"Bob Weinberger" wrote in message
...

"mhagen" wrote in message
...

I can understand the method's use for forest restoration in the specific
cases you mentioned. There have been similar attempts here (pacific NW
usa) - conversion to hardwood is uncommon and difficult to manage. In my
area, use of Spruce (here we'd use picea sitchensis) as the mantle would
require cutting the spruce after just five or ten years. It would
quickly overshadow a companion hardwood. The sharp needles would do a
fine job of retarding browse though.

Several outfits on the Oregon Coast ( Hampton in the Big Creek area being
one) are using Sitka Spruce
seedlings as nurse trees whenever they want to grow Western Red Cedar for
diversity. They plant Sitka
seedlings in the same planting hole as the WRC seedling. From what I have
seen, it works quite well
in preventing browse of the WRC. Planting WRC in areas of heavy Elk/deer
use is a pretty futile
undertaking otherwise. The areas where they have done this are far enough
inland that the spruce tip
moth stunts most of the spruce at about 6' ht. while the WRC grows past
it.

Bob Weinberger


We would chose fast growing species which won't grow taller than a few
meters like the Pinus mugo when plantning in the same planting hole or use
the Picea (here abies) to create a forest climate (10-20 years) and then
later plant/sow the fragile species underneath. The cutting of Picea in the
age of 5-10 years would give no output, even as fuelwood on the sandy areas.
Maybe christmas trees?
Does anyone of you have experience with sowing forest tree species, now
we're at it?

Rasmus