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FORESTRY

RESEARCH

WHAT’S NEW IN THE WEST

U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service

October 1978

a note to you

Forestry Research: What's Neiv in the West, is a report on the
work of the USDA Forest Service’s four Forest and Range
Experiment Stations in the West. These research centers, and the
States included in their areas of study are: Rocky Mountain (North
Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Arizona, New
Mexico, and part of Wyoming, Oklahoma, and Texas); Inter¬
mountain (Montana, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, and part of Wyoming);
Pacific Northwest (Alaska, Oregon, and Washington); and Pacific
Southwest (California, Hawaii, and the Pacific Basin).

on the cover

Research Forester Ralph Read examines ponderosa pine in
provenance studies at the Horning Tree Farm in Nebraska. Read
about these studies on the facing page.

our addresses

Single copies of most of the publications mentioned in this issue
are available free of charge. When writing to research stations,
please include your complete mailing address (with ZIP) and request
publications by author, title, and number (if one is given)

For INT publications write:

Intermountain Forest and
Range Experiment Station
507 25th Street
Ogden, Utah 84401

For PNW publications write:

Pacific Northwest Forest and
Range Experiment Station
Post Office Box 3141
Portland, Oregon 97208

For PSW publications write:

Pacific Southwest Forest and
Range Experiment Station
Post Office Box 245
Berkeley, California 94701

For RM publications write:

Rocky Mountain Poorest and
Range Experiment Station
240 West Prospect Street
Fort Collins, Colorado 80521

If you are planningto move, please notify us as much in advance
as possible. Send your old address, your new address, and the
address label from the back cover to Forestry Research: What's New
in the West, 240 West Prospect Street, Fort Collins, Colorado 80521.

When reprinting articles, please credit USDA Forest Service.
Mention of commercial products in this issue is for information
only — no endorsement by the U.S. Department of Agriculture is
implied.

Tree Improvement

in the
Great Plains

Research Technician John Sprackling pollinating
a select Scots pine provenance tree to produce
progenies for its genetic evaluation and for
recurrent selection and second generation seed
orchard.

Trees seldom exert a greater influence
upon man’s environment and well
being than in regions where they do
not occur naturally or where they are difficult
to establish or maintain. It is for these
reasons that trees are appreciated and valued
so highly in the Great Plains of North
America.

The Plains, a vast agricultural region in
the central part of the nation, are character¬
ized by environmental extremes — strong
winds, limited precipitation, abrupt temper¬
ature changes, blizzards, and recurring cycles
of drought. The environmental factors acting
against the survival and establishment of
trees are so rigorous throughout most of this
region that natural stands are restricted,
mainly, to bottom lands along streams and
drainageways.

While the number of deciduous species
native to the Plains may be adequate, there is
a scarcity of coniferous species— only the
junipers attain widespread distribution. Be¬
cause of their long-life, beauty, and ability to
provide year-round protection for man,
animals, and crops, the conifers are very
popular and are in high demand by farmers,
ranchers, wildlife biologists, and urban
dwellers.

Researchers with the Rocky Mountain
Station at Lincoln, Nebraska, and Bottineau,
North Dakota, are testing and evaluating
introduced and native species for wider use in

1

the Great Plains. They are selecting, breed¬
ing, progeny testing, and establishing seed
orchards to develop genetically improved
trees and shrubs that are better adapted for
survival, growth, and longevity — including
resistance to insects and diseases — in the
climate and soils of the Great Plains.

Lincoln lab

Scientists at the Forestry Sciences
Laboratory on the University of Nebraska
Campus at Lincoln are conducting studies at
the University’s Horning State Farm and
Mead Field Laboratory in eastern Nebraska;
near Hastings in southcentral Nebraska; the
Bessey Nursery in northcentral Nebraska;
and near Alliance in western Nebraska.

Ralph A. Read, leader of the tree improve¬
ment research unit at Lincoln explained that
his group is testing conifer provenances
with seed collected from trees growing in their
natural geographic region. Begun in 1960 in
cooperation with the University of Nebraska
and the Northcentral Region Tree Improve¬
ment Committee, these trials are evaluating
Japanese larch, Austrian pine, Scots pine,
ponderosa pine, red pine, limber-south¬
western white pine, jack pine, Douglas-fir,
eastern white pine, pitch pine, blue spruce,
Rocky Mountain juniper, and eastern red-
cedar.

Provenance testing is revealing several
generalized trends. Where species are dis¬
tributed continuously over a large range in
latitude, seed from southern sources is
producing trees that are faster growing, less
susceptible to late spring or early frost, more
susceptible to winter damage, less change¬
able in winter foliage coloration, and grow
later in the fall, than northern sources.

Scientists have identified a number of
regions from which superior seed may be
obtained. These have been incorporated into
the action-oriented Clarke-McNary Tree Dis¬
tribution Program, which supports the pro¬
duction of forest planting stock for wind¬
breaks, shelterbelts, and farm woodlands.

Specific findings include: a fast-growing
source of red pine with desirable crown

Forestry Technicians John Spraekling (left) and
Ted Hovland cheek the growth of a Douglas-fir at
the Horning State Farm in Nebraska. This tree
was grown from seeds gathered in southern New
Mexico.

characteristics from Quebec, Canada; a fast¬
growing jack pine source from Ontario (now
incorporated into the Clarke-McNary Pro¬
gram); a central Yugoslavian seed source of
Austrian pine — fast-growing and highly
resistant to Dothistroma needle blight; and
southern Rocky Mountain origins of Douglas-
fir which survive well and grow rapidly in
Nebraska.

Preliminary evaluations of ponderosa
pine suggest that seed for planting in the
eastcentral Great Plains should be collected
from northcentral Nebraska. Southern or¬
igins of Scots pine — from Turkey and Spain —
are recommended for Christmas trees; and
fast-growing origins from central Europe
with desirable crown characteristics have
been identified for windbreaks in Nebraska.

