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That's a gross over generalisation. There are many forests that will naturally regrow into healthy forests in 100 years with reasonably high stocking and large

That's a gross over generalisation. There are many forests that will naturally regrow into healthy forests in 100 years with reasonably high stocking and large trees, I was in one a few weeks ago.

joecool1029 6y ago
Not sure you'll see great results in every environment. I am not an expert but I can walk in the forests of the northeast and see things don't look super great and we won't ever see old growth like we had here. My neighbor is a 90 year old tree farmer, he's got an ag PHD and we sometimes talk about how the land has changed here (he's been living the same place for around 85 years). On my desk in front of me sits one of the two viable American chestnut nuts I've found this year from a (barely) surviving tree of the blight. 100 years ago there were over 4 billion of these trees, now it's assumed that maybe 100 or so large examples exist inside the original range ravaged by the blight. There's no point in planting it, the nut I have has likely hybridized with the Chinese chestnuts we have nearby and it's almost certain it would also die from the blight before it reached maturity. Right now there's plans to introduce an engineered variant with a gene from wheat to stop the effects of chestnut blight, but it needs approval: https://www.acf.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Newhouse-f2018.pdf https://www.acf.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Newhouse-f201... The undergrowth of the forests here are covered by tearthumb (mile-a-minute) and stiltgrass, and I can see dozens of dead ash trees covered in the zigzag scars caused by the emerald ash borer. The large elms were all wiped out before I was born, but many of the dead ones were still standing. We have fast growing tress in the form of things like tree of heaven (aka ghetto palm, which lives maybe 70 years at most), but that's now attracted the latest imported hell: the spotted lanternfly. Not far from me there's huge numbers of eastern hemlock dying off from woolly adelgid, which is manageable but at great expense and effort. What we could plant and have regrow 100 years ago just wouldn't work now for these and many other reasons that much better qualified people should write about.
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  Ah Dutch Elm Disease! We had a fine old elm in the front yard, a swing on a chain from a large branch with a pit under it from generations of kids scuffing in the dust. Beautiful. Then Dutch Elm Disease came through Iowa. Our tree lost a lot of new growth, the next year grew a million suckers from the trunk looking like a furry tree, then was dead. The stump when we cut it down could hold all the kids sitting around it (big farm family). Years later I went to California to school, then bought a house on 12th St in San Jose. Beautiful mature trees lining the street! 60 ft high, a green corridor! Then they started dropping branches, destroying awning and car hoods. The next year the affected ones grew a million suckers on the truck like huge furry sculptures. Unknown to me, they were 'Siberian Elm'. The Dutch Elm disease had reached the west coast! It had taken nearly 20 years to travel halfway across the US. The city removed them all, and it became a sun-blasted street with no relief from the heat. Gone the tunnel of green. Gone all the Elm in the Western US.
JoeAltmaier 6y ago
Dude its just a comment on HN. Not a textbook. Pick your own tree, your own scrub density. It depends on the tree of course. But much the same syndrome.

That's a gross over generalisation. There are many forests that will naturally regrow into healthy forests in 100 years with reasonably high stocking and large trees, I was in one a few weeks ago.

joecool1029 6y ago

Not sure you'll see great results in every environment. I am not an expert but I can walk in the forests of the northeast and see things don't look super great and we won't ever see old growth like we had here. My neighbor is a 90 year old tree farmer, he's got an ag PHD and we sometimes talk about how the land has changed here (he's been living the same place for around 85 years). On my desk in front of me sits one of the two viable American chestnut nuts I've found this year from a (barely) surviving tree of the blight. 100 years ago there were over 4 billion of these trees, now it's assumed that maybe 100 or so large examples exist inside the original range ravaged by the blight. There's no point in planting it, the nut I have has likely hybridized with the Chinese chestnuts we have nearby and it's almost certain it would also die from the blight before it reached maturity. Right now there's plans to introduce an engineered variant with a gene from wheat to stop the effects of chestnut blight, but it needs approval: https://www.acf.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Newhouse-f2018.pdf https://www.acf.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Newhouse-f201... The undergrowth of the forests here are covered by tearthumb (mile-a-minute) and stiltgrass, and I can see dozens of dead ash trees covered in the zigzag scars caused by the emerald ash borer. The large elms were all wiped out before I was born, but many of the dead ones were still standing. We have fast growing tress in the form of things like tree of heaven (aka ghetto palm, which lives maybe 70 years at most), but that's now attracted the latest imported hell: the spotted lanternfly. Not far from me there's huge numbers of eastern hemlock dying off from woolly adelgid, which is manageable but at great expense and effort. What we could plant and have regrow 100 years ago just wouldn't work now for these and many other reasons that much better qualified people should write about.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago
Ah Dutch Elm Disease! We had a fine old elm in the front yard, a swing on a chain from a large branch with a pit under it from generations of kids scuffing in the dust. Beautiful. Then Dutch Elm Disease came through Iowa. Our tree lost a lot of new growth, the next year grew a million suckers from the trunk looking like a furry tree, then was dead. The stump when we cut it down could hold all the kids sitting around it (big farm family). Years later I went to California to school, then bought a house on 12th St in San Jose. Beautiful mature trees lining the street! 60 ft high, a green corridor! Then they started dropping branches, destroying awning and car hoods. The next year the affected ones grew a million suckers on the truck like huge furry sculptures. Unknown to me, they were 'Siberian Elm'. The Dutch Elm disease had reached the west coast! It had taken nearly 20 years to travel halfway across the US. The city removed them all, and it became a sun-blasted street with no relief from the heat. Gone the tunnel of green. Gone all the Elm in the Western US.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago

Dude its just a comment on HN. Not a textbook. Pick your own tree, your own scrub density. It depends on the tree of course. But much the same syndrome.