Biomass Extraction...

[Ron Scott]

Foresters will need to pay more attention to the specific area's soils analysis when planning and recommending areas for biomass removal.

Foresters will need to work more closely with the soil scientists for better integrated management of the soils and timber (vegetation) resource.

As I previously stated, biomass removals will need to be managed depending upon the ecosytem that they may be removed from. Much of the total tree length skidding that has been going over the years has been continually removing and displacing soil nutrients.

When I was with the US Forest Service, our soil scientists were always involved in our timber harvest planning. There were soils where we allowed total tree harvesting and there were soils, such as the sterile sand types etc., where we didn't allow it.

The best thing that we have going for us is that wood is a renewable resource with proper management. ;)

[Minnesota_boy]

Land use practices in other parts of the country need to be considered too.  For many years our farm and forest lands were enriched each winter as soil from western Minnesota and eastern North Dakota were picked up by the wind and deposited over our area, turning snowbanks brown at times.  Now they use no-till farming and our snowbanks remain white all winter.  Their reduction in wind erosion is our reduction in fertile soil.

[Ron Scott]

Good point, the air resource is often forgotten. The US Forest Service research branch also continues to do acid rain monitoring here as they have soil productivity research going on here and in differenct regions of the US and with Canada.

[Riles]

I was taught that removal of logs from a pine plantation reduces nutrient levels 1-2% so long as the slash is left in the field. The effect on growth is noticeable but not terribly significant after about three rotations. The reason it's not more significant is the length of the rotation. Of greater concern is the buildup of pathogens in the soil over time. Remember, farmers rotate their crops for a reason. What goes in after the pine rotation when the pine wilt nematode populations cause problems?

I was also taught that site prep may include fertilization ("P early N late") but fertilization is a tricky business. Cost vs benefit, timing, risks of weather, and unintended consequences (fertilizing the weeds). That said, it is effective on pine plantations where pine straw is being harvested. Turns out pine plantations are a great place to get rid of your chicken litter.

Personally, I don't have a problem with biomass removal, it's "clean farming" and full utilization of the wood product. It will require more intensive management of the tree farm, you can't just regenerate the stand and sit back to watch it grow. You probably will have to fertilize. That said, I can't see that much utility in leaves and twigs. I suspect they get pulled along in the clean up and it's easier to take and burn them than sort them out. They certainly would be better off left in the field.

[SwampDonkey]

Yes, in my long winded post I didn't mention the nutrients in the soil and those being made available from weathering and erosion and also from microbial activity on rocks and minerals.

[SwampDonkey]

We do have soil classification here in New Brunswick, but most woodlot owners do not follow any type of soil analysis program. They concentrate on farm fields for that work. I think forestry companies follow soil classification as it is most likely required in managing crown forest lands. Although, I do not see much evidence of them following the Vegetation Types of the wild forest. They tend to reforest to softwood or favor the balsam fir/spruce that was established in under a hardwood stand. Our government basically views hardwoods as weeds and has fostered that mentality with the industry which is mostly driven by softwood. Until recently one local sawmill would never thin a stand with spacing saws if it was predominately hardwood. I see thousands of acres of their forest land that is 20 years behind in growth increment because it was never tended and now it's to big to space and not big enough to log commercially.

[Ron Scott]

The recently released Forest's Plan  2006 for the Ottawa National Forest states that there is one large biomass energy project under development in the area surrounding the Ottawa.

It could create a market for smaller trees and lower quality wood products that would contribute to the Ottawa's abitlity to meet vegetative objectives identified in the 2006 Forest Plan.

Forest stands that could benefit from, but are not economical to treat under current utilization standards for pulpwood or sawtimber may become operable if biomass energy projects are developed.

[Gary_C]

From what I see, there are two reasons for biomass removal. The first would be to gain a higher return for logger and landowner. The second is to reduce the threat for fires due to excessive fuel in the forest.