2

Well-adapted trees identified in the
provenance plantations also provide material
for further improvement through selection,
breeding, progeny testing, and seed orchard
establishment. Project scientists have made
selections of outstanding Christmas tree and
windbreak types from the Scots pine prov¬
enance plantation and have established a
grafted 10-acre seed orchard containing
approximately 1,000 trees. They anticipate
substantial seed production in about 5 years.

Project Scientist David F. Van Haver-
beke explains that the genetic worth of the
best trees is being determined through
progeny tests. The tests, in turn, will provide
material for recurrent selection, and the
establishment of further improved second
generation seed orchards.

Improvement of the native junipers is
also underway. In cooperation with members
of the Forestry Committee of the Great Plains
Agricultural Council, a Plains-wide test of
selected Rocky Mountain juniper and eastern
redcedar seed sources has begun; and a seed
orchard program has been started from
selections of older trees exhibiting desirable
windbreak characteristics, such as tallness
and narrowness of crown.

Other Forest Service scientists at Lincoln
are working cooperatively with the tree
improvement program to develop disease
resistant trees for Plains forestry (see the
January 1977 issue of Forestry Research).
The influences of mycorrhizae fungi on tree
growth are also being studied.

In addition, cooperating entomologists
from Kansas, Nebraska, and North Dakota
are studying the biology of damaging insects,
and are looking for clues to insect resistant
trees.

Bottineau lab

Working closely with the Lincoln project
is the Forestry Practices - Northern Great
Plains unit at Bottineau, North Dakota —
devoted to an aggressive tree improvement
program in the northern Great Plains.

Five-year study results on ponderosa
pine have shown that by using a superior seed

source, a 30 percent gain in height growth
rate can be achieved without sacrificing cold
or drought hardiness.

Results of a 10-year old Scots pine
provenance study show that nurseries switch¬
ing to the best seed sources could gain 20
percent in height growth rate, 5 percent
survival rate, and more trees with an
aesthetically pleasing dark green color year
round. Seed from the next generation may
show an additional 10 percent gain in height
growth rate.

Two new studies at Bottineau are
focusing on adapting green ash and Scots
pine for planting in shelterbelts and for other
environmental enhancement.

Sowing Scots pine seeds in styroblocks.

Research Forester James Van Deusen
says “the green ash study is a provenance test
in which seeds were collected from through¬
out the northern Great Plains.” The seedlings
are being grown in a greenhouse at Bottineau
and will be planted as year old stock in the
spring of 1979 in North and South Dakota
and Nebraska.

The second study is a progeny test of
Scots pine. For the past 7 years, Bottineau
researchers have been conducting controlled
pollinations among superior Scots pine on the
Denbigh Experimental Forest in North
Dakota.

Van Deusen explains, “we have now
accumulated enough seeds to raise seedlings
that can be used as progeny tests of the
selected parents.”

3

Scots pine seedlings in the greenhouse.

The Scots pine seedlings are also being
grown in the Bottineau greenhouse and will
be planted as year-old stock next to the green
ash. The Scots pine plantations will contain
about 6,000 trees, the green ash about 6,600.

Final results from these studies may not
be available for 20 years, the time it takes for
the seedlings to reach maturity, produce seed,
and new seedling studies to be initiated.

Researchers at Bottineau are also work¬
ing on a highly automated greenhouse
nursery system that will reduce the time
required to grow planting stock. The system
centers around containerized seedlings grown
under close temperature, humidity, water,
nutrient, and root configuration control. Read
more about growing containerized seedlings
in greenhouses in the upcoming January 1979
issue of Forestry Research.

Tree improvement research in the Plains
has come a long way since its beginning in
1931 on the Denbigh Experimental Forest. It
is now a mature science providing un-
parralleled opportunities for adapting trees to
the Plains environment, and allowing con¬
sumers, landowners, and land managers to
maintain and improve the economic, protec¬
tive and aesthetic benefits derived from trees.

For additional information on tree
improvement research at Bottineau, contact
James Van Deusen, Rocky Mountain Station,
Shelterbelt Laboratory, First and Brander
St., Bottineau, North Dakota 58318, phone
(701) 228-2259, (FTS operator 783-5771).

If you would like more details on tree
improvement research at Lincoln, contact
Ralph A. Read. Rocky Mountain Station,
Forestry Sciences Laboratory, East Campus,
University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska
68503, phone (402) 467-3556, (FTS operator
867-5211).

— by James Van Deusen and
David Van Haverbeke,
Rocky Mountain Station

t

Fire managers carry out a prescribed burn to improve forage production on a ponderosa
pine/ grass habitat type. Procedures are designed to remove dead grass but not kill the trees.

Fire RD&A Program!

Research-Land
Management Link

Bright, midmorning sunlight sliced
through the trees as Fire Officer
Rowen and three companions halted
their pickup trucks on Pine Mountain, on a
National Forest in Idaho.

Rowen grabbed a notebook, popped a
hard hat on his head, and climbed down from
the truck. Followed by the others, he headed
for an area several hundred yards away.

Rowen checked the papers that were the Fire
Use Plan and Report for the Pine Mountain
Wildlife Burn. Weather, moisture content of
the grasses and forbs, and other conditions
met the prescriptions outlined in the Fire
Plan. “Okay,” he said, “let’s go to it.”

The four returned to the trucks and began
to unload equipment — dictaphone, portable
radios, cameras and film, shovels and

5

pulaskis, and drip torches and fuel. A curious
assemblage? Perhaps, but each item was
required in their mission to burn 135 acres of
the Forest. The men were ready for the crucial
phase of a prescribed fire plan to increase
forage on an important deer and elk winter
range site.

