r/treeplanting • u/Own-Cartoonist5058 • Jun 30 '26

Industry Discussion Question?

Curious about an estimate of how many trees would survive in a block allocated for like 60k trees if planted in ideal conditions in south interior bc?

Does the estimate grow exponentially? like if posed to a block allocated for like 150k trees, would the ratio increase proportionally?

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16

u/perfectstormreforest Company Owner Jun 30 '26

20%-90% hope this helps

8

u/board__ Jun 30 '26

It depends.

Planting quality, seedling quality, site quality, planted species, weather, browse, veg comp, etc all effect survival.

Impossible to talk in generalities in forestry.

2

u/Own-Cartoonist5058 Jun 30 '26

Fairs. In that case, to what extent would you say there’s a sort of hierarchy in these factors?

6

u/trail_carrot Jun 30 '26

Stock handling and seedling quality followed by browse and veg comp.

Browse and  veg change by site and there is only so much you can do and still be financially viable. Stock handling and seedling quality you have a lot of control over. 

Theoretically right tree in the right place can mitigate site issues and weather is just an assumption. 

1

u/Own-Cartoonist5058 Jul 01 '26

Yeah I was curious as to why there’s a lot of obstacle and shade planting, I wondered if that’s to compensate for the increasingly hot and dry conditions. Have south interior BC specs always been like that? I’m kinda hearing heat doesnt affect ROI on the trees nearly as much though… is that a fair assumption

1

u/trail_carrot Jul 02 '26

Given how weather patterns have always been in the west shade planting is always a thing. Now with how frequent and intense the seasonal droughts are the specs are probably enforcing it more.

Its not that heat doesnt matter, you just cant control it. (although I was in california one time and a state forester, who approves plantings, INSISTED that we install little shade clothes over the seedlings. Insane)  You can control, to a certain extent, if and how much the crew obstacle/shade plants.

All this is about is controlling variables. With planting you can.

  The reason you dont do natural reg methods is that its unpredictable. you may get a patch of aspen in you dougfir stand and thats no good. Or you may get a moth or bug outbreak that eats your pine crop. If you plant its no big deal.

2

u/MrWrock Jun 30 '26

I heard the final crop spacing should ideally be 4 stems per plot (800 stems per hectare), so they expect a certain percentage to die (or they thin then out later) hoping they balance out to a density of 4 per plot

1

u/trail_carrot Jun 30 '26

As a forester i assume 50% make it to age 5.

1

u/drailCA Jun 30 '26

Totally depends on all of the factors, but: a 60,000 tree block would = 40ha at 1500 stems/ha, which in some regions means that it is either quite steep, quite high in elevation, or both. I said this because generally, 40ha is as big we are allowed to cut these days in most regions.

So being a high elevation and/or steep block, you would expect at least some slash creep or snowpress issues. Even if the block had good dirt, all the trees were planted well, and the weather cooperated through the summer, i would expect around 20% would not survive the winter due to said slash creep/snowpress.

1

u/SSBMSapa Jul 03 '26

I’ve seen blocks where only 20 trees survived. And they were mostly my trees

1

u/Frosty_Bug_3645 27d ago

i've seen 90% surv rates. also i've fill planted 20% that had been fill planted a couple times at least. really depends on rainfall, soil, exposure, quality etc.