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News

  • Students Harvest Christmas Trees They Planted in 2016

    Anna Berry
    December 16, 2022

    Students begin the program in kindergarten by planting their own Christmas trees at The Rocks.

  • Women in the Woods Program Educates on Safe Tractor Use on Woodlots

    Anna Berry
    October 18, 2022

    The program is aimed at connecting women forest landowners, managers, and stewards with new resources and skills.

  • Tree Farm Field Day: Colorful Autumn Tradition

    Dave Anderson
    October 3, 2022

    Tree Farm of the year hosts annual field day.

Timber Harvest on Taves Forest

Gabe Roxby
July 30, 2015
Stewardship
Working Forests
Shelterwood harvest on Taves Forest in Roxbury.
A shelterwood harvest at Taves Forest in Roxbury.

The Forest Society is conducting a timber harvest on the north parcel of the Taves Forest (also known as Parker Hill) in Roxbury this summer.  The planning for this harvest started in 2013, when staff forester Steve Junkin did a comprehensive inventory of the property and wrote a management plan outlining a schedule of activities.  This inventory revealed a middle-aged forest that lacked healthy young trees.  Several timber harvests were scheduled over the next 15 years, aimed at simultaneously accomplishing the following silvicultural goals: (1) increase the diversity of the forest by creating sections of healthy, young trees, (2) harvest trees of poor quality to favor those with a higher value, and (3) harvest ecologically and financially mature trees before they begin to senesce. 

Much of the summer 2015 harvest is known as a “shelterwood," which removes between one-half and two-thirds of the tree canopy.  Uncut trees are evenly spaced and chosen for their good health and growth form.  The goal is to allow these individuals, which are assumed to be best suited to the site conditions, the ability to drop seed and successfully reproduce.  If you visit the harvest, you’ll see that many red oaks were left; this valuable species grows well on the forest’s soils, and we hope this cut will further encourage its spread.  With a bit of luck, the understory of this now open forest will be a tangle of raspberries and tree saplings, thriving in the partial sunlight.  Once these saplings are well established, a future timber harvest will remove the remaining overstory trees, allowing the next generation full access to sun, water and nutrients.  

If you would like to learn more about the planning and thought that went into this timber harvest or any others on Forest Society reservations, please contact George Frame, senior director of forestry, at gframe@forestsociety.org or Wendy Weisiger, lead forester, at wweisiger@forestsociety.org.  We’re happy to talk about sustainable forestry.

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Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests54 Portsmouth St.Concord, NH 03301
Phone: 603.224.9945Fax: 603.228.0423info@forestsociety.org
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