13. Coarse Woody Debris – Present To Future Wood Quality

378.  Just as quality and special properties of wood products vary by tree species. the natural ecological characteristics of logs also vary by species (Franklin, Cromack, Kermit, et al. others, 1981).   So, monoculture and black cherry farming is very harmful.

379.  Future forests will contain much less coarse woody debris (CWD), and that debris will be smaller and of different quality than that seen today. We have the technology to remove most coarse woody debris from the forest; in fact, current wood utilization standards encourage such removal. .Moreover, converting natural forests to intensively manipulated stands reduces tree life spans from centuries to decades; future trees will be much smaller than they are today, and wood quality will undoubtedly be different from that of today’s forest (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988, pg25-par3).  

380.  The environment greatly affects the quality of the wood.  Such as the sound of a violin.

381.  Decaying, fallen trees contribute to long-term accumulation of soil organic matter, partly because the carbon constituents of well-decayed wood are 80-90 percent residual lignin and humus. Decaying wood in the soil and establishment of conifer seedlings and mycorrhizal fungi on dry sites are positively correlated. Fallen trees also create and maintain diversity in forest communities. Soil properties of pits and mounds differ from those of surrounding soil; such chemical and topographic diversity in turn affects forest regeneration processes.  All this, especially large fallen trees that reside on the forest floor for long periods, adds to spatial, chemical, and biotic diversity of forest soils, and to the processes that maintain long-term forest productivity (Maser, Tarrant, Trappe and Franklin, 1988, pg44-par3).

382.  The mycorrhizal relationships may be important factors in establishment of seedlings on nurse logs; they are also important to mature trees. Just as quality and special properties of wood products vary by tree species. the natural ecological characteristics of logs also vary by species (Franklin, Cromack, Kermit, et al. others, 1981).  

383.  The mycorrhizal relationships may be important factors in establishment of seedlings on nurse logs; they are also important to mature trees. Just as quality and special properties of wood products vary by tree species. The natural ecological characteristics of logs also vary by species (Franklin, Cromack, Kermit, et al. others, 1981). 

384.  Conclusion:  What purpose and need is there that the USFS does not maintain a record of the different types of wood, which would represent the quality of product in the “Burn and Clearcut Project”, E.g. Which species are heartwood forming, false heartwood, no heartwood etc.?

385.  These different qualities represent different forms of protection wood.  Thus the lumber degrade factors are preset when the product was a growing symplast containing tree.  I believe, I may be wrong, I have been wrong before, so this would just be another one of those times I am wrong, but, is there not a legal responsibility, when forest health is addressed, to provide high quality material or so called goods?  And then I wonder how can they determine this, without knowing the anatomy of the structures harvested.  Would you go to a doctor who flunked anatomy (Shigo, 1999)?


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