Rowen signaled the three men with
torches to begin. Each torchman followed a
carefully planned firing pattern as Rowen
recorded strategy and fire behavior.

Fact or fiction? The activity on Pine
Mountain is fiction, but similar scenes will
become fact as land managers include fire as
a tool for forest management.

A Fire Use Plan and Report is one of
many management tools developed by the
Intermountain Station’s Fire in Multiple Use
Research, Development, and Application
Program, headquartered at Missoula, Mon¬
tana. Created in 1974, the Program’s focus is
to improve the manager’s capability to
integrate fire management into land use
planning and management activities.

Jim Lotan, Program Manager, says, “The
National Forest Management Act showed the
way for a change in fire policy. Our approach
assumes that fire management exists to
support land management programs.”

The scope of this approach can be seen in
the number of fire-related projects at the
Program’s center at the Northern Forest Fire
Laboratory in Missoula. Scientists and
engineers are organized into three teams,
each with its own objectives, much like the
RD&A Program itself.

Each team is involved with the three
main Program goals: ( 1 ) define the role of fire;

(2) develop methods to integrate fire manage¬
ment into land management planning; and

(3) demonstrate and apply developed pro¬
cedures.

William C. Fischer, leader of the opera¬
tional planning team, has developed fire use
plan and report procedures that land man¬
agers can use to apply the concept of fire
management.

According to Fischer, a successful pre¬
scribed fire is “one that is executed safely,
burns under control, accomplishes the pre¬
scribed treatment, and attains the manage¬
ment objectives for the area involved.”

Fischer’s plan and report format are in
the Intermountain Station publication “Plan¬
ning and Evaluating Prescribed Fires ... a
Standard Procedure,” INT-GTR-43-FR16.

He and other members of the operational
team are responsible for developing tech¬
niques for fire management planning as
dictated by management objectives.

Team provides assistance

A recent request from the State of Idaho,
Department of Lands, fit neatly into their
mission. Idaho needed information to help
forest managers determine the fire hazard
associated with thinning slash, and whether
treatment of the slash was needed.

In response to the request, Idaho’s Wayne
H. Koski and Fischer developed a photo
series showing different slash situations
created by precommercial thinning in three
timber types in north Idaho. Each photo is
supplemented by inventory data describing
the size, weight, and volume of the debris.
Related stand data, estimates of predicted fire
behavior, and Idaho Forest Practice Act slash
hazard ratings are also given. The publica¬
tion, “Photo Series for Appraising Precom¬
mercial Thinning Slash in North Idaho,”
INT-GTR-46-FR16, by Koski and Fischer,
includes instructions for use in the field.

Other studies by the operational team
have produced a catalog and user’s guide for
describing fire history and weather. They
have also developed a guide for wilderness
fire management plans and a model to
integrate fire into land management planning.

“Modeling and simulation are tools that
can help the fire manager project future
consequences,” says Richard Barney, leader
of the RD&A strategic planning and systems
development team.

Barney believes the basic decision facing
the manager is one of balancing trade-offs
between fire use and its control. “Starting
with a proposed fire strategy, we estimate fire
behavior and effects, and finally, economic
consequences. By trying different combina¬
tions several times, one strategy should
evolve that meets the performance criteria
established earlier in the planning process.”

6

Barney and others of his group have
designed a fire management decision model;
developed a fire effects prediction system; and
demonstrated and evaluated a decision
model.

The RD&A’s rangeland fire manage¬
ment team has concentrated on gathering fire
effects information for planning on Bureau of
Land Management lands. In 1976, officials of
the BLM indicated their interest in applying
the fire management concept to lands under
their jurisdiction. The resulting cooperative
agreement placed BLM’s James Linne at the

Field crew appraises thinning slash to provide
information on fire hazard.

Missoula NFFL, working closely with Pro¬
gram Manager Lotan. Linne has guided
efforts to organize published and unpub¬
lished forest and rangeland fire information.
He and others assigned to the program have
also demonstrated how to include fire con¬
siderations in forest and rangeland manage¬
ment and have produced guidelines for in¬
tegrating fire into activity and project level
planning.

The Intermountain Station researchers
have worked with BLM District teams to
develop fire management guidelines for the
“Cold Desert,” or Great Basin ecosystems.

These guidelines are being tested on three
Districts: Elko, Nevada; Cedar City, Utah;
and Shoshone, Idaho.

The “Cold Desert” guidelines have also
served as the basis for prescriptions for BLM
lands in the prairies and the Great Plains.
The Bureau selected its Miles City, Montana
District to test the guidelines in the Northern
Great Plains; the Las Cruces, New Mexico
District will test them in the Southern Great
Plains.

More than 300 participants attended the
“Prairie Burning Workshop” in Jamestown,
North Dakota, in April 1978, that launched
the Great Plains effort. Participants became
familiar with a designated area, applied fire
planning principles, and prepared a Fire
Use Plan to meet a specified management
objective.

Fire has been described as a two-edged
sword, bringing death and destruction, yet
bearing new life and growth. In some forest
environments fire is the essential recycling
and decomposing agent, and an important
link in the carbon, nitrogen, sulphur, and
phosphorus cycles. Fire management recog¬
nizes that fire cannot be completely excluded
from the forest. Fire is and always has been a
part of the ecosystem.

Program Manager Lotan says, “Re¬
searchers of the Fire in Multiple Use RD&A
Program have ventured beyond control, to
management. Land managers have the
problems and researchers have a knowledge
base. Our program is designed to link the
two.”

Other publications related to the Fire
RD&A Program available from the Inter¬
mountain Station are:

Egging, L. T., and Richard J. Barney.
1978. Fire Management: A Component of
Land Management Planning. Environmental
Management 2(6).

