We’ve focused mainly on the hot dry environment of the Tallgrass Prairie because that is what I have on my property. But what about you?

Maybe your yard is cool and shady in a more forested area, a woodland edge or open woodland? In many places nearby there are lovely stands of deciduous trees, maples and even oaks. We have reforestation in the area that includes different conifers. 

These forested areas may all seem to be the same. They all include ‘trees’. Trees are good. They are technically a forest.

How does living in a more wooded area affect your garden, other than lessening sunlight, and why ecologically are certain trees important? Should you just cut them all down to improve the light for your vegetable garden? 

What conservation work is needed when it comes to Ontario’s forests?

The Wonder that is a Forest

Trees! They sequester carbon and affect the weather. A single tree can release the equivalent of hundreds of liters of water in a day. 

The Amazon Rainforest makes its own storms generating approximately half of its own rainfall. Trees affect more than their immediate surroundings. That same study shows that the hydrological cycle of the Amazon is fundamental to human well-being in Brazil and adjacent South America. 

Simulations have also shown that an increase of trees in temperate North America, Europe and Asia can shift the Hadley Cell - warm moist air rising above the equator, dropping rain on the tropics and then descending again as dry air at around 30 degrees north and south latitudes. This brings to light a new concept for some. It’s not just about planting more trees, where are we planting them?

Trees or a lack thereof can affect the climate halfway around the globe. 

So they are super important. As important as my Tallgrass Prairie, and completely different. Just as I have to be selective in what I plant in my restored area to make sure that it truly is a Tallgrass Prairie, it matters what trees we plant in our area. 

Unfortunately the local garden center is rarely that selective in what they offer and they show us enticing cultivars and exotic ornamentals that call to us with showy colorful foliage and exciting new and improved features. Kind of like a tv, or a toaster, but it’s a tree. Weird, no?

So what really is a proper Ontario forest?

Let’s talk about the lines of pines

Ontario has over 71 million hectares of forest – 2% of the world’s forests and 17% of Canada’s forests. The same resource states that “Ontario has 56 million hectares of productive forest”. What exactly constitutes productive forest?

“The term site productivity is often used in a more narrow sense to refer to that part of the site potential that is or is expected to be realized by the trees for wood production...Generally, aboveground volume production is calculated on stem wood volume for conifers, but may include branch volume for broadleaved tree species. 

For many purposes, the maximum mean annual volume increment is considered a suitable measure of site productivity.”

Forest site productivity: a review of the evolution of dendrometric concepts for even-aged stands

Not productive in terms of wildlife value, or sequestered carbon, or shinrin-yoku, but productive in terms of how much money can be made off of cutting the trees down. 

The article continues:

Within this narrower context, site productivity is often quantified as an index, typically site class or site index. Such indices are defined in different ways and are widely used for management purposes. Most commonly, site indices are based on or derived from estimates of stand height at a given age.

When we lived in Cochrane we heard stories of what constitutes the right height of reforested lots after they had been clearcut. Pines would be planted because of their quick growth. If they could be seen above the snow from the air in the winter then the land was considered reforested. Unfortunately, in order for the pines to grow unheeded we heard stories of truly nasty chemicals being sprayed en masse so that nothing but the pines would grow. What that did to the water table and local wildlife has not been studied to my knowledge. But the residents who knew were not happy. I was told never to pick blueberries under the hydro lines, they look delicious, but what they sprayed there so that no trees grew you don’t want to eat. Not even the residue. 

Many of us are familiar with the reforestation approach that was/is used all over North America to “plant more trees”. Monocultures of perfectly spaced pines were planted where the old growth forests had been logged. This constituted planting more trees. 

We are in what is called the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Lowlands forest area. 

When you find the page, Forest Management Guide to Silviculture in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence and Boreal Forests of Ontario it states:

“Silviculture is a means to achieve an end. It is ultimately about achieving local forest management objectives in an efficient and predictable manner.”

That made me laugh just a little. Since when is nature efficient and predictable in human terms? When I see a forest I rarely think “Oh, how efficient. These trees are so predictable.” So those lines of pines we saw growing up when we went for a walk weren’t really a forest. They were a monoculture. 

That is acknowledged later on:

“To be fair, some of what we may now regard as ‘mistakes’ were once considered appropriate given the best available knowledge and management paradigm of the day. It is not unreasonable to think that some of what we consider leading edge today, will become tomorrow’s ‘mistake’. This fact should not be cause for concern but evidence that a healthy adaptive learning environment is present.”

