Here are some photos of eastern white cedar stands. I apologize for the quality. And the photos are taken from fragmented stands because of harvesting history in my community. I do know some better sites to take photos, so I may update this thread at a later date.
(https://forestryforum.com/images/03_21_04/upland-cedar2.jpg)
Eastern white cedar establishing between planted rows of black spruce on an upland site. The previous stand was cedar, poplar, fir, white ash and white spruce. The site is well drained sandy clay loam, quite gravelly.
(https://forestryforum.com/images/03_21_04/upland-cedar.jpg)
Same site as above showing the thick raspberry canes between scarified rows of planted black spruce. Can't really see the spruce, but they are alive and well actually. Fir , white ash and cedar advanced regeneration throughout, white spruce is sparse.
(https://forestryforum.com/images/03_21_04/lowlandcedar.jpg)
Lowland eastern white cedar site. The foreground in this photo was thinned in 2003. You can see a white spruce in the foreground, which is usually less than 10 % of the regeneration. Fifety percent will be cedar, 20 % balsam fir, and 30 % balsam poplar. The site was harvested in 1993. Notice the poplar overtopping the softwood by almost a 3:1 ratio. These sites will have red osier dogwoods, mountain maple, willow and sometimes speckled alder mixed in.
On sites just uphill from here (left) the stand is establishing with 80-90 % large tooth and trembling aspens and 10-20 % balsam fir undergrowth, very little cedar. The diameter of the largetooth is twice that of the trembling and is much healthier.The area is of fire origin around 1910 and was harvested in 1984.
On the uphill site to the right of here is a hardwood stand with thick balsam fir and hardwood undergrowth because of a partial harvest in 1993. And aspen and poplar are suppressed from establishing.
(https://forestryforum.com/images/03_21_04/poplar-cedar.jpg)
Here balsam poplar is still over-topping eastern white cedar after 30 years. This photo was taken along a road so there are shrubs in the foreground. In the stand there is little light for these shrubs to grow when cedar becomes established.
(https://forestryforum.com/images/03_21_04/latesuccession-cedar.jpg)
In this photo the aspen are almost gone from the picture and most of the fir has met the same fate because of shorter longevity, so there is 90 % eastern white cedar. There were aspen here up to 30 inches at dbh. The site was of fire origin, the same as above. Stand age here is around 90 years. In the area that I'm standing in the site was cleared and I planted white spruce, red spruce, black spruce and tamarack on it. The red spruce did not take to the site and the black spruce are slowly take hold, but the tamarakc and the white spruce have taken a strong hold. The only problem is snow-shoe hare browing the succulent white spruce leaders. DanG varments!! They can be a major pain in the keister. Leave the coyotes alone for heaven's sake. :)
If it wasn't so messy walking and long walk, I'de take a picture of a cedar stand where there are no mature balsam fir, poplar or aspen remaining and the mature white spruce are dying. That stand is 180 years old when we bored dominant white cedar at breast height. The undergrowth is regenerating with balsam fir and cedar, but not that thick . If you did a partial harvest in there it would be so thick a dog would have trouble crawling through it in 15 years. As the photo below demonstrates, partial harvest in 1984. Mature spruce, balsam fir and aspen where harvested. There was a 10 acre area from this point and to the left that we harvested over 300 cords of mature aspen. This area was also fire origin dated as above.
(https://forestryforum.com/images/03_21_04/thicket-cedar.jpg)
cheers
Thanks for the pics Swampdonkey! The descriptions are similar to our area when cutting has taken place, % maybe a bit different.
Existing growth is mostly spruce, fir, tamarack and cedar. Some ash, elm, pine, swamp maple, cherry, poplar, beech, hemlock and alder.
Any cut areas have regrown in fir and swamp maple with some poplar. The fir regeneration has been crazy in some areas, preventing any other species regrowth and choking the rasberrys even! I don't know what is special about these areas.
Ken
slowsuki:
Yes the % of species varies from site to site. I find that if the cedar stand is almost pure and its as dark as a closet in the understory you'll get poplar then cedar coming underneath it, following a clearcut. If its a site that isn't real old and the mature fir and aspen has recently died out then you will expect a fir thicket when you clear it because of the advanced regeneration in areas that those short lived trees died. If its a site you get your feet wet it ends up balsam poplar and cedar, maybe spruce on the stumps and mounds, fir is necrotic and some sites have tamarack overtopping the cedar instead of poplars. All kinds of scenarios. I've written at least a hundred woodlot management plans and I have to say that its rare that you can use previous descriptions or projections in a whole new plan. Every cedar site is just a little different even though they develop similarly and the management prescriptions don't vary by much on those cedar sites. Some woodlots I have to get creative so I can justify building a road to do the silviculture. I have to convince the owner that its worth his while to have a good road in the long run. I've seen the results of just using winter roads, the woodlot ends up high graded, fragmented and 'slobber logged'. New term for the forum :D :D
It's nearly impossible to get white cedar to regenerate around here because of the high population of whitetails. As soon as the cedar gets high enough to be above the snow cover deer browse it off. The state has all but halted the harvest of cedar on state land because of this.
Sounds like they need to consider taking the deer. :P
Corley:
In the province of BC, they had to use Vexar cages around the planted red cedar, because the Sitka deer would hammer it. They space there trees out there 600 to 1200 trees/ha (242 to 485 trees/acre) on coastal sites because the sites regenerate well to eastern hemlock. They do pre harvest prescriptions using site classification (soils,vegetation, and climate) to determine the % of species to reforest on their clearcuts. I never saw any yellow cypress regeneration in the mountains where they grow, I think its difficult to grow in nurseries also. They grow at elevations above 400 meters ASL, while red cedar grows below that or its found as bonzai trees in the Cypress swamps on mountain tops. I taxied into alot of those swamps with helicopter and had to watch out for those stunted cedar around the tail rotor. :D
One winter before I began working for the DNR someone decided to fence a square 40 in cedar swamp to study the effects of deer browsing. After almost losing a JD 450 to the muck they gave up on the idea. One theory that has been raised but never tested is to clearcut all the cedar in a given area so the deer don't have it as cover to yard in for the winter. If they can't stay there they can't eat the regen but this would/could be detrimental to the deer population and would be unpopular with deer hunters so.......
