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Project ID: 00-2-20

Year: 2001

Date Started: 02/06/2001

Date Completed: 01/30/2007

Title: Treatments that Enhance the Decomposition of Forest Fuels for Use in Partially Harvested Stands in the Moist Forests of the Northern Rocky Mountains (Priest River Experimental Forest)

Project Proposal Abstract: Forest changes in the Northern Rocky Mountains brought on by successful fire exclusion and the killing of western white pine by blister rust have resulted in dense forests dominated by late seral species. With the exception of western larch, ponderosa pine, and Douglas-fir the other conifers occurring in these forests are intolerant of fire. Prescribed fire can be used in clearcuts but because of endangered species, visuals, watershed constraints, and the urban interface, clearcutting is infrequently used. Prescribed fire in partial cuts is difficult to apply and often Icills or stresses standing trees resulting in undesirable results. To find alternative fuel treatments for use in partially harvested stands, three fuel treatments and a control have been replicated (3) on the Priest River Experimental Forest (PREF) in northern Idaho. A 120-year-old dense stand of mixed conifers was thinned. The understory and harvesting fuel treatments include: grapple piling and burning, intensive lopping, and chunking. We hypothesize that large chunks (soft ball sized and larger) will decay more readily than chips and be a soil benefit as they decay. Fuels in a variety of stand and fuel conditions were inoculated with four aggressive red-rotting fungi (natives) and a control. Descriptions of fuels by decay class, overstory canopy, and weather, will be completed for each treatment unit with research funding and the fungi inoculation completed, Fire sciences thnding will be used to describe soil properties, describe potential fire behavior, establish a monitoring program, determine cost effectiveness, and present results after three years. Since the treatments surround the compound at PREF they demonstrate their applicability in the urban interface, will be followed long into the future, and can be used durin the many technology transfer opportunities we have at PREF.

Principal Investigator: Theresa (Terrie) B. Jain

Agency/Organization: Forest Service

Branch or Dept: RMRS-Forestry Sciences Lab-Moscow

Other Project Collaborators

Type	Name	Agency/Organization	Branch or Dept
Co-Principal Investigator	Russell T. Graham	Forest Service	RMRS-Forestry Sciences Lab-Moscow
Collaborator/Contributor	Jessie Michales	Forest Service	Forest Products Laboratory
Collaborator/Contributor	Peggy Polichio	Forest Service	Idaho Panhandle NFs-Priest Lake Ranger District

Project Locations

Consortium

Northern Rockies

Northwest

There are no project locations identified for this project.

Project Deliverables

Final Report ("Results presented in JFSP Final Reports may not have been peer-reviewed and should be interpreted as tentative until published in a peer-reviewed source.")

There are no deliverables available for this project.

Supporting Documents

The following supporting documents are available for this project.

Brief

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