Lotan, James E. 1978. The Forest Service
Fire in Multiple-Use Management RD&A
Program. Environmental Management 2(6).

Lotan, James E. 1978. Why Integrate
Fire Management into Land Use Planning.
Environmental Management 2(6).

— by Delpha Noble,
Intermountain Station

7

Barney Brady calls it “the best rig I’ve
seen in 35 years of logging.” The “rig”
is a new, small running skyline yarder.
Brady is a logger. He is using a prototype of
the new machine to yard timber cut from the
Pack Forest near Eatonville, Washington,
under a contract with the owners, the
University of Washington.

The new yarder was designed primarily
to reduce the cost of thinning young stands on
steep slopes, yet retain all the environmental
advantages of the larger, more expensive
running skyline yarders. The design concept
is the work of U.S. Forest Service Engineers
Hilton Lysons and Charles Mann of the
Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Ex¬
periment Station’s forest engineering re¬
search unit in Seattle, Washington.

The technology for removing logs from
steep slopes with minimal environmental
damage has been steadily improving since
the running skyline yarder was introduced in
the mid-1960’s. With a running skyline, three
suspended lines are moving and, when
properly tensioned, support and control the
carriage and log load. The strength of cable
required is about half that of cable in
equivalent standing skylines, which support
the carriage and log load by a single, fixed
cable.

The running skylines currently in use
have proven efficient and economical for

The peewee yarder shown in operation at Pack
Forest, Spring 1978.

A New Yarder
for Small Timber

yarding large and medium sized logs from
both clearcuts and partial cuts. But the
yarding of small, lower value logs has
presented a critical cost problem. The revenue
from small logs has not always been enough
to pay the cost of owning and operating

conventional yarding equipment. Other, less
efficient, yarding systems for moving small
logs often caused unacceptable environ¬
mental damage. Because of the cost crunch,
most young stands of timber on difficult sites
have gone unthinned.

8

Innovative hydraulic drum drive mechanism is
key to success of the peewee yarder. Although
developed for the peewee yarder, it can be adapted
to other yarding systems.

The peewee yarder is expected to solve
the cost problem.

“We have used a new concept in
hydraulically powered, interlocked drums to
control the speed at which the cables are
wound on and off the drums,” says Lysons.
“This eliminates the need for clutches and
brakes, simplifying operations and reducing
costs. Two levers provide smooth, simple
control of all yarding functions. This greatly
improves efficiency and reduces damage to
the residual stand in a thinning operation,”
he explains.

It takes only three people to operate the
new yarder. It is called the “peewee yarder”
because it handles logs from 5 to 20 inches in
diameter. Loggers have traditionally called

these “peewee” logs because they were
considered insignificant compared with logs
from the large old growth timber.

But now logs of this size are far from
insignificant and can be processed in a
growing number of mills. In the Pacific
Northwest there are millions of acres of
conifer stands 35 to 80 years old, and that
acreage will increase as the old-growth timber
is cut. Perhaps one quarter of these young
trees grow in overly dense stands on fragile
soils or on steep slopes. Thinning these
stands could make use of wood that is other¬
wise lost as trees die and might increase the
fiber supply as much as 20 percent in volume
on a continuous basis.

Contract logger Barney Brady demonstrates the
use of the control panel, easily operated by one
person.

Three-man crew can handle all jobs involved in a
thinning operation.

9

Long narrow harvest corridor is used for thinning
operation on steep slopes. Slack-pulling carriage
enables logs to be yarded into the corridor from as
far as 75 feet into the timber.

As Brady has used the prototype to yard
timber from clearcuts and partial cuts, his
progress and production have been followed
carefully by the yarder’s designers and
builders.

In six weeks in early 1978, Brady and two
assistants yarded logs thinned from a mixed
stand of Douglas-fir and red alder to an
existing road from 14 settings 150 feet apart.
Two settings were yarded downhill, 12 uphill.
With line speeds of 750 feet per minute, Brady
brought logs to the side of the road at a rate of
30 to 50 per hour. Four logs make up the usual
load. The slack-pulling carriage allows
reaching logs as far as 75 feet from the 12-foot¬
wide yarding corridors. These corridors may
extend up to 1,200 feet between yarder and
tailback.

Advantages

Because the peewee yarder has controls
mounted on the rear of the vehicle instead of
inside the cab, Brady is also the “chaser.”
After he brings the logs to the edge of the road,
he leaves the yarder controls long enough to
unhook the 8-foot chokers from the logs.
Yarding, loading, and hauling can be
streamlined into one continuous operation
when enough logs are available.

Moving the yarder is easy and fast.
Unhooking the simplified rigging, moving to
a new setting, and rigging up to yard again
takes less than an hour. The yarder is
mounted on a conventional 110-horse-power
rubber-tired skidder. This is essentially an
off-road vehicle and can be easily driven on
steep, narrow mountain roads. The 37-foot
tower that suspends the cable can be lowered
to a horizontal position for travel, but this is

Ends drag the ground minimally or are lifted free.

10

unnecessary for short moves. For long
highway moves it must be carried on a truck.

In addition to its special features, the
peewee yarder has all the environmental
advantages of the larger running skyline
yarders. These mobile, cable systems can be
used to yard logs both uphill and downhill,
thus fewer roads and landings are needed.
Less construction means less soil and water
disturbance and reduced impact on fish and
wildlife habitat. Because the logs are sus¬
pended at one end during yarding, there is
less soil disturbance. Log breakage and
damage to standing trees are also reduced.

The running skyline system also offers
economic advantages over larger, less mobile
systems. Fewer roads and smaller landings
are needed. Less land is removed from timber
production. The mobility of the equipment
makes it practical to log smaller, irregular,
and scattered units either by thinning or
clearcutting. The peewee yarder retains and
extends these economic advantages.

