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Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

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Re: Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

#121

Post by prennert »

cookiengineer wrote: post #103

I can recommend reading about the reforestation laws in Germany. Why? Germany was running out of forests to harvest around 1400, and the oldest law that is still in effect is from 1442 (Forstordnung of the Bistum Speyer) . All forests in Germany are artificially created, and there are a lot of things involved to make this happen. We have rain plans that limit the amount of how much water farmers are allowed to use wh…

One thing that struck me when visiting Germany in summer was how logging seemed to be selective, leaving much of the trees standing.

I passed a forest by train and despite logs piled up next to it, and logging vehicles around, you could not tell from the train that the forest was being logged. While in Scotland, if they harvest a forest, they do it like harvesting wheat. They just leave a wasteland of stumps behind. Looks horrible, must be bad for the ecosystem and I am wondering if mudslides will be more common now, since a lot of forest is on hillsides.

Re: Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

#122

Post by Biologist123 »

asddubs wrote: post #85
atoav wrote: post #71

My brothers MA thesis was about comparing the multiple model forests that have been planted throughout the EUs different climate zones (I didn't even know such a thing existed, bur it makes sense). His focus was looking at resilience against weather, insects etc. and mixed forests fared significantly better throughout all climate zones. As someone from the alps, a thing that should not be forgotten is how important a…

You just have to look at how utterly the Harz pine forests have been completely destroyed by the bark beetle to see what monocultures get you. It's just huge swaths of lands filled with nothing but dead trees

I have heard estimates of 100 million trees dead in the Harz. The common refrain is that this was caused by climate change, but also choice of monoculture was a major contributing factor as the area was historically covered by mixed deciduous. Furthermore, choice of forest type will affect soil moisture retention, so reduced rainfall would have been buffered by better choice of forest type.

Loss of those trees was an economic disaster. I’m not sure it’s an environmental disaster yet - especially as replanting seems to be with better reference to the agro-climatic zone.

Re: Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

#123

Post by Lutger »

atoav wrote: post #71

My brothers MA thesis was about comparing the multiple model forests that have been planted throughout the EUs different climate zones (I didn't even know such a thing existed, bur it makes sense). His focus was looking at resilience against weather, insects etc. and mixed forests fared significantly better throughout all climate zones. As someone from the alps, a thing that should not be forgotten is how important a…

In some tree monocultures, you can just see the soil is covered with layers of organic matter that just isn't decomposing fast enough. This is because there isn't the diversity in the soil food web required to process it, reflecting the lack of biodiversity above the ground. Such soils often have a very low ph and poor nutrient cycling.

Re: Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

#124

Post by Cthulhu_ »

karaterobot wrote: post #35

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 som…

Yeah, this is one of those "well duh" headlines, doesn't take a scientist to figure it out.

Re: Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

#125

Post by Cthulhu_ »

prawn wrote: post #91
destron wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... of course the nurseries don't have seedlings to plant one trillion trees. Growing seedlings of the appropriate species would have to be part of that effort.

There are volunteer efforts in some places to spread the load in starting seedlings. Not sure how effective it would be though in contributing to an effort of that scale where you need commercial scale to make a dent.

It can be done though, if anyone that has a balcony or a back yard were to look after a tray of seedlings (25 or so trees?) until they're ready to be planted, it'd quickly add up. The challenge then becomes logistics though. But again, can be done with volunteers.

Re: Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

#126

Post by Cthulhu_ »

jvm___ wrote: post #16
mym1990 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on the difference between climate change friendly and non climate change friendly trees, for the noobs like me?

The money is in growing saplings of white-pine, the ones commercial re-planters will buy - because they grow fast and can be turned into toilet paper in 25(?) years. Growing saplings of local 'slow' growing, non-harvestable species doesn't make you $$$. "In essence, forest nurseries tended to maintain a limited inventory of a select few species, electing to prioritize those valued for commercial timber production ove…

Supply and demand then; if there's demand for a million of these saplings, the nurseries will adapt. I don't understand why this is posited as a weird finding. Just place an order for X saplings and the nurseries will get to work.

