1. “The MB&G Silviculture Support System” Steve Fairweather Ellen Voth Reggie Fay Mason, Bruce & Girard, Inc. Portland, Oregon GMUG 12/15/05

2. MBG Silviculture Support System GMUG 12/15/05 Goal was to develop a simple to use desktop computer tool for the forester tasked with justifying silvicultural treatments in young stands The tool had to be adaptable to any region of the country Could be developed in either Access or Excel

3. MBG Silviculture Support System GMUG 12/15/05 Recall the work of Joe Buongiorno with matrix models of stand growth –e.g., Michie and Buongiorno, 1984. Estimation of a matrix model of forest growth from remeasured permanent plots. Forest Ecology and Management, 8; 127-135. Recall Terry Harrison’s growth modeling with “pseudodata” – broadly defined as the use of models (rather than empirical observation) to collect data –Harrison and Twark, 1991. Determining forest management regimes via pseudodata analysis. Proc., 1991 Systems Analysis in Forest Resources Symposium, Charleston, SC. March 1991. Pg 46-53.

4. MBG Silviculture Support System GMUG 12/15/05 “Proof of Concept”

5. MBG Silviculture Support System GMUG 12/15/05 “Proof of Concept”

6. MBG Silviculture Support System GMUG 12/15/05 “Proof of Concept”

7. MBG Silviculture Support System GMUG 12/15/05 “Proof of Concept”

8. MBG Silviculture Support System GMUG 12/15/05 “Proof of Concept”

9. MBG Silviculture Support System GMUG 12/15/05 “Proof of Concept”

10. MBG Silviculture Support System GMUG 12/15/05 “Proof of Concept”

11. MBG Silviculture Support System GMUG 12/15/05 “Proof of Concept”

12. MBG Silviculture Support System GMUG 12/15/05 Concept “looked good on paper” First application was to east-side forests in eastern Washington, northern Idaho, and western Montana (3 separate workbooks) Client wanted to be able to import stand table data from an MBG Tools database

13. MBG Silviculture Support System GMUG 12/15/05 “Other Demands –” –Trickle function for seedlings into the 1” class –Handle mixed species stands, up to 8 species groups –Use varying stumpage rates by product; predict future yields by product (up to 6 products) –15 periods, up to 5 years per period –Report volumes in board feet –Up to 3 silvicultural treatments in a single projection –Be able to specify discount rates, appreciation rates, product values

14. MBG Silviculture Support System GMUG 12/15/05 The DBH Growth and Mortality Matrices – –DBH ranges from.5” to 51” in 1” classes –Site index ranges from 45 to 95 in 10’ increments –Basal area ranges from 20 to 400 sq. ft. /acre in 20 sq. ft. increments –8 species groups –6 sites x 20 BA classes x 52 DBH classes x 8 species = 49,920 cells

15. MBG Silviculture Support System GMUG 12/15/05 The DBH Growth and Mortality Matrices – –Grew the client’s inventory in MBG Tools for 5 years using the preferred growth model (SPS, in this case) –Formed a dataset (pseudo-data!) suitable for nonlinear regression analysis, to build a model to predict annual dbh growth as function of species group, basal area per acre, site index, and tree dbh –Used the model to populate the dbh growth matrices –Proceeded similarly for probability of mortality

16. MBG Silviculture Support System GMUG 12/15/05 So …. How did it turn out?