Coarse Woody Debris / Lars Larson Show / Gardeners

Please move the thread if needed, but I'm seeking feedback from "gardeners" petaining to something discussed on a Pacific Northwest radio talk show. The subject was Silviculture. So this forum seemed a logical start.

If you reply, and are a professional or educator, please note that. I'd like to distinguish between what the average gardener knows, and what we serious hort professionals may be aware of.

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Anybody every listen to Lars Larson on the radio?

He was covering Silviculture, logging and forestry today as one topic, and I called in, mentioning "Coarse Woody Debris" or CWD, which is the big dead stuff in the woods. Logs, stumps, dead trees.

Anyhow, best I can tell, most decisions and negotiations between factions will all involve something that CWD affects - say, that some shrubs in the forest can't reproduce without it, needing the protective bulk as a barrier against browsing deer.

Anyway, Lars kept trying to shift from that aspect. He made a comment similar to that most people who garden would know about CWD.

So here's the deal. To avoid speculation, I figured the forums would be one extra way to find out if gardeners really know what Coarse Woody Debris is. The forestry term, not bark mulch.

A few of the hard-core plant people may know. But, how many of you are comfortably familiar with "Coarse Woody Debris" and its role in the forest?

How many gardeners do you think really know about it?

I am a professional, and voted "yes".

 

We try to make people aware of it (in brief) on one of our interpretative signs. I don't hear the term very often in casual conversation, I must admit.

 

I was ignorant of the broad sense of the term until just a few years ago. It was eye-opening to read the various articles I found, just to see how big the picture of CWD is. Thanks for posting that link.

 

CWD-
`Slow down surface runoff.... easing potential of water to erode.
`Add carbon to the soil for long periods of time.
`Source of carbon storage, relatively short or long depending on species (Thuja plicata
compared to Populus trichocarpa)
`Play a role in stream habitat (in the right streams and in natural amounts).Pools and
riffles.
`They can also be nurse logs for trees and shrubs (hemlock is one). The nurse log may provide a substrate or a micro-climate that helps get the little guys through those tough early years.
`Oh and there is also nesting for wood inhabiting species. In standing course wood you get primary (those that make the holes) nester's, and secondary nester's (those that use the holes created and abandoned by primary nesters).

You have to be careful when creating your opinions about certain ecological tag words and jargon that people throw around though. Not every "good" thing belongs in every ecosystem. Take old growth for instance, like one of my professors said it is not a piece of land it is a phase in time, it comes and it goes... meaning that you can not put a fence around a forest and expect it to last forever... especially since we have altered so many systems in sooo many drastic ways. Ummm yeah, So I digressed (alot).

 

"You cannot...expect it to last forever" sounds like a rationale for the excessive clearcutting that continues to be employed. Until recently we still had extensive tracts here but now only a tiny percentage remains. True, the forest is still there but the big trees are not - and there is a considerable difference between miles of stumps and miles of ancient trees.

 

Yep, I know, and am not advocating the "excessive clearcutting that continues" in fact what I was getting at is that you can not "preserve it" You cant put it in a jar and hope to keep it forever.... they get sick disease enters and the whole dam thing goes to waste. We have to tend them, be stewards. One can not expect a piece of land to be healthy and maintain it "natural functions" when soooooo many aspects have been altered (fire, hydrology etc). I grew up outside my families ashes are scattered in the forests that I love the most, so trust me apart from the ecological / natural legacy that I hope to pass down to my children... the forests have an intrinsic value that can not be named.
I really get irritated ( and that is not directed at any one) when I mention that forests need help and people assume I am in it for the stump value. Personally any thinning that goes on in a forest (fuels reductio or habitat creation) should go to furthering the health of said forest... not to the fat cats. Here in corvallis we have "old growth" according o the local recreationist... while in some cases they are right... alot of the time they are wrong. Most of our college forest was planted by The CCC and the rest a legacy of fire supression allowed to creeep in. This old growth is growing on mollic soils once dominated by hardwoods and grassland.

 

Allowing old growth to continue functioning without interference is a management option. Problem now is most has been cut. Remaining fragments do not have same environment as original stands.