1. Angela Gee, US Forest Service July 22, 2019
Multi-Party Monitoring Group (MMG) Key Treatment Variables in Lodgepole Pine Units
Angela Gee, US Forest Service
July 22, 2019

2. Purpose of Presentation
There are many ways to consider, revise, and refine treatment prescriptions in order to meet multiple interests. The variables in this presentation provide frameworks for thinking about potential variations in prescriptions for the Forsythe II project.

3. Objectives Related to Lodgepole
Reduce the severity and intensity of a wildfire within the wildland urban interface (WUI).
Emulate natural disturbance in lodgepole pine dominated stands to mimic variable structural and spatial patterns across the landscape in order to increase resistance and resiliency to future natural disturbance.

4. Tree DBH
PC: Harvard Forest
Diameter at Breast Height (DBH) is a standard method of expressing the diameter of a tree trunk. Prescriptions can (for example) be tailored so that they affect trees within certain DBH ranges, allowing foresters to shape the distribution of different age and size classes of trees in a stand.

5. Treatment location, timing, and sequencing
PC: USFS
Some Options:
Identify critical treatment locations to achieve priorities/objectives
Consider adjacent forest treatments and the cumulative effect on the landscape of additional treatments
Stagger treatments over a period of time
Timing considerations to protect wildlife needs

6. Replanting
PC: USFS
Replanting forest openings, patch cuts, or clear cuts allows foresters to shape the species composition and density of trees in a stand, particularly when a treatment has enough spacing for newly planted trees to grow without crowding each other out.
Timing of replanting could be as soon as 2-3 years post treatment to fill in open/cut areas, depending on treatment method.

7. Habitat Structural Stage
PC: Powell 2012
Habitat Structural Stage refers to the stages of succession in a coniferous forest ecosystems following a stand-initiating disturbance event. The concept is that new forest develops by transitioning through predictable stages.

8. Species Type
PC: Colorado State Forest Service
Landscape-scale species composition is factor in the drafting of prescriptions, particularly given our changing climate. For example, lodgepole pine are expected to move to higher elevations in montane forests along the Front Range as the climate becomes warmer and drier. Treatments can be conducted in a manner consistent with expected future species composition.

9. Manual versus Mechanical
PC: Kristin Anderson/Vail Daily file
PC: Pinchot Institute
The appropriateness of a mechanical or manual treatment varies by treatment unit. Mechanical treatments typically involve whole log removal, so there is typically less slash and fewer stumps. Manual treatments may be more appropriate on steeper ground or in sensitive areas like riparian corridors.

10. Openings within Migration Corridor
PC: Kansas State University
Openings in lodgepole can be provide critical browse and forage opportunities for ungulates like elk.

11. Suitability for Prescribed Fire
PC: US Geological Survey
When fuel loads are light, fire severity indices are low, and trees are well-spaced, prescribed fire can be introduced within treatment units to help restore stands to their historical conditions.

12. PC: Dennis et al. 2009 Colorado State Forest Service

13. Treatment Types Primary Treatments Patchcuts: 1-5 acres
Clearcuts: 5-10 acres
Considerations for treating aggregations
Aspen enhancement and restoration
Mixed conifer thinning
Thinning lodgepole pine regeneration

14. Questions?

15. Tree DBH Lodgepole pine change over 2.5 km west of Nederland 1910 1985
While I passed over this slide and didn’t discuss it. I left it in for reference.
PC: Veblen and Lorenz, 1991 The Colorado Front Range: A Century of Ecological Change
“ What was originally an open stand at the turn of the century is now a dense forest of mainly lodgepole pine. The former railroad bed is now covered by aspen.” (Veblen and Lorenz, 1991 pg. 99)