Page 23 - GLL test

Great Lakes Logging • Expo Edition 2025 paper, and used for a wide variety of
other products.
Fast forward nearly a century. Most
of the Lake States forests have now
recovered from the historic logging era,
albeit to different mixes, to marvelous
landscapes of forest types and forest
conditions. Some of the CCC red pine
remains today. Much has been harvest-
ed and converted to other forest types.
A good share now grows housing and
other human infrastructure.
Red pine occupies a tad over four per-
cent of the Lake States forest, with over
two-thirds of the area aged 30-80 years.
Nearly one third of that area consists of
natural origin stands.
There exists a trend among some folks
that red pine in rows is bad for the envi-
ronment, and that production forestry is
also bad for the environment. A dose of
science intermingled with the dogma of
pseudo-environmentalism may be the
origin of such misconceptions about red
pine, and forestry in general.
One objection is the well-worn notion
of a “biological desert”, which at certain
red pine age classes is partially correct
at the stand level. Production red pine
dominates the stand, by design. Most
every tree is, indeed, red pine. However,
on the landscape level, red pine planta-
tions add to diversity. It is something
23
different in an ocean of hardwoods. This
is a good thing from a diversity angle.
Curiously, about 80 percent of Lake
States red pine volume grows in red pine
forest types. In comparison, 91 percent
of sugar maple grows in northern hard-
wood stands, 44 percent of white pine
in white pine stands, and 71 percent of
aspen in aspen stands, and 66 percent
red oak in red oak stands.
Another objection to red pine plan-
tations is the visual impact of trees in
rows, which is fair enough. Each person
is entitled to an opinion. However, I
suspect most people don’t mind the
rows and it might be difficult to name a
wildlife species that would much care.
Yet, as a plantation is thinned, discrete
rows become less and less obvious,
especially if an effort is made to do so.
This is part of the natural development
of red pine stands, including natural
origin red pine. Once the plantation
Continued on page 24
Photo by Steven Katovich,
Bugwood.org
Mature red pine trees in
Minnesota.
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