Need a term.

[stig]

Probably @Burnham or @stikine can answer this.
When you log an area, but leave some seed trees behind to start the next generation, what is the term for those young trees that sprout up?
It is done a lot with Beech here, we hardly ever plant those.
My apprentice is having English at the forestry school and the teachers didn't know the English word for " Selvforyngelse" ( Literal: self renewal).
I would call it natural succession, but I'm sure there is a better word?

 

[Kaveman]

@Burnham

 

[stig]

Typo

 

[Mick!]

Pioneers.

 

[biggun]

Natural Regen

 

[stikine]

Natural regeneration using seed trees. There are variations to the method.

 

[Burnham]

Agreed...we call it natural regen. If you have a harvest/reforestation plan based on leave trees providing seeding in, here that would be called a shelter wood unit.

Sorry to be slow on the reply...power has been off for 36 hours or so, which takes out my computer. Restored in the night after bedtime.

 

[stig]

It is hard to live in a 3rd world country

Thanks all!

 

[lumberjack]

Here we'd call it a volunteer, but that's pretty well any tree that grew on its own vs being planted. Although technically, all volunteers come from seed trees, perhaps.

 

[flushcut]

I like using, pioneer growth.

 

[lxskllr]

To me, a pioneer tree implies a completely unmanaged area trees encroach on; like an abandoned field. For Carl, black locust would be counter to a volunteer always sprouting from seed. Wide spreading roots can send up new trees. Probably other trees that do that too.

 

[flushcut]

What was once managed i.e. your abandoned field or a logged over strip now left to nature to take over. So I use pioneer because they are the first to go there and take over.

 

[biggun]

I always though Pioneer species or Pioneer tree was a term to refer to a tree that will spread seed with the winds. Like the Pioneers of days gone by, they will end up in the strangest of places.

Example would be Birch trees, Sycamore, Maple etc. Thos helicopters and catkins will spread far and wide if you blow hard enough on them.

 

[Mick!]

I always though Pioneer species or Pioneer tree was a term to refer to a tree that will spread seed with the winds. Like the Pioneers of days gone by, they will end up in the strangest of places.

Example would be Birch trees, Sycamore, Maple etc. Thos helicopters and catkins will spread far and wide if you blow hard enough on them.

iirc, they are called pioneers because they are the first species to populate any piece of land, then gradually longer living trees like oak and beech take over and hold the land in perpetuity, so called ‘climax’ species.

 

[Burnham]

@Mick, that's a false stand dynamics concept, though a common one. There is no such thing as a climax species holding land for ever. Even really long-lived tree species age out, become decadent and lose primacy. When they begin to fail, those "pioneer" species will populate the openings as they develop. And the progression begins anew.

And that leaves aside the frequent disruptions to portions of those climax stands caused by flood, landslide, fire, insects and disease, volcanic eruption, earthquake, etc.

No forest becomes unchanging, static in its composition of species. No perpetuity exists.

 

[Mick!]

Good info.

 

[stig]

I would have to say that Bristlecone Pinus longaeva comes close.
Not in perpetuity of course, but a damned long time.

 

[Burnham]

Close only counts in...y'all know the rest .

 

[Kaveman]

 

[Burnham]

@stig 5000 years or so? Phhht, nothing but a near invisible blip on the time scales we're talking about. Certainly not insignificant, but still...

 

[stig]

That would be the present trees, bet there were Bristlecones before them, too.
Nothing else grows up there.
But you are right, of course.

 

[Burnham]

As are you...bristlecone is able to exploit an ecological niche that no other tree can, for the most part. They might be an example of both pioneer and climax tree species, all in one.

And I'll bet you there wasn't a single extant bristlecone tree under the Sierra glaciers 15000 years ago . Another short time, on these scales.

 

[stig]

MIght have been there preglacially, though.
I went to a class about dendro kronology 40 years ago.
The instructor had a piece of Oak that was 15 thousand years old.
Meaning it was from before the last 2 ice ages here.
Something to hold in your hand, I'll tell you.

 

[SeanKroll]

The climate was different when the bristlecones started growing there.

 

[Eric H-L]

This got deep real quick!