What is shelterwood?

Answer 1

Shelterwood is a harvesting system where sufficient numbers of trees of a given density remain to act as a protective crop for newly planted or regenerated seedlings to thrive. Shelterwoods act as nurse crops helping to prevent snow press, reduce pest management risks and helping to modulate within stand temperature extremes preventing excessive cold and heat from damaging the regenerating crop below. At a future time, the shelterwood is harvested to release the crop it was protecting. The density of remaining mature shelterwood trees may also vary by the regenerating species light requirements and pest management needs. For example, Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus) can suffer from extensive white pine weevil [Pissodes strobi (Peck)] damage, which attacks the leaders (tops) thus splitting the tree into multiple tops and significantly reducing the log qualities of the future crop. Evidence points to moderate shade drastically reducing the impact of the white pine (leader) weevil thus dramatically improving the quality of logs from the future stand of Eastern White Pine. As such, Eastern White Pine is ideally suited to the even-aged shelterwood harvesting management system.

Shelterwoods can also cause an increase in within stand snow accumulations, thus increasing the total amount of precipitation that site receives.