nearly everyone I knew, friends and family, worked in the industry. Logging trucks were as common as a passenger car on the roads and you got used to them. Last time I was up there I saw some but not many. It just seems weird to me that the coast doesn't still have logging going on like it used to. I know the trees have regrown. OTOH I am happy that we don't seem to be using as many trees as we have in the past. But there has to be a happy medium, somewhere.