The peewee yarder is the result of
cooperation between researchers and private
industry. The three-drum set for the prototype
was designed and built by Lantec Industries,
Ltd. of Langley, British Columbia. The
yarder tower was designed by the Applied
Physics Laboratory of the University of
Washington, which was also responsible for
assembling the entire mechanism on a
tractor-skidder on loan from Deere and
Company of Moline, Illinois. Before the
operational trials began, the Applied Physics
Laboratory conducted extensive instrumented
tests to check out the mechanical systems.

Even though the peewee yarder passed
its early tests with flying colors, additional
evaluation was done during the summer of
1978. The prototype yarder was kept working
steadily to determine its mechanical integ¬
rity. Performance evaluations were made
under a variety of operating modes — uphill
and downhill thinning, clearcutting, slash
removal, yarding on flat ground with wet or
sensitive soils, and two-stage yarding.

As more sawmills develop the capability
to process small logs, the demand for yarders
of this type is expected to increase. Lyson
says, “Several U.S. manufacturers and
researchers in foreign countries are following

developments closely. The yarder has poten¬
tial use in all forested regions where small
logs must be yarded from steep slopes or
sensitive soils.”

At the landing, the logs are lifted onto a truck.

Photos by Dorothy Bergstrom and Summer
Walters.

Evaluation and demonstration of the
yarder has been under the direction of Ed
Clarke at the Pacific Northwest Station’s
headquarters in Portland. Those who want
additional information about the peewee
yarder can write to him there at P.O. Box
3141, Portland, Oregon 97208.

— by Dorothy Bergstrom
Pacific Northwest Station

11

Researchers are experimenting with the use of growth inhibitors to control brush on fuelbreaks.

Developing Alternatives
for

California’s Chaparral

Tough, shrubby plants that are known
as chaparral blanket mile after mile of
southern California wildlands. One of
the major problems in managing these vast,
dry fields of chamise, ceanothus, and similar
species is that they are highly flammable.
Most stands burn every 20 to 40 years; the larg¬
est of these fires can cost as much as $15 million
in suppression expenses and post-fire damages.
When the fires are out, the trouble is not over.

Coarse soil, no longer held in place by
vegetation, slides off steep slopes. Winter
rains, falling on burned-over watersheds,
usually result in floods that move great
quantities of sediment downstream to reser¬
voirs, over roads, and into houses.

With these problems, it is no wonder that
the predominant approach to managing
chaparral in southern California has been to
view the brush mainly as watershed cover.

12

The effort to protect brush from wildfire has
led to an emphasis on fire suppression at the
expense of other land-use concerns. It has
also contributed to a dangerous and un¬
naturally heavy buildup of dead fuels.

As a way out of this predicament, some
managers have attempted to reduce chap¬
arral fuels by mechanical, biological, or
chemical means. These and other approaches
to managing chaparral are being studied by
Pacific Southwest Station researchers in the

Satellite imagery may be an aid in classifying
chaparral land.

Chaparral Management Unit at Riverside
and Glendora, California. The Unit is part of
the Chaparral Management Research and
Development Program, a 5-year effort in
which information produced by the re¬
searchers will be tested and demonstrated at
selected sites throughout southern Cali¬
fornia. Program administrators will also
work with the researchers to produce a series
of field guides, handbooks, and other ma¬
terials that highlight the research results that
are ready for use.

The research is based on the premise that
once fuel management programs are de¬
veloped and put into effect, the fire-flood
problem will not loom as large, and managers
will be able to devote more time and money to
provide a variety of uses from the brushfields.
The Program will produce needed informa¬
tion on managing chaparral for recreation,
forage, and wildlife habitat as well as for
watershed values. Findings should be of
interest to land managers in chaparral sites
throughout California, Oregon, Nevada,
Idaho, and the American Southwest. In the
four regions of the world — central Chile,
Australia, the Mediterranean countries, and
South Africa — where climate and vegetation
are similar to southern California’s, the
research results should also be helpful.

Inventory , classification

To aid intensive chaparral management,
researchers are developing better ways to
inventory chaparral land, to classify in¬
ventoried areas on the basis of vegetation,
soils, terrain, and other major features, and to
handle data so that inventory information is
convenient for administrators and resource
specialists to use and update.

The classification scheme now being de¬
veloped will be compatible with some of the
existing regional and national classification
systems but will be more specific to chaparral.
The system will be dynamic, and will reflect
not only the state of the land, but also plant
growth and succession, and other natural
changes.

13

Fuel modification

Grazing, prescribed fire, and use of
herbicides are currently being evaluated as
methods for reducing fuels. Depending on
site, species, and age, chaparral stands may
have 10 to 40 tons of fuel per acre, or more. In
the grazing study, a herd of Spanish goats is
browsing brush along fuelbreaks and other
sites on the Cleveland National Forest.
Experiments during the past 2 years have
shown that free-grazing goats prefer birch-
leaf mountain mahogany and scrub oak — two
commonly occurring species. They browsed
these plants heavily when allowed to feed
freely in 5-year-old regrowth. If the goats were
tightly fenced, they browsed the less palat¬
able species — chamise, Eastwood manzanita,
and California buckwheat.

Prescribed burning — the use of fire under
safe, carefully controlled conditions — has not
been used to its full potential as a way to
lighten loads of chaparral fuels in southern
California. One of the major research goals is
to provide the information managers need to
develop safe, effective, and economical pre¬
scriptions for burning.

Other work is describing the sequence of
vegetation that occurs following wildfires or
prescribed burns. In one study, for example,
plant composition and growth on sites burned
by wildfire were closely monitored for 3 years
after fire, and will be monitored again during
the 10th through 12th post-fire years. This
information will be compared with that from
sites burned by prescribed fire under various
conditions, to see if the recovery sequence
differs.

