The Rural Voice, 2004-09, Page 55Woodiot
Management
Learning about
tolerance
Steve Bowers
is a forester
and forest
owner, a
member of
the Huron -
Perth
Chapter of
the Ontario
Woodiot
Association
and
Stewardship Co-ordinator with the
Huron Stewardship Council.
One of the most basic needs for
those interested in learning more
about forest management is an
understanding of shade tolerance.
(My wife might modify this wording
slightly to say that tolerance is a basic
need in order to understand a
forester!)
One of the definitions of tolerance
in my Collins Pocket English
Dictionary is, "The ability to endure
something." Tree species vary
considerably in the amount of shade
they are able to endure and survive or
thrive.
Species that are quite tolerant of
shade include sugar maple, beech,
basswood, hemlock, and white cedar.
More tolerant species like these tend
to be able to reproduce in their own
shade, often having seedlings
persisting in the forest understorey
for a number of years that can
respond when a small opening in the
canopy appears, such as when an
individual tree dies. They are often
the primary species of our climax
forest, or the forest that would
eventually occur without harvesting
or other human induced disturbance.
As a group, shade -tolerant species
tend to live longer than shade
intolerant species although there are,
of course, exceptions. Balsam fir (a
common northern tree) is an example
of a very shade -tolerant species. In
some northern forests, balsam fir
seedlings in the understorey that are a
few feet tall, and that you might
FPPJ\N L.
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SEPTEMBER 2004 51