Are we making the right choices with our jack pine plantations ? R. Schneider, F. Berninger Capsis workshop June 2008

Lumber industry in Quebec Spruce, pine and fir are the most important species for the forest industry in Quebec and eastern Canada In 2005, 30.5 M m 3 of softwood was used by the lumber industry, representing 75% of the total harvested volume

Jack pine in Quebec 2 nd most important reforestation species in the province (21.3 M seedlings for ha in 2005) Spacing: –In the mid 70s: 2500 st/ha –In the mid 90s: 1750 st/ha

Reasons for changing spacing Economic reasons: –Less costly to establish and thin Silviculture: –Larger trees with longer crowns at 1st thinning –Lower mortality with container seedlings (10%, 8 years after) than with bare-root seedlings (33%, 8 years after) (Trottier 1998)

What about lumber quality ? Knots cause up to 50% of the visual downgrades in jack pine plantation-grown lumber (Zhang et al. 2005) However, there are still uncertainties with respect to wood quality: –How do we manage our existing plantations ? –Should we establish our plantations in the same way ?

General objective Develop or adapt a tool to predict the effect of different scenarios on the growth and wood quality of jack pine

General objective Develop or adapt a tool to predict the effect of different scenarios on the growth and wood quality of jack pine  Our choice: PipeQual (Mäkelä and Mäkinen 2003)

Why Capsis ? PipeQual is a complex model, where simulation software is essential Originally coded in Fortran by A. Mäkelä, a working copy was developed in Matlab to test Jack pine model adaptations We now need to transfer the results to our project partners, hence our interest in Capsis

PipeQual structure (Mäkelä and Mäkinen 2003) Structural parameters Distribution of growth by whorls TREEWHORL Model outputs Initial conditions BRANCH

Internodal whorls ? Nodal whorl Internodal whorl

Adjustment to PipeQual framework Wf Nodal Inter nodal Wf i Ab i As i

Integration into Capsis

Types of output G Traditional G & Y outputs

Types of output G Hdom, Hmean, crown base Traditional G & Y outputs

Types of output Traditional G & Y outputs G Hdom, Hmean, crown base Volume

Types of output Tree level detail

Work in progress Provide methods to extract and illustrate cumulative branch basal area from whorl objects Integrate branch module to Capsis (already programmed in Matlab) Integrate links to and from bucking and sawing simulator to yield knot size and location on lumber and visual lumber grading

Future developments Integrate other species : black spruce, white spruce, trembling aspen Extend simulations from homogeneous stands to mixed/complex structured stands

Acknowledgements Research collaborators: É. Beaulieu, J. Bégin, P. Bernier, S. D’eon, H. Power, G. Prégent, E. Swift, C.H. Ung, S.Y. Zhang External collaborator: Annikki Mäkelä