Re: Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

#127

Post by Lutger »

taylorius wrote: post #108
atoav wrote: post #71

My brothers MA thesis was about comparing the multiple model forests that have been planted throughout the EUs different climate zones (I didn't even know such a thing existed, bur it makes sense). His focus was looking at resilience against weather, insects etc. and mixed forests fared significantly better throughout all climate zones. As someone from the alps, a thing that should not be forgotten is how important a…

No offense meant at all to your brother, it sounds like an interesting investigation. That said, the answer to these sorts of eco-questions always seems to be that the way nature has worked for millions of years is actually the best way (for loads of reasons we didn't know) - and if we mess with it too much, there will be some problems. This just seems kind of inevitable though. If nature's way didn't work, it wouldn…

Well, yes and no. Yes, in the sense that 'nature' is what organisms learned in millions of years and the emergent processes of the ecosystems in which they 'learned' things. And because this is so vastly complex, we often don't understand it and our interventions will have unintended consequences.

No, in the sense that humans are actually part of these ecosystems and it is possible for us to understand these processes and work with them. And this is the point of the research posted here: planting native seedlings is superior for restoration than 'just leaving things to nature'.

There's a technical side to this and a 'worldview' side, where there are two competing concepts of 'nature': one defines it as 'everything except humans' and the other includes humans as being part of nature, a useful part even.

Re: Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

#128

Post by Xylakant »

Biologist123 wrote: post #122
asddubs wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just have to look at how utterly the Harz pine forests have been completely destroyed by the bark beetle to see what monocultures get you. It's just huge swaths of lands filled with nothing but dead trees

I have heard estimates of 100 million trees dead in the Harz. The common refrain is that this was caused by climate change, but also choice of monoculture was a major contributing factor as the area was historically covered by mixed deciduous. Furthermore, choice of forest type will affect soil moisture retention, so reduced rainfall would have been buffered by better choice of forest type. Loss of those trees was an…

> Loss of those trees was an economic disaster.

Given that most of the trees lost were in the nature reserve, the economic impact is somewhat limited.

Re: Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

#129

Post by Lutger »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #78
atoav wrote: post #71

My brothers MA thesis was about comparing the multiple model forests that have been planted throughout the EUs different climate zones (I didn't even know such a thing existed, bur it makes sense). His focus was looking at resilience against weather, insects etc. and mixed forests fared significantly better throughout all climate zones. As someone from the alps, a thing that should not be forgotten is how important a…

> His focus was looking at resilience against weather, insects etc. and mixed forests fared significantly better throughout all climate zones. It makes sense. The diversity means that while one genera is suffering from some Hostility X or Y (e.g., insects) the others might not be, or at least as much so. Diversity is a form of hedging your bet.

Hedging your bet is one part, another big one is creating habitat for predators. Pests often arise in monocultures because there just isn't any suitable habitat for the organisms that eat them.

A part of that habitat is food, so ironically and perhaps counter intuitively, a good agro-ecological practice is to farm your pests. This provides a source of food (but not in your main crop) to attract the predators that you want to help control the pest.

This is the reversal of a negative spiral where you control pests by killing them, thus preventing predators to settle in your land and making it a very nice place for the pests to multiple. And they will, because you can never kill them all - unless you keep using massive amounts of pesticides. This is why monocultures often need a lot of pesticides to work, its very hard to do without.

Re: Replanting logged forests with diverse seedlings accelerates restoration

#130

Post by killerpopiller »

Biologist123 wrote: post #122
asddubs wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just have to look at how utterly the Harz pine forests have been completely destroyed by the bark beetle to see what monocultures get you. It's just huge swaths of lands filled with nothing but dead trees

I have heard estimates of 100 million trees dead in the Harz. The common refrain is that this was caused by climate change, but also choice of monoculture was a major contributing factor as the area was historically covered by mixed deciduous. Furthermore, choice of forest type will affect soil moisture retention, so reduced rainfall would have been buffered by better choice of forest type. Loss of those trees was an…

I‘ve heard from a local that in the onset of the bork beetle infestation, it was decided not to intervene (leaving dead trees there). This contributed to the catastrophe. Not sure if this is true.
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