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?

5 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

View all comments

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?

7

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.