I suspect the fuel loading will be the primary goal of biomass removal in the future. One of the reasons for that is the equipment and cost of the biomass removal from most logging jobs is probably very close to the return and from what I see now where the land owners (MN DNR) in particular are demanding payment for the biomass, it will probably kill what little profit there has been in biomass removal.  Even with a group of loggers who were members of a coop, there was not much profit in chipping tops, but, as one told me "it's better than nothing."

As far as nutrients, growing trees is very different than growing row crops. The growing and harvest cycles are so different that even though the same nutrients may be required, the application methods for annual crops just cannot be useful for trees.

The nitrogen that is useful for crops is not very stable. It's well known that it can be leached from the soil by a heavy rain and will end up as runoff. For corn the most efficient method is side dressing during the time when the corn starts it's strong growth cycle. When it is applied in the fall, it must be stabilized nitrogen and early in the spring you must overapply to allow for losses. The old farmers used to say that a good thunderstorm is worth about thirty pounds of nitrogen to a corn crop.

I just cannot see how nitrogen fertilization would help for trees. It will certainly make the grass grow.

As far as P and K, I understand the major natural source of these nutrients is from rocks. I would expect the natural release of these nutrients during the growth cycle will probably determine the growth rates. When the farmers add these nutrients because of the annual removal of crops, the fertilizer must be incorporated in the soil for some time before the P and K are available. I just can't see how that would work, let alone be economical in a forest. Maybe the addition as a "starter fertilizer" would give some small benefit, but if that is true, it should not be different based on how much biomass you remove.

I suspect if the removal of the biomass has to result in compensation to the owner, the economics will not be favorable for most loggers.

[Ianab]

A bit of book learning.

NZ has about 3 million acres of plantation radiata pine, so it's been pretty intensively studied here. The analogy with annual crops is close, just the trees run about a 25 year rotation.

What has been found is that fertiliser application has little effect on pine trees UNLESS there is a serious deficiency of some element in the soil. This could be one of the main fertiliser groups, nitrogen, phosphorus or potassium. Or a trace element like magnesium, boron or copper. If an area is short on ANY of these elements it will restrict tree growth.

So I'd suggest that if an area is to be used long term for tree cropping that you test the soil to see what is going on. Loosing some of an element from the soil may not cause a problem if there is plenty of it there to begin with, and it can be replaced from the air or by decay of the underlying subsoil. But if a soil is short of something then measures can be taken to correct just that deficiency. Things like digging in a slow release fertiliser tablet beside each seedling as it is planted to aerial topdressing a whole forest with Phosphate rock may be beneficial. By testing and applying only the fertiliser needed you reduce the cost and problems with nutrient run off etc.

Another thing found was that some deficiences caused problems that appear the same as pathogens, ie lack of boron has a similar effect to Diplodia fungus.

Whats it all mean?

I guess if you are going to farm trees as a crop you have to get scientific and know what is going on with your soil and act accordingly. Just like any other modern farmer.

Cheers

Ian

# From FRI bulletin No 184 ( Radiata pine growers' manual )

[Phorester]

Are we talking about two different things here?  The original discussion was talking about biomass removal only at the time of tree harvest.  That was the basis of my opinion that removing the biomass once every few decades does no harm to the forest.  The biomass removed along with the trees at harvest would be replaced many times over as the new forest grows for 20-plus years.

Are some of you talking about yearly removal of biomass from a forest as in the farming analogy? 

[Riles]

In the case of pine straw, yes. There's pretty good money in it, and the effects of fertilization are measurable.

[Ron Scott]

The Spring 2006 issue of the National Woodlands magazine has a couple articles on Bioenergy Prduction and Woody Biomass that you might find of interest along with this site:

http://www.fuelsforschools.org/

[Nora]

From what I've been hearing, it's not whether to remove the biomass, it's when and how much to remove. For example, in Montana our dry climate makes for very slow decomposition. If you leave several inches on the ground, it's like adding mulch to your garden; nothing grows on the ground, except what is planted. On the other hand, there was a discussion at the 2006 COFE conference about a job in Idaho, I believe, where they reduced thinnings to a size that was determined by foresters and wildlife biology folks to be the best overall solution.

