Landowners desiring to diversify their wildlife habitat and vegetation on their property
have a variety of tools that are available to them in consultation with their forester.
A variety of different type of regeneration openings can be created on properties to provide different
structures and species of plants that are suitable to a wide variety of wildlife species.
Some of the different types of regeneration openings are clearcuts and shelterwoods.
Both of these techniques produce what's called an even age forest where all the plants regenerating
in that area are approximately of the same age. Clearcuts and shelterwood should typically be
at least two to three acres or larger. And perhaps the most effective ones are five acres and larger
to provide enough sunlight once the overstory trees are removed to regenerate
the light-loving tree species. Clearcuts have been a rather controversial topic in forest management
for many years. However, clearcuts do have a place in regenerating certain tree species. Clearcuts
are designed to regenerate tree species that need full sunlight to regenerate and grow their best.
And so species like tulip tree, black cherry, black walnut and many other tree species will
regenerate successfully in clearcuts because of the large amount of sunlight and space available
through the removal of the overstory trees. Some of the benefits of regeneration openings include
diversified structure and species of plants for a variety of different wildlife species. Clearcuts
can produce very dense and highly diverse habitats that are utilized by many different species at
some point in time in their lifespan. They also can produce an enormous amount of insect food
and also herbaceous and berry material in things like blackberries and raspberries that are valued
by a wide variety of wildlife species. Young forest habitats, areas of forest 20 years old or younger
have become rather rare on the Indiana landscape as our forests have aged and matured.
And yet young forest habitats are an important part of wildlife habitat for several different
species. The yellow-breasted chad is a songbird that needs large areas of young forest to do well.
In addition, the ruffed grouse, a state endangered bird utilizes forest areas anywhere from 10 to
30 years old as an important part of its habitat.
Shelterwoods and clearcuts can
help us provide this young forest habitat across the landscape to provide these areas
for a variety of wildlife species including endangered species like the ruffed grouse.
One of the tools of forestry you can use for regenerating trees that can actually grow in partial sunlight
is called the shelterwood system. In this system, we're using two or three different cutting periods
to gradually produce more sunlight in the forest floor to regenerate species particularly oaks and hickories.
Our first cut typically is taking understory trees that produce a deep shade
in the forest understory, preventing oaks and hickories from regenerating.
In the second cut of a shelterwood system,
oftentimes what we're doing is producing a little bit of extra sunlight
in the canopy. And so we'll start thinning some canopy trees to provide some additional sunlight
to the seedlings that have established after our first cut in the shelterwood system.
The shelterwood system is then concluded with the final third cut, typically 10 to 15 years after the very first
cut to release the established seedlings from the competition of the overstory trees.
The shelterwood harvesting system has some advantages and also some disadvantages. Shelterwood provides
us an opportunity to manage shade to favor the regeneration of species like oak and hickory
that otherwise struggle in our normal forest regeneration practices like single tree selection.
Some of the disadvantages of shelterwood is the complexity of the practice. Shelterwoods require
two or three different cutting periods over 10 to 20 years and so there's some complexity in
planning and actually implementing that practice. One of the things we're looking at is a successful
seed drop from the oaks and hickories at the point in time of the first cut, so there's actual seed
available to regenerate the oak seedlings. We also have a situation with harvesting,
where we need to be harvesting a minimal amount of material to accomplish the goals for each cut.
This may mean that we have to be careful about damaging residual trees and it inherently is
a little bit more expensive operation since we're taking less trees in each harvest period.
Shelterwood harvest can produce highly diverse and very interesting structures that are utilized
by several different species of wildlife. Some of our rare and declining songbirds
like cerulean warblers may utilize shelterwood areas because there is open understory,
but also large canopy trees that they favor for nesting, particularly large white oak.
Prescribed fire can be used in conjunction with clearcutting and shelterwood systems to help
us regenerate species like oak and hickory. Oak and hickory can actually tolerate prescribed burning
by re-sprouting from the root systems once their tops have been killed by fire, providing
an advantage over other species that don't do so well in the fire disturbance environment
Supplemental planting of tree seedlings can be utilized in both clearcuts and shelterwood
harvests to help us up the numbers of desirable tree species we're generating in those areas.
If we have some doubts as to whether we've got enough regeneration of the species we desire,
we might be able to use planting to increase that number and make sure the tree species
we want to regenerate are represented in that future stand.
If you're considering adding some diversity to your property through either shelterwood or clearcut harvesting,
we encourage you to contact your forester to get advice and direction on making those decisions.
These are important decisions that can benefit your property, but you want to
make sure you do it in a well-planned fashion and apply them to the places on your property
where it makes the most sense and will do the best to achieve your objectives for management.
If you're looking for additional information on woodland stewardship issues,
be sure to check out the other videos in this series.
Thanks for joining us for this video.