Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

technologynetworks.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 153 posts

Re: Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

#31

Post by swader999 »

atourgates wrote: post #25

I did a quick look to see if this only worked in tropical forests, or if this would be true in, say, Western North American forests. I didn't really find an answer. A study[1] in Virgina found that planting multiple varieties of trees was beneficial because it allowed the variety that was most suitable for that location to thrive, and survive problems that might affect other varieties. A study[2] in Washington State…

BC can have three our four species in play on the coast, interior and east typically has pine and spruce. You could argue for balsam but that is crap wood and it grows back on its own typically. I don't know about tropical reforestation, but in Canada the notion that we are replanting with only mono species isn't true. They leave seed trees standing and source cones directly from the logged blocks. It's very well done and highly regulated. Blocks that don't grow back are replanted again until they do.

Canada replants 600 million trees annually, USA about 1 billion.

Trees grow so much faster than they did a decade ago. CO2 is to 'blame'. I help maintain ski runs at my favorite ski hill and it's ridiculous how much more work it is now. Alpine areas that never in history had trees are beginning to get overrun.

Re: Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

#32

Post by comboy »

atourgates wrote: post #25

I did a quick look to see if this only worked in tropical forests, or if this would be true in, say, Western North American forests. I didn't really find an answer. A study[1] in Virgina found that planting multiple varieties of trees was beneficial because it allowed the variety that was most suitable for that location to thrive, and survive problems that might affect other varieties. A study[2] in Washington State…

Forest is a complex ecosystem and based on some books [1][2] my understanding is that fungi plays a huge role in them. They provide a lot of things that trees need in exchange for what they need, they also create kind of a market which allows trees even from different species exchange their resources. Different trees have different strong sides and can make use of different conditions. Perhaps this, thanks to the huge forestweb underneath allows them to thrive.

Also, trees like to grow slow and solid. Older trees from the same specie will feed small tree hidden in their shadow and provide it necessary resources so that when some bigger tree falls and it can take it place, it can also grow faster. It's possible that when there's competition between species they grow faster because there's a fight for sunlight. The year's growth will be bigger and wood would be less dense (but it is sold by volume).

1. The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben

2. Entangled Life, Merlin Sheldrake

Re: Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

#33

Post by hosh »

atourgates wrote: post #25

I did a quick look to see if this only worked in tropical forests, or if this would be true in, say, Western North American forests. I didn't really find an answer. A study[1] in Virgina found that planting multiple varieties of trees was beneficial because it allowed the variety that was most suitable for that location to thrive, and survive problems that might affect other varieties. A study[2] in Washington State…

There’s a more thoughtful way of designing this. In the permaculture world, these would be called “guilds”. Species are selected with an understanding of canopy layers (so that plants don’t compete for sunlight and can still fill in spaces at each canopy layer), and ecological function (such as, nitrogen fixer, dynamic accumulators, pollinator attractors, habitats, etc)

If you randomly mix up species in temperate forests that are all competing in the same canopy layer, I can see more competition. A study done where say, a mix of overstory, understory, and shrub (such as berries), would be more insightful.

Re: Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

#34

Post by RetroTechie »

myshpa wrote: post #28
atourgates wrote: post #25

I did a quick look to see if this only worked in tropical forests, or if this would be true in, say, Western North American forests. I didn't really find an answer. A study[1] in Virgina found that planting multiple varieties of trees was beneficial because it allowed the variety that was most suitable for that location to thrive, and survive problems that might affect other varieties. A study[2] in Washington State…

> If anyone can find a more conclusive study about temperate Western forests, I'd love to see it. I didn't. But there's no reason why it shouldn't work there. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/2167048/fore... Forest study in China finds mix of trees can absorb twice as much carbon as areas with one species More than 60 scientists from China, Switzerland and Germany were involved in the research, testing…

"Such forests were also less vulnerable to disease and extreme weather events, which are becoming increasingly frequent as a result of climate change, Schmid said."

That might well be an underestimated aspect. We don't know how climate will change locally, what pests will spread where, what species will turn out best adapted to future conditions, or what species turn out to be keystones in specific ecosystems. So we should strive for having as diverse a set of flora anywhere. Success factors are varied, complex & interconnected.

Climate changes so fast that past 'performance' of species in an area is of little value. Those trees are going to stand there 20, 50 or 100y from now. What will local climate be then? Take your guess / throw the dice.

Re: Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

#35

Post by karaterobot »

I'm not an expert, but I had thought that observing that monocultures created a weak forest ecosystem was one of the foundational concepts behind modern forestry—a centuries old discipline. This seems like an obvious corollary to that. I would have assumed it yesterday, before reading this article, and I assume most people would have thought the same. Again, I'm not an expert, so I'm likely missing something. And sometimes you just need a study to provide evidence for common sense.

Re: Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

#39

Post by llbeansandrice »

ccooffee wrote: post #4

Someone logged a 500 hectare plot in Borneo. They split this into 125 sections and planted 0, 1, 4, or 16 "tree species that are frequently targeted for logging". After 20 years, satellite imagery shows that the more tree species you planted, the more recovered the land appears to be. I'm left wondering: 1. Why did they plant only tree species that are frequently targeted for logging? This makes the whole experiment…

> Why did they plant only tree species that are frequently targeted for logging?

Because the main purpose of replanting trees to is be able to harvest them again in the next few decades. Private land owners generally aren't interested in creating old-growth forests, they're trying to make money.

It's not exactly ideal, but ending up with more biodiversity is likely a good thing even if it will be logged again later.

If you want more old-growth forests there's going to have to be a _lot_ more subsidies to private owners to literally pay them to not log their land.

Re: Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

#40

Post by greenie_beans »

ccooffee wrote: post #4

Someone logged a 500 hectare plot in Borneo. They split this into 125 sections and planted 0, 1, 4, or 16 "tree species that are frequently targeted for logging". After 20 years, satellite imagery shows that the more tree species you planted, the more recovered the land appears to be. I'm left wondering: 1. Why did they plant only tree species that are frequently targeted for logging? This makes the whole experiment…

> 1. Why did they plant only tree species that are frequently targeted for logging? This makes the whole experiment very suspect. The linked article talks a lot about restoring forests, but why restrict the tree species to those that are profitable to log?

Because forest management is for logging. They will log those trees once they mature to the best value when considering DBH, the market, and opportunity cost.

Post reply on HN