Goats grazed almost all of the brush on this plot, except for that within the 25-square-foot exclosure.

14

Brushland Hydrology

Studies of brushland hydrology are
aimed at determining natural erosion rates
on southern California watersheds, and
identifying the effects prescribed burning,
grazing, use of herbicides, and other manage¬
ment activities have on erosion, sedimenta¬
tion, and water yield. This work includes par¬
ticipating in an interagency investigation of
sediment management. This study, which is
headed by the California Institute of Tech¬
nology, Pasadena, encompasses mountain
watersheds as well as the coastal plains and
beaches that are affected by upland sediment.
The Experiment Station’s portion of this
study includes analyzing chaparral water¬
sheds to determine how fire affects the
delivery of sediment to sites downstream.

As in most of the chaparral studies, one
goal is to develop mathematical models that
simulate natural processes, in this case,
erosion. Managers will be able to use these
models to predict the erosion that may result
from different management activities.

Research on hard-to-wet soils will pro¬
vide information about the distribution of
these soils and their potential impact on
erosion and sedimentation. Hard-to-wet soils,
formed either during fires or by other
processes, block the percolation of rainwater,
thus increasing runoff and erosion.

Nutrient budgets

Another concern is the long-term effects
that management activities — particularly
prescribed burning — might have on the
bacteria, fungi, and other soil microbes that
provide nutrients for chaparral plants. Pre¬
scribed burning, while it may release nutri¬
ents that are tied up in dead plant material,
may also destroy other nutrients and kill
some beneficial soil microflora. Current
studies are defining the effect of fire on the
cycling of nitrogen, a nutrient that is in low
supply in most chaparral stands.

Soil microbes are also of interest because
changes in the size and composition of
microbial populations might be a factor

behind the aging of chaparral. Most experts
agree that by the time a chaparral stand
reaches 30 to 40 years of age, it is putting on
little new growth; more than 50 percent of the
plant material in the stand may be dead. The
fire hazard in these decadent stands is much
higher than that in younger brush. Re¬
searchers are trying to determine if increased
availability of nutrients will slow down the
aging process. One study has shown that
nutrient cycling in a 15-year-old stand was
much more efficient than in either a 54-year-
old or a 1-year-old stand. This information,
along with data from followup studies, will be
useful in determining how prescribed fire can
be used to improve the nutrient cycling
process.

Oak management

Native oaks, which provide food for
wildlife, shade for recreationists, firewood for
homeowners, and a break in the monotony of
the brushfields, are one of the newest subjects
of the team’s research. Studies are aimed at
developing guidelines for managing the vast
oak-woodland resource in California.

One project will show the response of
various oak species to fire. This work will
provide managers with the information they
need in order to know whether oaks damaged
by fire have been killed and should be
removed, or if the trees will recover. Pre¬
liminary evaluations of oak sensitivity to fire
have shown that, among the five species
studied, coast live oak ( Quercus agrifolia) is
the most fire-resistant. This species can
resprout from the crown within 2 months
after being totally blackened by fire. It is
followed by California black oak ( Quercus
kelloggii), canyon live oak (Quercus chry-
solepis ), and interior live oak ( Quercus
wislizenii). California scrub oak (Quercus
dumosa) is the least fire-resistant.

To determine other oak management
problems that need study, the researchers
sponsored an informal workshop on southern
California oak management this year, and
will hold a formal symposium on the topic in
1979.

15

Bark characteristics of native oaks — such as this
valley oak — will be used as the basis for a new
guide to identifying these species.

Smog damage

Other research focuses on the impact of
smog from heavily populated areas of
southern California. While smog apparently
has not damaged chaparral, it has injured
conifers in the mountains above the brush-
lands. The Station’s studies in the San
Bernardino Mountains, which are one of
several mountain groups that receive much of
the smog produced in the Los Angeles basin,
have shown that ponderosa pine and Jeffrey
pine are severely affected by air pollution,
while sugar pine seems smog-resistant.

Current studies will show how different doses
of air pollution affect tree growth and
susceptibility to attack by insects and
diseases, and will produce guidelines for
managing smog-damaged stands.

Future research

The group plans to start studies in two
other areas of chaparral management —
treatment of the riparian zone and main¬
tenance of wildlife habitat. Riparian, or
streambank, vegetation makes up only about
10 percent of the chaparral landscape.
However, it receives nearly 90 percent of the
recreation and wildlife use. This zone requires
special attention because it is affected by
brushland treatments, whether or not they
extend into the riparian zone itself. Plans call
for studies on how to manage riparian vege¬
tation to control sediment, maintain wildlife
habitat, and preserve the zone’s esthetic
values.

Wildlife habitat studies will identify the
effects of chaparral management on the
density and diversity of wildlife species.
Currently, Station scientists are coordinating
research by cooperators. Included is a study
on the recovery of insect, reptile, songbird,
rodent, and other small mammal populations
following wildfire; and the development of
charts and brief reports summarizing habitat
needs for more than 100 species of birds,
reptiles and amphibians, and mammals.

The Chaparral Program is probably the
most comprehensive effort yet made to learn
more about the functioning and management
of southern California’s chaparral ecosys¬
tem. While this effort may not solve all the
management problems, it will reduce their
impact on the more than 10 million southern
Californians whose lives are affected by
chaparral lands.

— by Marcia Wood ,
Pacific Southwest Station

NOTE: Details about this research are avail¬
able from Gene Conrad, Leader, Chaparral
Unit, PSW Station, Forest Fire Laboratory,
P.O. Box 5007, Riverside, CA 92517 ; phone
(714) 787-1551, or FTS: 796-1551.

