Hi Greg, Thanks for your reply. I am glad to know the USAF doesn't support chemical management. Will you please explain this to the Forest Service? :-) I appreciate your effort to consult widely on a management strategy, too. That is unfortunately seldom done by other government land mgmt agencies. Your dichotomous choice, though, is problematic for me. You say either we do nothing, or we use a sledge hammer. I don't see it in black and white terms. For example, you mentioned girdling in your earlier post. That approach does not remove the biomass (and here dead wood is also biomass), and the dead trees provide ecological habitat structure and a longer term opportunity for cavity nester habitat. Dead wood will be fuel for future fires as well. This is not what I'd call a sledge hammer management style! Biomass removal depauperates the ecosystem from the nutrients stored in the material. In some ecosystems, nutrients are unnaturally high, as in a hydrilla-infested watercourse. But second growth forests are rarely overburdened with biomass, although the form it's in may not be beneficial to ecosystem function. An old growth forest, for example, has its biomass stored in large trees. Young forests have biomass in dense stands of small trees. Fires tend to burn the young trees, and this recycles minerals and other nutrients to the soil. Chipping simply removes the biomass, and it is never again available to the system for storage or recycling. So, if you have to remove the hardwoods, I vote for girdling. But please inventory your species first, and avoid killing native trees if at all possible! David Orr
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