# Presentation: 414352

## Verne Farrell, Silviculturist
Olympic National Forest
437 Tillicum Lane
Forks, WA 98331
360-374-1246
vfarrell@fs.fed.us

- Verne Farrell, Silviculturist
- Olympic National Forest
- 437 Tillicum Lane
- Forks, WA 98331
- 360-374-1246
- vfarrell@fs.fed.us

- Railsiding Understory Thin
- Non-commercial terrestrial habitat improvement
- Sol Duc Valley, Olympic NF, Clallam County, WA
- June, 2007

## Slide 2

**Notes:**
Railsiding, 1998

## Slide 3

## Slide 4

## Slide 5

## Slide 6

**Notes:**
Santo, 1992-3

## Slide 7

## Slide 8

**Notes:**
Santo WL tree; Split (1999-2003) snag patch.

## Slide 9

## Slide 10

## Slide 11

## Slide 12

## Slide 13

**Notes:**
Andy Carey and Jerry Franklin in Kugel Creek no-cut buffer (Kmark,2002)

## Slide 14

**Notes:**
Kugel Creek buffer

## Slide 15

**Notes:**
Kugel Creek, Kmark, 2002

## Slide 16

## Slide 17

**Notes:**
Heckel, 1994-95

## Slide 18

## Slide 19

## Slide 20

**Notes:**
Tie, 1998; Overpass alder thin, 2005-7

## Slide 21

**Notes:**
Overpass alder thin, 2006

## Slide 22

**Notes:**
Star flower

## Slide 23

**Notes:**
Tie

## Slide 24

**Notes:**
Two Y, 2002-3

## Slide 25

**Notes:**
Two Y, 2002-3

## Sol Duc Valley

**Olympic Peninsula, WA**

- Railsiding Understory Thin

- Sol Duc River

- Forks 18 miles

- Strait of Juan de Fuca

## Sol Duc Area Fires, 1895 to Present

**Forks Prairie**

**Snider Ridge**

**Bigler**** ****Mt**

**Snider**

- 	First Sol Duc Burn	ca. 1895		27,300 Acres
- 	Great Sol Duc Fire	1907		  8,800
- 	Sol Duc Fire		1914		  6,500
- 	Planting Fire		1919		  1,000
- 	Littleton Fire		1920		  2,800

**Great Forks Fire of 1951**

**First Sol Duc Burn**

**Great Sol Duc Fire**

**Littleton Fire**

**Railsiding UST**

**Notes:**
The four fires that occurred subsequent to the First or Original Sol Duc Burn spread across Snider Ridge to varying extents, but generally burned from the valley bottom, where they started from land clearing fires, to the top of the ridge, where they stopped.  They did not spread toward the city of Forks.

Contrast those with the Great Forks Fire of 1951, which started from railroad sparks along the Port Angeles West railroad track near Camp Creek in August 1951, was contained at 1600 acres by dozer lines and crews, and then flared up again on September 20 under east wind conditions.  It jumped firelines, blazed over the side of Bonidu Peak and directly over Bigler Mountain, and then on down through the North Fork Calawah to the outskirts of Forks, covering some 25 miles and 31,000 acres in about 10 hours. 

## 1935 Osborn photo of the west end of Snider Ridge, Bigler, and Sol Duc Valley from Kloshe Nanitch Lookout

**1935 Osborn photo of the west end of Snider Ridge, Bigler, and Sol Duc Valley from Kloshe Nanitch Lookout**

- Railsiding UST

**Notes:**
The 1935 Osborn photo shows the view to the southwest and west across the face of Snider Ridge most affected by the Douglas-fir dieback.  Note that the city of Forks is situated to the southwest, down the North Fork Calawah drainage, the path of the Great Forks Fire of 1951.  Note the recent cutting (recent in 1935) on what is now Green Crow land on the east face of Bigler Mountain (210 to 215 degrees), and that other lands now owned by RTOC on the other side of Bigler down the NF Calawah are also recent clearcuts in the photo.

Note also the numerous “legacy” snags in the old photographs, some of which (a significant number) still remain and provide cavity nester habitat into the 21st century.

Finally, take a look at the planting crew doing replanting work in 1936.  The slope they’re working on is exactly in profile from the camera.  The “rise” of the slope on the original photo is 3.6 inches, while the “run” is 4.5 inches, indicating a slope of 80%.  Slopes of this steepness are common on Snider Ridge. 

## First commercial thin, 1972-74

- Second commercial thin, 1998

## Hemlock carpets?

- Hemlock carpets?
- Recalcitrant understories?

- Objective:  Develop terrestrial habitat in a twice-commercial-thinned stand of Douglas-fir and hemlock that had grown a dense “carpet” of hemlock saplings following its first commercial thinning in the 1970s.