16

Publications

Visitors surveyed on
use of self-guided
nature trail

A California survey of vacationers
at a self-guided nature trail provides
information about what people do — and
do not — learn on outdoor walks. The
study site was the Rainbow Trail on the
Eldorado National Forest in northern
California. The trail is located about 500
feet from Lake Tahoe, and one of the
primary purposes of the walk is to teach
visitors about water quality and water
management in the Lake and sur¬
rounding basin. The trail takes visitors
through a forest meadow and alongside
Taylor Creek, one of the more than 60
streams that flow into the Lake. The trail
also leads to the Stream Profile Cham¬
ber, a unique building in which visitors
can get an underwater look, through
large windows, at a cross-section of
Taylor Creek.

For the survey, 234 adult visitors
were observed as they walked along the
trail, and were asked to participate in a
short interview just before they left the
site. Results showed that learning was
generally greater for the more educated,
physically active visitors who took their
time and participated in suggested
activities, such as checking how long it
takes for a gallon of water to flow over a
small dam. One of the most frequently
mentioned trailside lessons was about
the function of snow pillows. A short quiz
during the interviews proved this out — 62
percent of the visitors correctly remem¬
bered the function of snow pillows.
Disappointingly, the question that re¬
ceived the lowest number of correct
answers — 18 percent — was the one deal¬
ing with the effect of water quality on the
reproduction of the Kokanee salmon and
other fish that spawn in Taylor Creek.

Trail officials, however, were gen¬
erally pleased with the amount of
information that the visitors absorbed,
and the visitors themselves seemed to
enjoy their stay. More information is in
the report, “Response of visitors to the
Rainbow Trail: an evaluation of an
interpretive area in the Lake Tahoe
Basin, California,” Research Paper PSW-
131-FR16, by Richard A. Kuehner and
Gary H. Eisner. Copies are available
from the PSW Station.

A new insect book

Foresters now have the insect ref¬
erence book they asked for a few years
ago. Western Forest Insects by R. L.
Furniss and V. M. Carolin is a completely
revised and enlarged replacement for F.
P. Keen’s classic USDA handbook,
Insect Enemies of Western Forests,

17

which has been out of print for several
years. The new book is based on the
published literature about insects and
related organisms that live on trees,
shrubs, and wood products in North
America west of the 100th meridian and
north of Mexico.

The book is about insects as they
relate to the multiple uses of the forest, a
concept that was shaped by practicing
foresters and entomologists around the
western United States, through inter¬
views with F urniss before the project was
started.

Insects that cause significant dam¬
age to forest resources are emphasized. A
table lists 31 species of major insect pests
by four broad geographic regions. Other
species are lesser pests which have only
local impact on forest or product values.
Most of the 1,400 species described are
considered beneficial or innocuous.

The book is organized so it is useful
for insect identification and as a source
of information about insects known to
the reader. The general index lists both
scientific and common names, with the
most important page references in bold
type. An asterisk indicates whether there
is an illustration.

Those who want to identify an insect
can use the Diagnostic Host Index. With
it, the reader looks first under the plant
species involved, then under the part of
tree or shrub infested, and finally under
the feeding habits, where insects that
might cause the observed damage are
listed. Possible culprits are then located
in the major sections of the book, where
insect species are listed in taxonomic
order, described, and illustrated with 500
photographs. Readers who need addi¬
tional information should consult the
1,200 references cited.

An introductory section provides
background information on forest in¬
sects and their environment. There are
chapters in non-technical language on

the role, natural regulation, habitat
relationships, prevention, and control of
insects.

Students, extension specialists, tech¬
nicians, forest owners, and others should
find the manual useful.

The book was published by the U.S.
Department of Agriculture and is avail¬
able from the Superintendent of Docu¬
ments in Washington, D.C. (Stock No.
001-000 — 3618-1, price $8.75). The au¬
thors are entomologists, now retired from
the staff of the Pacific Northwest
Station.

Spruce beetle in the
Rockies

A report summarizing available
knowledge on the spruce beetle in the
western United States has been pub¬
lished by the Rocky Mountain Station.

Its main purpose is to assemble
pertinent information under common
binding so that foresters and land
managers can easily find answers to
their questions on the beetle.

While “Spruce Beetle in the Rockies”
is primarily concerned with the beetle in
the central and southern Rockies, recent
work in the northern Rockies and Alaska
is also reviewed. The literature from the
Rockies is mostly derived from studies in
Colorado where spruce beetle research
was emphasized following an outbreak
on the White River National Forest in the
1940’s. That epidemic destroyed 3.8
billion board feet of spruce timber.

The report details the life history
and behavior of the spruce beetle; host
relationships; effects of temperature and
biotic factors on the beetle; effects of

18

infestations on watersheds, forage pro¬
duction, wildlife, wood products, etc.; and
discusses detection, evaluation, and
suppression. The suppression section
covers the current status of chemicals,
pheromones, trap trees, and silvicultural
treatments. The initial steps in con¬
trolling spruce beetle populations are
stated in the final section on beetle
management policy.

If you would like a copy of General
Technical Report RM-49-FR16, write the
Rocky Mountain Station.

Inventories proceed¬
ings published

The Society of American Foresters,
University of Arizona, U.S. Forest
Service, Bureau of Land Management,
and the Renewable Natural Resources
Foundation sponsored the Integrated
Inventories of Renewable Natural Re¬
sources Workshop in Tucson, Arizona, on
January 8-12, 1978.

The workshop was held to promote
development of efficient, objective, and
timely systems for making integrated
inventories of multiple resources.

The 82 papers presented were quick¬
ly published in “Integrated Inventories
of Renewable Natural Resources: Pro¬
ceedings of the Workshop,” General
Technical Report RM-55.

