Editor:
Regarding the rate of big trees' growth skyrocketing after adjacent thinning: Well, no s**t, Sherlock ("Big Trees," July 17.) This is a big issue in the tree-ring analysis of historic weather conditions, the fact that direct access to sunlight increases tree growth (thus the dropping of adjacent trees due to wind, age, water erosion or a million other possibilities can affect tree growth more than "climate").
So what exactly is the point? Growth in the big trees left behind is unimportant to a commercial forest operator. What's important to everyone is the relative health of the rest of the forest while it still produces enough lumber to make a profit. If managed properly, I believe there can be a balance struck, but the last sentence of the article took off on an irrelevant tangent that does nothing to promote rational thought and debate on the subject.
Steve Parr, Eureka
Comments