We know this to be true when it comes to most conservation work. Just because we don’t know exactly how something was before being destroyed by humans, ie the possible tallgrass prairie in this area, doesn’t mean we can’t make an informed guess and follow through on some sort of restoration effort. If we learn something new, or that shows we got something wrong we can change it, grow, adapt. Continue to inform ourselves and improve. Unfortunately the management guide continues:

“Silviculture is the science and art of managing forest communities based on knowledge of tree silvics. More particularly, the theory and practice of controlling the establishment, composition and growth of forest vegetation.”

Controlling seems to take us right back to that efficient, predictable forest of someone’s zany dream. There is another perspective, not necessarily competing but phrased slightly differently. 

“Silviculture is not just a set of techniques, nor is it an occupation, a specialization or

a profession. It involves more than the kind of knowledge, which can be transmitted

in institutions or by training. Neither is it something so subtle and refined as to be

possessed only by a select and sensitive few. Silviculture is something a society

acquires over time; it is the product of generations of experience. Silviculture advances

as much from what is wrong as from what is right. It embraces diversity and variety.

It is a science as well as technology, and it is also an art which has as much to do

with the psychology of the human beings who practice it as with the biological

imperatives of a living, growing forest. It is not a luxury, an unaffordable dream, but

a necessity…the real solution lies not in intensive management or sustained yield, but

in a profound change in our attitudes and relationship to the forest. Somehow we

must learn to manage the forest in the same way that farmers manage their land. We

must cease to be merely exploiters of the forest resource and become instead

cultivators and nurtures… (Drushka 1985).

Becoming a cultivator and nurturer does sound like the stewardship practices that we are aiming for. 

I’m assuming he’s not referencing industrial agriculture when he speaks about farmers, but instead the farmer that enriches and regenerates his land in order to work with it not against it. Because the Description of general site preparation techniques commonly used in Ontario under 3.3.1 Site preparation sounds a lot like industrial agriculture. Here under treatments we find:

Chemical

Application of federally registered, provincially approved herbicides by licensed applicators prior to regeneration. This treatment can be used alone or in combination with other types of site preparation or in advance of a prescribed burn (brown and burn). Herbicides can be applied from aircraft (e.g. helicopter), ground machine (e.g. skidder mounted airblast), or using manual tools (e.g. backback sprayer). The pattern of application varies from broadcast to band selective to spot selective to stem selective. A wide variety of chemicals and carriers can be used and no attempt has been made to list them here.

This unfortunately sounds like whatever was being sprayed up North, and as much as some claim there are no side effects of spraying these chemicals that is not what has been proven.

Densities of insect pests in agricultural communities may be affected by herbicides commonly used for weed management via several routes. First, herbicides may cause direct mortality to insects present both during and immediately following application. Second, herbicides may induce plant defenses that increase resistance to insect herbivores. Third, herbicides may alter the quantity and composition of weed populations, which in turn may change the structure of insect communities found subsequently in the crop … Insects directly exposed to herbicides experienced high mortality; while those fed leaf material that had been exposed to herbicides did not. Herbicide application did not significantly increase resistance in rice to subsequent herbivore infestation.

Direct and Indirect Effects of Herbicides on Insect Herbivores in Rice, Oryza sativa

Or, 

Albanese, Debbi, "Negative Effects of Common Herbicides on Non-target Invertebrates"

(2019). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1966.

https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/1966

Or, 

Although agricultural chemicals are designed to act selectively, they sometimes act directly or indirectly on non-target organisms. Herbicides may be toxic to aquatic or terrestrial insects, including some that are as toxic as widely used insecticides. The physiological effects of herbicides vary among insects, and the negative effects of some herbicides result in reduced growth rates or prolonged development time rather than mortality … Herbicide use affects not only insects, but vertebrate organisms that depend on weed seed or insects as a source of food. Avifauna (birds), in particular, can be indirectly affected by herbicide use.

Direct and Indirect Effects of Herbicides on Insects

by John L. Capinera

Our forest, the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Lowlands forest, is situated between the boreal and the broadleaf deciduous zones making it transitional, ie. The perfect spot to see flora and fauna from both types of forest. This temperate broadleaf and mixed forest has 46.6 million hectares forested, which is about 4.7% of Canada’s land area. It's a pretty important place. 

What would it have looked like before us? How can this inform our restoration work?

See you tomorrow.