1. Tree Physiology, Forestry, and Fire Ecology

2. Angiosperms – commonly known as hardwoods:
Produce flowers
Protect their seeds inside a fruit
Are pollinated by insects and other animals
Gymnosperms – commonly known as softwoods:
Protect their seeds on cone scales
Are pollinated by wind

3. Monocots and Dicots: Read Only
1 cotyledon
parallel veins
scattered vascular bundles
flowers with 3 petals or multiples
fibrous root
Dicots:
2 cotyledons
branched veins
vascular bundles in rings
flowers with 4 or 5 petals (or multiples)
tap root

4. Tree Physiology
Deciduous trees lose their leaves in the fall. Without leaves, the tree is less likely to suffer ice and wind damage during the winter, but it is unable to produce food.

5. Parts of a Tree
Outer Bark - protects trees from the elements (dead phloem cells).
Phloem – inner bark – pipeline that delivers food (made in the leaves) to other parts of the tree.
Cambium – living cell layer of the tree which adds cells to the outside (which become phloem) and to the inside (which become xylem).

6. Xylem is composed of sapwood and heartwood
Xylem – pipeline where water is moved from the roots to the leaves.
Sapwood is the new wood which transports water. As new layers of sapwood are laid down, inner layers lose their vitality and turn to heartwood.
Heartwood – is the central, supporting pillar of the tree. It is composed of dead xylem cells.

9. A. Bark
Phloem
Cambium
Sapwood
Heartwood - becomes darker b/c the xylem gets clogged up

10. Photosynthesis Cellular Respiration
___CO2 + ___ H2O ↔ C6H12O6 + ___ O2
Cellular Respiration

11. Paper Plate Draw rings to correspond to your age.
List ten events that impacted your life:
You will number them on the rings
Then list them on the back of the plate.

12. Forestry Definitions Forest – area where predominant cover is trees.
Forestry – practice of planting, tending, and managing forests for timber production.
Sustainable forestry – managing forests to meet the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations.

13. Renewable resource – a resource that has the ability to replenish itself through natural processes (within our lifetime).
Sustainable yield – the maximum rate at which people can use a renewable resource without reducing its ability to renew itself.
Stand – a group of trees that are similar in age and in species composition.

14. SC Forests
12.3 million acres of South Carolina’s land area are forested. That is 64% of it’s 19 million acres.
Timber is the #1 cash crop in SC.
Wood products industry employs 50, 000 people in SC.

15. Who Owns SC Forests?

17. BMPs
Best Management Practices – set of voluntary guidelines designed to limit negative impacts on the land during forestry operations in accordance with Section 404 of the Clean Water Act.
SMZs – stream management zones – specific BMPs that are a set of guidelines to protect riparian areas (strips of vegetation along watersheds) from sedimentation during forestry operations.

18. Harvesting Methods
Clear Cut – the practice of removing an entire stand of trees in one harvest.
Seed Tree – is very similar to clear cutting except that a few seed-producing trees are left. These trees are removed after the stand is regenerated. This method is reserved for tree species whose seeds are dispersed by wind.
10-15 mature trees are left per acre

19. Clear Cut

20. Seed Tree

21. Shelterwood – process of regenerating a stand through a series of two or three cuts. The first cut removes 50% of the stand. The second cut removes half of the remaining stand. The third cut removes the rest of the mature trees.
Shelterwood cuts provide wildlife with both food and cover while regeneration occurs. It is also more aesthetically pleasing than a clear cut.

22. Shelterwood

23. Group selection cuts involve removing clusters of trees in an area less than 2 acres. Openings should be at least two times as wide as the height of surrounding trees to allow sunlight to penetrate the forest floor and stimulate regeneration and growth of shade-intolerant trees and herbaceous growth.
Single tree selection – involves removing individual trees. This method is labor intensive but forest communities remain relatively unchanged.

24. Site Prep
Mechanical Site Preparation – involves the physical disturbance of a site by machinery to reduce undesirable plant competition.

25. Mechanical Site Prep
Raking – done to control debris

26. Plowing – done to till soil so that seedling roots are free to grow.

27. Plow Blades

28. Bedding – increases seedling survival.

29. Shearing vegetation and piling debris is called windrowing
Shearing vegetation and piling debris is called windrowing. When windrows are not burned, they create cover for deer, rabbits, birds, snakes and other wildlife as well as produce food.

30. Dozer with Sear Blade

31. Site Prep
Chemical Site Preparation – involves the use of herbicides to reduce the unwanted vegetation that competes with newly planted trees.
In many cases, after herbicides are used, the site is also burned to further reduce competition and improve soil nutrients. This is called brown and burn

32. Regeneration
Artificial Regeneration – planting seedlings or distributing seeds directly on a recently cleared forest site – typically after a clear cut.
The most common problem with direct seeding (spreading seeds) is regulating the density and spacing between seedlings.
Planting seedlings is more common for southern pine regeneration

34. Regeneration
Natural Regeneration – re-establishment of pine stands from standing trees left on the site.
Seed tree: mature seed-producing trees are left per acre.
Shelterwood: 20 – 40 mature seed-producing trees are left per acre.

35. Natural vs. Artificial Regeneration
Adv: Control of seed spacing
Adv: Use genetically improved seedlings
Dis: Higher costs
Dis: Higher erosion from site prep
Dis: Less aesthetically pleasing
Natural
Adv: Lower costs
Adv: Less labor intensive
Adv: Less soil disturbance
Adv: More aesthetically pleasing
Dis: Less spacing control
Dis: Greater seed loss
Dis: Don’t use genetically improved seedling
Dis: Irregular stands led to difficult harvest

36. Forest Measurements
Site Index: the height a tree will attain on a given site at a given age – usually 50 years.
DBH – Diameter at Breast Height – diameter of the tree taken at 4.5 feet from the base.
Chain – unit of measure used by foresters that equals 66 feet. 10 square chains = 1 acre
(An acre is 209 feet by 209 feet)
(A circular acre has a radius of feet)

37. Forest Measurements
Board foot - unit of wood 1 foot by 1 foot by 1 inch often used to describe the volume of wood produced from a log.
Log – 16.3 foot section of newly harvested tree.
Cord – a measure of wood volume described as a stack 4 feet high, 4 feet wide, and 8 feet long.

38. Dendrochronology
Dendrochronology is the dating of past events (climatic changes) through study of tree ring growth

39. The shallow roots of the longleaf pine absorb surface water, which is affected by precipitation. Hurricanes produce large amounts of precipitation with a distinctly lower oxygen isotope composition than that in dew or smaller storms. Tracing tree-rings that contain these lower isotope compositions unveils a record of hurricanes that both supports and surpases the present historical record. The current study looks at a 220-year-old record and suggests data up to 400 years can be accessed in future studies.

40. Annual rings: spring wood (light) and summer wood (dark)

42. Douglas fir in New Mexico

43. Ponderosa pine with multiple fire scars

44. Long leaf pine with fire scar

45. Fire scars on a Giant Sequoia

46. White spruce struck by a snow avalanche

47. Ponderosa pine growing alongside a river with an impact scar from a flood

48. Assume all trees were cut in 2010
Age Yr it started growing