SERVING BC’S FORESTS SINCE 1992
What is Silviculture?
Silviculture is the practice that concerns itself with the care and maintenance of forestry that promotes healthy growth and biodiversity. This includes the prepping the ground for planting, planting new trees on a block, and tending to that stand until the trees are large enough that they can freely grow on their own. Leader Silviculture offers services in all areas of the silviculture industry, from prep to vegetation management. Want to talk to us about our services? Reach out by clicking the link below.
Regeneration
After a logging company has harvested a block of trees, The first thing they’ll need to do is calculate the expected survival rate of the new stock. If the survival rate is low, they’ll need to determine what changes need to be made to the land to improve the stand’s chances of survival. Once that’s figured out, a prescription is written that outlines the pre-treatment services that must take place, the types of trees to plant, and the spacing between them. Once a prescription is written, it can be given to Leader Silviculture to execute the pre-treatment and planting.
Our Regeneration Services:
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New trees require goldilocks-style circumstances with just the right amount of water saturation, nutrients, and access to sunlight. If these conditions aren’t present, they may need to be created.
Competing vegetation robs seedlings of their sunlight, nutrients, and water, which is why it’s important to remove competition before planting. This can take place through chemical brushing, mechanical brushing, or prescribed burns.
Sometimes, the site conditions may be such that disc trenching, (the removal of soil) and soil mounding (the addition of soil) may become necessary to ensure optimal water retention and proper seedling survival.
Over the years, Leader Silviculture has gained experience in delivering some of the aforementioned alternatives in order to ensure proper seedling survival.
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Once a planting company receives a prescription, they can begin coordinating their teams and getting trees in the ground.
The planter’s job is to plant as fast as they can while following the specs of the prescription. It’s a job that involves both precision and speed. Planters are paid per tree, so efficiency is key, but so is accuracy because poorly planted trees need to be redone, and you aren’t paid for the second time.
Several factors go into what trees to grow, such as the region and altitude for planting the trees will be planted, effect the . For example, on the coast of BC, you can plant up to 800 Trees/hectare, with an average spacing of a 3.6M radius separating each tree. In the interior, however, you can plant up to 1600 trees/HA at an average spacing of 2.7m.
No matter what region, altitude, or variety of tree your prescription calls for, Leader Silviculture has a team of experienced planters that are fast and accurate, and can execute the project with an incredibly high accuracy.
Stand-Tending
Once a new stand of trees are planted, the job becomes making sure the trees survive until they are deemed free growing. Until then, maintenance to the stand is vital to minimize competition, maximize access to nutrients, and ensure the trees are healthy.
Our Stand Tending Services:
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The highest mortality for a stand is in the first three years, when there are lots of competition that could restrict them from getting the space, sunlight, and nutrients needed to grow.
In the first three years, the tree’s main competition are herbaceous plants such as grass, fireweed, ferns, and timbleberry. To remove competition, Leader Silviculture does both mechanical and chemical brushing. Mechanical brushing uses brush saws, similar to weedwackers, to remove competition. When chemical brushing, we use a herbicide on the plants we are trying to remove.
As trees grow, the competing vegetation will get larger as well. After the first few years of growth, the primary concern is woody competition, consisting of bushes, other trees, and other large vegetation. When removing woody competition, we use larger saws, such as chainsaws and clearing saws.
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When conifer trees reach the juvenile stage, they begin dropping cones. This can cause more trees to be planted, and can lead to overpopulation in a stand. This can cause several problems, such as lower quality stock, overcompetition, and the spread of disease.
To counteract overpopulation, Leadersilviculture will identify the best and worst trees in an area, and cut the lowest quality trees so that the best ones can grow more effectively.
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As a stand grows, vegetation and debris, known as slash, can build up and become a fire hazard as it dries. Slashing is the removal of that debris. Leader Silviculture removes slash through cutting up fallen trees and other vegetation, making sure that it can sit flat on the ground to decompose rather than dry.
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Growing trees require nutrients in order to become good quality stock in the future. To help this process along, Leader Silviculture will add fertilizer to a stand to replenish the nutrients needed to maximize the health of that stand.
Vegetation Management
Besides our work on forestry and logging projects, Leader Silviculture also does work for local and provincial governments to manage and remove vegetation from areas such as underneath powerlines.
Our Vegetation Management Services:
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Leader Silviculture works with the government to remove slash from forests and parks to prevent forest fires and falling hazards.
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Leader Silviculture works with governments and companies to ensure that the areas under powerlines are free from vegetation that is too tall or hazardous.
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As the trees get older and larger, processes like thinning can actually become a source of revenue rather than waste. At a certain point, the company will still need to thin the trees to remove competition for the stock trees, but the competition trees are large enough that when removed, they can actually be processed and used in forest products. Because these are smaller and lower-quality trees, they will mostly be used in things like particle board and OSB.
Careers in Tree-Planting
One of the primary jobs in the Silviculture industry is tree-planting.
When reforesting a new area, planters are incredibly important. Over the course of a workday, they will walk through the site, planting hundreds of trees at a predetermined density. Because work conditions vary from site to site, tree planters are resilient and adaptable to changing environments. Leader Silviculture believes in a reverse leadership structure where the role of management is to serve the planters and make sure that their lives are as easy as possible. We have the utmost respect for our planters, and know that the work we do for our clients would not be possible without them.
We are always looking for planters to join our team, and would love to hear from you. Click the links below for more information, or to apply!
