Author(s)

Peter F. Newton^*

Canadian Wood Fibre Centre, Canadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada, Sault Ste. Marie, Canada.

Models for quantifying the growth responses of black spruce (Picea mariana (Mill) BSP.) and jack pine (Pinus banksiana Lamb.) to precommercial thinning (PCT) treatments were developed. They accounted for the increased rate of stand development arising from PCT treatments through temporal adjustments to the species and site specific mean dominant height-age functions. Analytically, they utilized a relative height growth modifier consistent with observed density-dependent height repression effects. A phenotypic juvenile age-mature age correlation function was used to account for the intrinsic temporal decline in the magnitude of the PCT effect throughout the rotation. The resultant stand development patterns were in accord with theoretical and empirical expectations when the response models were integrated into algorithmic variants of structural stand density management models.

Structural Stand Density Management Models, Height Repression, Phenotypic Juvenile Age-Mature age Correlation, Precommercial Thinning

Newton, P. (2015) Quantifying Growth Responses of Black Spruce and Jack Pine to Thinning within the Context of Density Management Decision-Support Systems. Open Journal of Forestry, 5, 409-421. doi: 10.4236/ojf.2015.54035.