We are working on a project that uses roll-on attachments for trucks that allow either logs or slash or masticated materials to be moved using the same truck. Using a lift, either stacks of up to 8 log bunks or 2 bins with a Bobcat can be dropped off in the woods at the truckers convenience, filled at the logger's convenience and the picked up at the trucker's convenience.

You can see a couple of slide shows and other information about the project on our site: Roll On Biomass Project. There will be more pictures coming.

I apologize if my terminology is off; I'm the computer geek here. When my boss said he had pictures of log bunks, I thought he was talking about bunk beds made of logs! It was pretty incredible to watch that hydraulic lift pull a fully loaded log bunk onto the back of the truck.

Nora

[SwampDonkey]

Welcome aboard the forum Nora.  pc_smiley

[grassfed]

This spring I spread 120 tons of wood ash on some of the pastures and hayfields on our farm here in North Eastern VT. We have silt loam-clay loam soils that are high in organic mater, low in pH and have depleted levels of P and K.

The ash came from Wood fired Electric power plants within a aprox 100mile radius of the farm. The wood for the power plants came from whole tree chipping operations in the area. The ash raises pH at a rate that is aprox 40% as powerful per ton as ag lime.

The ash also contains aprox 60 lbs. of K (potassium) per ton in addition to some P (phosphorous) many trace minerals and such.

The effect on the fields has been terrific. The increase in pH along with the increase in K has caused an explosion in legumes in the form of clovers and hairy vetch. 

My point to all of this farming talk is to point out that biomass extraction followed by woodash reapplication would seem to be a useful prescription for many of the acid rain damaged woodlands that we have in the North Eastern USA.

[SwampDonkey]

They're doing the same hear, and the visual (non-scientific) results aren't all that impressive. But, there has been no official scientifc results reported yet. It's on a  trial basis.

While it does contain alot of micronutrients, it contains no nitrogen and a bit of Phosphorus, but a good source of potasium. It is very alkaline and helps reduce PH as you say. Here is an organic nutrient chart. Our soils are not lacking in potassium as it gets continuously replenished by rain water since the Maritimes are pretty much surrounded by ocean. Most of the parent material under farm soils are full of calcium, but below rooting depth, so lime has to be applied. The drinking water is very hard. Our cedar forests are sitting on calcareous rocks or lime. The best natural sources of N and P are fish and crush crustaceon exoskeleton, as well as bird and bat guano.

http://www.cbc-canada.com/grow/nutrientorg.html

[jack]

Gents & Ladies,

Regarding biomass ash, for farm production.  There are a few items of concern,
What gets burned in the plant,  some bio mass burners dont always take pure wood chips, some burn ground up pallets, green waste, and other items of combustuble value.  They have magnets but not of the Zinc, etc.. are removed in the cleaning process,  Some Ash has high metals content, BEWARE.   Also some biomass plants prescreen the incomming material and the "fines" are often available,  TEST THESE TOO> before applying to soil.   Remember, a little of some thing might be good,  but check the long term effects of the buildup in the soil,
I take a sample and send it to a lab,  find out everything in the material, $130.00
Then the soil lab can make recommendations as to how much, how often etc... that the material can be used without harming your soil.
some metals are availble to the soil are picked up by your crop, and injested into what ever is eating them.  Serious coin could be at stake......

Jack Kimmich
Soils To Grow LLc

[SwampDonkey]

Here is a study done by the local university in forests in my neck of the woods.

http://www.unbf.ca/forestry/centers/biomass.htm

When you see figures for m²/ha keep in mind that includes small limbs of the crown that would normally be too small diameter for pulp or too crooked. (1 m²/ha ~ 1 cords/acre) I haven't seen any 48 cord/acre hardwood stands yet here, but I've seen a few 38 cord/acre sites and they were on the best of sites. If they exist in NB, tell me where. I wanna see. Be rest assured I'll have my prism and d-tape. There is a big difference between total volume and 'conventional' merchantable volume. ;)