I participated in a Northwest Natural Resource Group sponsored informative seminar on “How To Grow Your Own Old Growth”, held at the Ohop Grange in Eatonville. It had a gratifyingly full attendance of almost 60 people! The seminar covered the following topics:

• Definitions of old growth forests
• Prescriptions/methods for proactively setting up a forest to achieve the characteristics of an old growth forest in an accelerated time frame
• Examples of long term working forest management plans and implementations
• Variable thinning
• Tree selection
• Creating “gaps” to represent naturally occurring disturbances and open areas
• Creating “skips” where forests are left to naturally compete and grow, even without thinning
• Mimicking the progression and random patterns of disturbances
• Distribution of different forestry practices for different areas and types of sites
• Creating varying canopy levels
• Encouraging productive understory
• Wildlife habitat creation
• Lower impact logging techniques and equipment
• Case study projects from City of Seattle Cedar River Watershed and Department of Natural Resources
• Overview, history, and forest management practices at Wild Thyme Farm

Good stuff, and good reminders of best practices for long term forest planning.