Riparian areas used as livestock pasture need special care to remain healthy and productive. This brochure describes what a riparian area is, why it is important, and what you as a rancher can do to take care of your land. A healthy riparian pasture benefits you, your livestock, wildlife, and...
Coastal blue carbon ecosystems offer a variety of important ecosystem services, including exceptional rates of carbon sequestration and long-term carbon storage. Because these ecosystems disproportionately influence global carbon cycling, understanding their soil characteristics may help guide long-term climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. Recently, Kauffman et al. (2020) observed the...
Forest vegetation management (FVM) is an important component of reforestation in the Pacific Northwest (PNW). Several studies have demonstrated the benefits of vegetation management on planted conifer growth and survival. However, few reports have been published on the long-term effects of FVM treatments on total ecosystem biomass accumulation and aboveground...
Published March 1965. Facts and recommendations in this publication may no longer be valid. Please look for up-to-date information in the OSU Extension Catalog: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog
Revised June 1982. Facts and recommendations in this publication may no longer be valid. Please look for up-to-date information in the OSU Extension Catalog: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog
Published August 1989. Facts and recommendations in this publication may no longer be valid. Please look for up-to-date information in the OSU Extension Catalog: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog
Selling timber by the tree or by the thousand board feet is a
business proposition. Both the seller and the buyer must know the
quality and the quantity of the products being sold.
Understanding sandbar dynamics and variability is integral to developing a predictive
capacity for nearshore flows, sediment transport, morphological change, and
ultimately for determining coastline exposure to damaging storm waves. Along the
high-energy U.S. Pacific Northwest (PNW) coast, sandbars typically dominate the
bathymetry of the active zone. Here we report on...
Understanding sandbar dynamics and variability is integral to developing a predictive capacity for nearshore flows, sediment transport, morphological change, and ultimately for determining coastline exposure to damaging storm waves. Here we report on a nearshore bathymetric data set from the U.S. Pacific Northwest (PNW) that stretches from Point Grenville, Washington...
This research is concerned with the current debate among Oregonians on how to improve the standard of living and accelerate economic development in Oregon. The main question is what economic activities make Oregon, and regions within Oregon grow? To find out where Oregon's economic strength and weaknesses lie, first we...
Both the structure and composition of naturally generated early-seral forests in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) can be profoundly different than that of more developed forest seres, especially in the period after a major disturbance but before conifers re-develop a closed canopy. While it is reasonable to suggest that the unique...
The root-lesion nematode Pratylenchus (hornet is one of the most important pests restricting productivity of wheat in the Pacific Northwest (PNW). It is laborious and difficult to use microscopy to count and identify the nematodes in soils. A SYBR Green I-based real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay was developed to...
In recent years we have seen increasing debate over
the allocation of PNW water resources. In particular there
are conflicts over using the river system for irrigation
vs. electricity production. Denying the hydroelectric
system water implies higher costs to electricity consumers
as producers substitute more expensive nonhydro resources.
This research...
Climate change and the increase in meteorological drought have generated global concern over the persistence of ecosystems already in decline from decreased moisture. Evidence suggests dryland ecosystems have been more impacted by drought because of their tightly coupled growth-water relationships and high sensitivity to environmental shift. Removal of competing vegetation...
During the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, numerous bridge structures were damage or destroyed. The damage to bridge systems was caused by long duration strong ground shaking, tsunami inundation forces, or both. Long duration strong ground shaking from subduction zone earthquakes and the multi-hazard scenario of combined earthquake...
Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) has been cultivated for human consumption for thousands of years. However, most North Americans do not consume barley on a regular basis. In the last decade, there has been a renewed interest in barley production for human consumption. A number of quality traits estimate nutritional value...
In 1970, the Pacific Northwest (PNW) produced approximately 145,332,000 bushels of wheat (all types) with an average harvest value of over $220,000,000. White wheat comprised about 126,234,000 bushels of that total, about 87 percent. In recent years the financial circumstances, for several reasons, have deteriorated for many farmers and grain...
Interest is expanding for the potential role of estuaries, particularly seagrass and salt marsh habitats, to sequester carbon, mitigate ocean acidification, and support abundant fisheries. The important functions of estuaries are part of a broader set of ecosystem services, or benefits to humans, which are regulated by ocean and watershed...
This study represents an internship, as a requirement of the Professional Science Masters program at Oregon State University, performed with Western Ag Innovations Inc. The study consisted of two aspects -- one business and one science oriented. The two objectives of this internship were to: 1) qualitatively evaluate how two...
Douglas-fir provides social, economic, and ecological benefits in the Pacific Northwest (PNW). In addition to timber, forests support abundant plant and animal biodiversity and provide socioeconomic viability for many rural communities. Products derived from Douglas-fir account for approximately 17% of the U.S. lumber output with an estimated value of $1.9...
Estimates of potential carbon (C) storage can be used to constrain predictions of future carbon sequestration and to understand the degree to which disturbances, both natural aid anthropogenic, affect C storage. An upper bound on C storage in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) of the United States was estimated using field...
The management of federal forest lands in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) region changed in early 1990s when the
Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) was adopted with the primary goal to protect old-growth forest and associated
species. A major decline in timber harvest followed, extending an earlier downward trend. The historic and...
Coastal sand dunes and beaches offer a variety of ecosystem services such as coastal protection, sand stabilization, species conservation, and recreation. However, the management and balance of ecosystem services offered by dunes and beaches is challenging when ecosystem services interact across the landscape. Management focusing only on one ecosystem service...
Native populations of forest trees are specifically adapted to the climates they inhabit. The farther trees are moved from their local climates (i.e., as the climatic transfer distance increases), the more growth and survival tend to decrease. The transfer limit is the climatic transfer distance beyond which plantation performance is...
