Forestry, Silviculture and Forest Management
Forestry, Silviculture and Forest Management tests how forests are regenerated, tended and harvested sustainably. Expect definitions, silvicultural systems, thinning, rotation, site quality, yield regulation and Chhattisgarh's sal, teak and bamboo systems.
Core rules
- Silviculture is the art and science of raising and tending forest crops; silvics is the study of tree life history.
- Natural regeneration occurs by seed or vegetatively (coppice, root suckers, suckers). Artificial regeneration uses sowing, planting or enrichment.
- Systems: clear felling (even-aged, all trees removed), shelterwood (seed trees retained for shelter), seed-tree, selection (uneven-aged, periodic removal), coppice (vegetative) and coppice-with-standards.
- Tending includes cleaning (removing unwanted growth below the main crop), liberation cutting and thinning. Thinning types: low (remove suppressed/dominated trees), crown (remove dominant competitors), mechanical (row) and free.
- Rotation is the period between regeneration and final felling; site quality indicates productive capacity; yield tables predict volume.
- Chhattisgarh: sal regenerates naturally in moist areas; teak and bamboo plantations need canopy opening and protection from fire and grazing.
Worked example
A 40-year-old teak stand is thinned by removing suppressed and diseased trees only. Reasoning: removal is from lower crown classes while dominants remain; this is a low thinning. If dominants were removed to favour selected crop trees, it would be crown thinning.
Traps
- Calling any plantation 'silviculture'; it is only one regeneration tool.
- Confusing clear felling with clear-cutting for agriculture.
- Mixing rotation with felling cycle in selection forests.
- Ignoring fire and grazing as regeneration barriers in sal.