North Central Research Station

Ecology and Silviculture of Northern Lake States Forests Research

Long-term Silvicultural Studies

We have a long history of silvicultural research, often associated with our Experimental Forests. Our early silvicultural research (1920’s-1980’s) focused on regeneration, thinning, cutting methods, and growth and yield. These studies provided the scientific basis for many guides, stocking charts, and management tools that are still used by resource managers today. Over a half century after their establishment, we are maintaining and monitoring many of these studies.

Fundamentally, long-term studies are important because they are rare. Often, their sustainability is due to the creativity and entrepreneurial actions of a single researcher, since secure long-term funding is rarely available for these studies.

Additionally, long-term studies are valuable because:

1. Time will tell--Trees can live to be hundreds of years old, so the more data we collect over time the better we can assess the long-term effects management of treatments associated with the original study.

2. Seen in a new light--Researchers often can add new objectives to existing long-term studies to address new resource problems and questions not foreseen in the original study.

3. What goes around, comes around--Some issues that were important decades ago re-emerge as important resource management issues (e.g., growth, yield, sustainability of extended rotation forest stands).

For more information on our long-term studies, see:

Growing Stock Levels in Red Pine (pdf)
Cutting Methods in Second-Growth Northern Hardwoods (pdf)
Stocking Levels in Second-Growth Northern Hardwoods (pdf)
Cutting Methods and Stocking Level in Northern Hardwoods (pdf)

We also have ongoing research in the following areas...

Cutting Methods in Red Pine
Farm Woodlot Study
Red Maple Growth and Yield
Birch Lake Cutting Methods and Stocking Levels in a Red Pine Plantation