Participants looked at present pro¬
cedures for collecting data on individual
resources. The need for collecting data
through an integrated process at various
interest levels was also examined. Var¬
ious land and vegetation classification
schemes, remote sensing opportunities,
statistical considerations in integrating

inventories, and available data proces¬
sing packages and systems were re¬
viewed. Finally, a group of state-of-the-
art papers summarized progress being
made toward developing integrated in¬
ventory procedures.

The material contained in these
proceedings supplements those of the
Inventory Design and Analysis Work¬
shop held in Fort Collins, Colorado in
1974, the Systems Analysis and Forest
Resource Management Workshop held in
Athens, Georgia in 1975, and the
Resource Data Management Symposium
held in West Lafayette, Indiana in 1976.

Copies of the proceedings were dis¬
tributed in April to all Forest Service
Regions, Stations, and most libraries
throughout the country. Additional copies
are now available for $15.00 from
National Technical Information Ser¬
vices, 5285 Port Royal Rd., Springfield,
Virginia, 22161. Request No. PB281036.

19

An Alaska plant guide
for amateur botanists

A guide to the more common plants
of the hemlock-spruce forests of south¬
east Alaska has been published by the
Pacific Northwest Station. Forty-one
species of clubmosses, ferns, herbs, and
shrubs are described and illustrated. An
identification key and a glossary of
technical terms are included. The guide
was designed primarily as a tool for
foresters, but it will be useful to anyone
visiting or working in southeast Alaska.

Single copies of “The Common
Plants of the Hemlock-Spruce Forests of
Alaska,” by O. Wayne Robuck are
available from the Pacific Northwest
Station as long as the supply lasts.
Quantity orders must be sent to the
Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Print¬
ing Office, Washington, D.C., 20402.
Order by Stock No. 001-001-00432-4. The
price is $2.75.

For the birds

The forest manager’s key role in
managing habitat for nongame bird
species was the subject of a workshop
held in Portland, Oregon, in February
1977. The workshop was the first in a
planned series of regional meetings to
present the principles and techniques of
nongame bird management to managers
at all levels.

Proceedings of the workshop are
now available. The 12 papers presented
discuss the importance of birds in forest
ecosystems and the nongame bird com¬
munities in the western U.S. The plant

communities and successional stages
that supply the habitat for these bird
communities are also described. Several
papers discuss the impact of silvicultural
and other forest and range management
practices and land uses on bird habitat.
Others present guidelines for managers.

Copies of “Proceedings of the work¬
shop on nongame bird habitat manage¬
ment in the coniferous forests of the
western United States,” by Richard M.
DeGraaf, Technical Coordinator, (Gen¬
eral Technical Report PNW-64) are
available from the Pacific Northwest
Station.

Pipeline moves wood
chips

A new process to move wood
chips by hydraulic pipeline could save
time, money, and energy. The process
was developed under a cooperative study
between the Intermountain Station and
Montana State University, Bozeman.

Studies show the pipeline system
could significantly reduce the costs of
transporting large volumes of chipped
wood residues to pulpmills or other
processing or shipping points. The
concept has potential for wide applica¬
tion — there are no distance, terrain, or
weather constraints. Energy-efficient
characteristics make the system es¬
pecially attractive. Tests show that
transporting wood chips by hydraulic
pipeline could save 50 percent or more
over present methods.

Dr. William A. Hunt, leader of the
pipeline project since it began in 1963, is
a professor in the Civil Engineering and

20

Engineering Mechanics Department of
Montana State. He has been assisted by
Rulon B. Gardner of the Intermountain
Station’s Forestry Sciences Laboratory,
Bozeman.

In 1976, Gardner presented the
results of the study to an international
symposium on transport and handling in
the pulp and paper industry, in Rotter¬
dam, Netherlands.

Further information on the pipeline
study is included in the publication,
“Transporting Woodchips by Hydraulic
Pipeline,” INT-R-530-FR16, by Rulon B.
Gardner.

Wildlife benefits from
wildfire

The study took place on four burned
areas, 1, 3, 7, and 20 years old, near
Flagstaff, Arizona.

Although wildfires destroyed or
damaged the timber resource, the study
showed that other resources benefited.

If you would like more information
on this study, write the Rocky Mountain
Station for a copy of this report.

14

Watch for the January issue. It will
feature: Rehabilitation Problems in

Alpine Regions; Growing Containerized
Seedlings in Greenhouses; WEST-
FORNET and Its Services: Relation¬
ships between Mycorrhizae and Small
Animals, and more.

Since the advent of organized fire
protection shortly after the turn of the
century, the policy has been to ex¬
tinguish all wildfires as quickly as
possible and to report damages caused by
each fire. The USDA Forest Service
prepares an Individual Fire Report for
each reportable fire, which includes acres
burned and estimates of damage to
resources.

Although there are damages, some¬
times serious ones, benefits also are
apparent when fire effects are evaluated
on short- as well as long-term bases.

In an effort to look at both sides of
the ledger, a cooperative study was
begun in 1974 between the University of
Arizona and the Rocky Mountain Sta¬
tion. Results of this study have just been
published in “Determining Potential
Wildlife Benefits from Wildfires in
Arizona Ponderosa Pine Forests,” Gen¬
eral Technical Report RM-51-FR16, by
Philip O. Lowe, Peter F. Ffolliott, John H.
Dieterich, and David R. Patton.

If you know of someone who would be
interested in this publication, he or she
can be added to the mailing list by filling
out the coupon below and mailing it to us.

r- - -i

Please add my name to the mail¬
ing list for Forestry Research:
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West

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Fort Collins, CO 80521

21

U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1978 - 779-390/73 Reg. 8

FORESTRY RESEARCH: What’s New in the West POSTAGE ANI) FEES PAID

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