Relative to other systems in the PNW, the rain-dominated, coastal watersheds of western Oregon have shallow aquifers. Given the seasonality of streamflow and storage limitations in coastal, rain-dominated watersheds, changes in the temporal patterns of precipitation have the potential to magnify the risk of extreme streamflow conditions during both high-...
Agricultural practices influence the nutrient dynamics of soil and plants, which may take more than a decade to be expressed in the drylands. The nutrient supplying capacity of soil is a crucial component of sustainable agriculture, and hence, this study can play an important role in policy making for the...
Some of the world's most productive timberland lies on the slopes of the coastal range in Oregon and Washington. More than one-half of the commercial forest land in that area is estimated as high site quality for Douglas-fir, with a site index of 140 or better. But much of this...
Wheat (Tritium aestivum) is an extremely important crop worldwide. It accounts for almost one quarter of the calories consumed each day by more than one third of the world’s population, and is grown over more land area than any other crop. Wheat breeding programs constantly strive to increase or maintain...
Forest Vegetation Management (VM) is an important tool used in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) for reforestation. It has been well documented that VM increases seedling survival and crop tree volume growth. What is less understood, is how altering the plant community and successional trajectory affects the way the ecosystem uses...
Published December 1990. Facts and recommendations in this publication may no longer be valid. Please look for up-to-date information in the OSU Extension Catalog: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog
Published January 1990. Facts and recommendations in this publication may no longer be valid. Please look for up-to-date information in the OSU Extension Catalog: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog
Forest management planning is critical for the sustainability of natural systems on a site. Managing public ground is a complicated process, and usually involves many stakeholders with a variety of opinions. One such public property is the Evitts Creek Water Company (ECWC) property, owned by the city of Cumberland, Maryland....
Published November 1991. Facts and recommendations in this publication may no longer be valid. Please look for up-to-date information in the OSU Extension Catalog: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog
Published March 1981. Facts and recommendations in this publication may no longer be valid. Please look for up-to-date information in the OSU Extension Catalog: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog
Aerial surveys of the Nezperce National Forest in Idaho revealed 138,692 acres of aerially visible top kill and tree mortality due to repeated defoliation by western spruce budworm, Choristoneura occidentalis Freeman.
A small ground sample indicates that up to 47 percent of the grand fir volume was affected by top...
We measured activity levels of cesium radioisotopes ¹³⁴Cs and ¹³⁷Cs in wild edible fungi, mineral soil, and surface litter of the west coast of North America from southern California to northern Vancouver Island after the Fukushima nuclear accident. All activity measurements were below governmental limits for human health. ¹³⁷Cs activity...
Published March 1977. Facts and recommendations in this publication may no longer be valid. Please look for up-to-date information in the OSU Extension Catalog: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog
The PATH algorithm, which is the efficient dynamic
programming algorithm developed by Paredes and Brodie
(1987) was interpreted from a different point of view.
This modification of the PATH algorithm by the calculus of
variations vastly diminished the calculation task and
memory required to store optimal stands at each stage....
Snags and hardwoods contribute to biological, structural, and functional diversity in old-growth forests. In the US Pacific Northwest, only general knowledge about regional patterns is available to determine target density of snags and hardwood trees. To investigate their variability at relevant scales for silviculture, we examined snag and hardwood densities...
A 20-year-old Douglas-fir [Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco] stand in the Oregon Coast Range was thinned from about 1,700 to about 350 trees/ac. Subsequent thinnings, under eight different regimes, occurred at ages 23, 27, 30, and 32. Average net periodic cubic-volume growth was strongly influenced by thinning regime, varying from about...
This dissertation consists of three essays on private landowners' response to incentives for carbon sequestration in forests. The first essay examines private landowner response to incentives for carbon sequestration through various combinations of intermediate management practices. The second essay focuses on agricultural landowners' willingness to participate in an incentive program...
Basal area and height growth were analyzed for individual trees in uneven-aged ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa
Dougl. ex Laws.) and lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta Dougl. ex. Loud.) stands in central Oregon. Basal area
growth was modeled as a function of other stand and tree variables to address three general objectives:...
Shallow, rapid soil mass movements are common events and primary sources
of sediment in steep terrain of the Pacific Northwest.
Poorly vegetated debris deposits and scars resulting from landslides
remove land from the productive timber base, and are subject to
continuing erosion. To examine the impact of these events on...
Changes in climate caused by increased concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the Earth’s atmosphere have led land and ocean surface temperatures to increase by 0.85°C and sea level to increase by 19 cm relative to preindustrial times. Global climate change will lead to further alterations in mean temperature and...
Quantification of contemporary sediment and carbon accumulation within Oregon tidal saline wetlands will: (1) fill a critical knowledge gap, and (2) naturally test without complicating variables whether sea level rise or sediment supply primarily control wetland growth. Here we measure vertical accretion rates and carbon burial rates in three Oregon...
Forest ecosystems are removing significant amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. Both abiotic resource availability and biotic interactions during forest succession affect C accumulation rates and maximum C stocks. However, the timing and controls on the peak and decline in C accumulation rates as stands age, trees increase in size,...
Full Text:
of forested federal land ad-
ministered by the Pacific Northwest (PNW)
Region of the National Forest
An experiment was conducted to evaluate the influence of forest fuels reduction on diet quality, botanical composition, relative preference, and foraging efficiency of beef cattle grazing at different stocking rates. A split plot factorial design was used, with whole plots (3 ha) being fuel reduced or no treatment (control), and...
The Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP), which aims to conserve late-successional and old-growth forests (older forests) and associated species, established new policies on federal lands in the Pacific Northwest USA. As part of monitoring for the NWFP, we tested nearest-neighbor imputation for mapping change in older forest, defined by threshold values...