- Objective:  Demonstrate management of hemlock “carpets”

## Objective:  Open the understory and reintroduce (or prevent exclusion of) herbs and shrubs to (or from) the forest floor by thinning the understory cohort of hemlock

- Objective:  Allow retention of full crowns and encourage diameter growth of residual understory hemlock

**Notes:**
Need impoverished forest floor picture, and midstory hemlock here

## Objective:  Develop a stand exhibiting three distinct canopy layers—the overstory DF and WH, the understory hemlock and vine maple, and the ground layer of herbs and shrubs including red huckleberry, salal, fools huckleberry, sword fern, oxalis, etc.

## Forest/Regional Goals:

-  Implement the NW Forest Plan
-  Develop late successional habitat in AMA and LSR —
-    the Olympic is entirely AMA (20%) and LSR (80%)
-  Add diversity to simplified second-growth forests —
-    NWFP, Olympic AMA, D16

## Pre-treatment Stand Conditions:

- Overstory, post-commercial thinning (second CT 1998): Estimate 89% DF, 11% WH, 180 ft2/ac BA, 66 TPA, 22.5 in. QMD, RDCurtis = 38, LCR 35-45%
- Understory: Variably 5-20 thousand TPA, WH, 0-4” DBH, 4-18 feet tall that came in following the first commercial thin in the early to mid ‘70s.
- Ground vegetation: Light to non-existent due to exclusion by the dense hemlock understory stand.

## Intended post-treatment stand conditions:

- A stand exhibiting three distinct canopy layers—the overstory DF and WH, approx. 150 feet tall, the understory hemlock (approx 170 TPA) and vine maple, approx 8-16 feet tall, and a ground layer of herbs and shrubs including red huckleberry, salal, fool’s huckleberry, sword fern, oxalis, etc.

- Prescription:
- Thinning was specified to an average spacing of 16x16 feet, from below, cutting and spacing only from trees 6 inches DBH and under—in particular, thinners were not to space off overstory trees.
- Hemlock was the priority cut-tree.
- Cedar, spruce, and hardwoods were priority leave-trees.
- Shrubs of any kind were not to be cut.

## Tools/Resources

**Notes:**
PNW 447, as updated by more recent publications emphasizing the importance of spatial heterogeneity, both vertical and horizontal, including “skips and gaps.”

## • Once the understory hemlock has developed a woody stem, it can be

-    thinned mechanically, the same as any plantation—experience.

- • The thinned understory hemlock would be able to grow and develop without
-    excessive wet-noodling—logic (wind should not be as great a factor in the
-    understory and fervent prayer (the H/D ratio of a 2-inch,16-foot tree is 96!)

- Assumptions—basis:
- (and uncertainties)

- • Two canopy layers, i.e., the overstory DF and WH, plus the residual
-    understory hemlock and vine maple, would prevent a second pulse of
-    hemlock regeneration from germinating under the thinned understory—
-    experience and positive or wishful thinking.

## Railsiding Understory Thin

- 32 acres thinned November, 2001; 44 acres thinned March, 2004

- Before Treatment, October 5, 2001

- After  Treatment, December 3, 2001

- After 2002 Growing Season, September 23, 2002

## A lot of stems were cut:

- A _lot_ of stems were cut:

**Notes:**
This picture shows about 15 stems cut in approximately 10 square feet, representing 65,000 stems per acre at this point.

## Potential problems:

-  Prescription not understood:
- 	All understory trees removed
- 	Shrubs inadvertently cut
-  Slash
-  Wet noodling/blowdown

## Results: (3 and 5 growing seasons on)

- Results: (3 and 5 growing seasons on)
-  Hemlock carpet eliminated
-  Developing midstory WH & vine maple
-  No new pulse of hemlock regen
-  A few wet-noodled understory trees
-  Much more ground vegetation

## Results (continued):

-  Improved diameter growth of understory trees

- 59% increase in diameter growth

- 5 inch X 30 foot hemlock

- UST 11/2001

- 2nd CT 1998

**Notes:**
Add small pic of tree with increment borer

## Widely accepted, current?	Newly developed, novel?

- Widely accepted, current?	Newly developed, novel?
- 		Well...

## Questions?

- Answers $1
- Answers requiring thought $10
- Truthful and/or correct answers $100
- (Questions and dumb looks are free)

- This habitat don’t suck...

## Factors that may influence development of hemlock carpets in commercial thins:

-  Site moisture regime/plant association
-  Pre-thin ground vegetation cover, type and amount (reflecting stand density
-    and history)
-  Post-thin stand density, including losses due to blowdown
-  Stand species composition, i.e., relative dominance of DF vs. WH – may affect
-    height growth of hemlock carpet more than hemlock regeneration

- Continuous, dense

- Discontinuous, sparse

- Moist site

- Dry site

- Low veg cover

- High veg cover

- High pre-thin stand density

- Low pre-thin stand density

- High post-thin stand density

- Low post-thin stand density

- Hemlock carpet

## Other disturbances can generate hemlock carpets:

-  Post Christmas ice storm of 1996
-  Douglas-fir dieback on Snider Ridge
-  Low intensity fire along edge of Forks Burn, Bonidu Flat
-  Understory reinitiation stage forest, found in relatively undisturbed old
-    growth stands in Olympic National Park
-  1921 Blow (?) and other blowdown events