Yes, alot of winters the forest floor doesn't freeze in cedar stands, so you do run the risk of mucking it up with a skidder. A forewarder on tracks over the wheels works good. Your right about the clearcut theory as far as winter feed is concerned, but they will browse the cedar in the warm season too. On the Queen Charlottes, where the sitka deer where introduced, there is barely any slow for long. The deer eat the cedar year round, but there is no hardwood there either, not even poplar nor black cotton wood, just red alder the size of white birch. Are there no spruce and balsam fir stands in Northern Michegan for thermal cover in winter? I don't even see moose staying in cedar stands here, they are out in the young mixedwood sites in the winter and my plantation eating willow and hardwood. :D ;D I know deer are different because they aren't built like a moose for deep snow and need to yard up. Deer aren't too plentiful here locally, they hang around lowlands in winter near rivers and streams and gullies with softwood cover. Typically mature to over-mature fir, spruce and cedar with hardwood undergrowth. And along gulley rims and ridges with a southerly aspect to lay in the sun during the daylight hours. :)
Sure we've got balsam and spruce swamps for thermal cover but thermal cover doesn't do any good if there's nothing in there to eat. Deer get locked into deer yards especially after a thaw and freeze cycle. With the snow hard, crunchy and deep they can't travel without breaking through the crust. If it stays fluffy like it did this winter they'll plow out short distances to browse on young aspen etc. Our deer here don't care much for cedar in the summer. After a steady diet through the winter they'd rather eat other stuff ;D. The JD 450 I refer to is a dozer not a skidder. Sometimes tracks will get you into more trouble than tires. Over confidence plays a big part.
I can understand the situation where there are some softwood stands that are healthy and to densely canopied for the hardwood to grow underneath. Yes, for sure, they need more than thermal cover. That's why I mentioned hardwood undergrowth. And that's typical of old growth up this way because the softwood is thinning out and there are openings enough to allow hardwood regeneration such as maple and yellow birch as well as shrubs like wild raisen, mounatin maple, striped maple amd such. The deer also eat old man's beard lichen on the deadfall fir and spruce branches. We lost alot of our deer population here since the mid 80's because of clearcutting those old softwood stands with winter food and switched to an antler-less draw. And all that has done is kill off the dominant deer and left the runts. Deer will eat balsam fir in a pinch, but I don't know how nurishing it is in 30 below temperatures. The snow is less deep in those softwood stands but takes longer to melt than in hardwood, so in April they move to hardwood, mixedwood and open farm fields to feed. When I go up the Tobique River this time of year I can count 10 to 50 deer in alot of fields. Back away from the river a few miles, no deer 'til may. They migrate here up and down watersheds from spring until late fall. Its a little different in the southern part of New Brunswick where they don't migrate at all, but there's less snow and milder winter too. I'll see deer there in certain places year round.
Photos taken April 6, 2004 outside Fredericton NB.
Eastern white cedar growth that has survived white tail deer browsing. About 2 ft tall.
(https://forestryforum.com/images/03_21_04/DSC07176.JPG)
Nearby fir growth, both are in an area cut for mature fir about 3 years ago.
(https://forestryforum.com/images/03_21_04/DSC07179.JPG)
I was just on a site all day today which would have been a more upland cedar site with spruce and fir, but has alot of springs. The woodlot was harvested back in 1982 I beleive. I was with the owner doing a survey of his lot for writing his management plan. He was under the impression before I walked and talked with him most of the day, that his woodlot was totally trashed by that '82 harvest. In actual fact we found that about 90 % was fully stocked, but not over dense. Down on the back of his lot is a brook and from what I could tell it was once a cedar stand, with stuff as big as barrells. Its coming well to cedar and fir and some spruce. The beavers have removed all the poplar and the pin cherry. Oh, and there is a few black cherry regenerating also. But, I noticed the area is used highly by deer. Sign everywhere and the owner found a set of antlers last winter there. Well the deer have not been very hard on the cedar at all, hardly any browsing. It looks that they have been eating mostly the red osier dogwoods. The woodlot has been quite awhile becoming restocked, but its soon going to look like a nice forest by 20 years. Some areas are mostly softwood, some hardwood and some mostly poplar species. He had an area planted in jack pine and black spruce, and those darn pine are 4 times the diameter of the black spruce. :D In between the black spruce are natural white spruce. He let the boy scouts plant an old field he wasn't farming about 18 years ago I believe. I would'a planted white spruce myself, but they were freebies, can't complain. Some people have been told a myth that white spruce required a dry site. Totally untrue, but they don't want to be planted in depressions where water collects. The biggest white spruce I ever see are on sites with all kinds of moisture, I mean veneer sized. The poorest white spruce are on wet abandoned fields all compacted and trampled root systems by livestock and heavy equipment, or butt pruned.
Nice cedar and fir growth slowsuki. You musta had the digital out in the snow storm ;) Its funny how the cedar turn brownish in winter than in summer they turn more green and waxy. I don't like to see cedar stands clearcut, but that's all they do up here. We had alot of well managed cedar at one time on the farm, and it wasn't blowing down when we worked it. After 2 or 3 years you could hardly tell we were in there.