Tree Farmer - March/April 2010 - (Page 24)

By Jackson JeFF & PHyLLiS Forest for future consultants. The students classified their client’s forest into six types: upland hardwood, lowland hardwood, 12-year cutover, mixed hardwood-pine, pine plantation, and a small area labeled “unproductive.” We thought their classification could have been more detailed, but did not meddle with the forest naming system approved by the students’ faculty. The client was pleased. naming the wildlife matters What kind of forest do you have? every landowner has some kind of answer. The tendency for most of us is to give a simple answer based on what we know. The better you know your forests and the more you study the criteria for classifying and naming forests, the more choices you have — and the more you can learn about your land. Here are some thoughts and references to help more precisely identify and name forests and other habitats. Farmers, pioneer settlers, Native Americans, and peoples around the world have named and classified forests for a long time. Historically, trees with economic value gave their name to forests, including chestnut, lodgepole pine, spruce-fir, oak-hickory, and the like. Economic value is often more important than abundance. For example, the hickory in many oak-hickory forests is not a particularly common tree. Yet hickory gave its name to these forests because hickory was a valuable wood for tool handles, wagon wheels, and other products that needed exceptional strength and resilience. Forests are often given vague and general names. For example, the forestry students at my university working on their senior project had a simple way to name forests. Their senior project requires that students make a management plan for a landowner. It is sort of a practice run As the science of ecology has evolved, identifying plant communities and habitat types has gone beyond classification systems based on timber type, climate, and landform. State Natural Heritage programs have developed classification systems to describe forests and other habitat types based on a variety of characteristics. State systems commonly name a hundred or more habitat types. To see examples of such systems, search “My Minnesota Woods” to see the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources ecological classification system. Florida has the Florida Natural Areas Inventory. Your state may have such a system. Jeff Jackson is a wildlife management consultant, based at his Tree Farm in Arnoldsville, Georgia. He is a retired professor of wildlife management and former Extension wildlife specialist at the University of Georgia. Reach him at (706) 543-2656. Naming Systems Are Changing Foresters and other scientists are changing the way they classify and name forests and other habitats. The Society of American Foresters (SAF) in 1954 published Forest Cover Types of North America, which describes 106 kinds of forest habitats in 67 pages. The 1980 SAF Forest Cover Types of the United States and Canada describes 145 types of forests. The identification and names are usually based on one to three dominant canopy species. Tree Farmer MARCH/APRIL 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Tree Farmer - March/April 2010

Tree Farmer - March/April 2010
Contents
Cover Story
Create a Recreational Trail
A Life Spent in the Woods
Ties to the Land
Public Policy
Wildlife Matters
From your Committees

Tree Farmer - March/April 2010

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