Silviculture Program

Native Plant Community Tables and Figures

The Silviculture Program has developed 50 forested native plant community (NPC) tables and figures to which silviculture interpretations were developed to prescribe and support stand-level forest management. The community tables and figures can serve as a tool for writing stand-level prescription and can apply to silviculture decision making.

Highlighted elements of 50 forested native plant community (NPC) tables and figures

• core elements of silviculture interpretations
• can be used to write stand-level prescriptions
• can be applied to silvicultural decision-making
• contains information on:
  • natural disturbance regimes
  • stand dynamics
  • recruitment
  • site suitability
  • competition
  • survival
  • historic changes in tree abundance
• were developed using nontraditional data to relate tree behavior to the NPC rather than species' life history from the following:
  • Public Land Survey (PLS) bearing tree database to:
    • calculate disturbance rotations
    • create a general model of succession
    • understand tree reaction to fire and windthrow
    • determine how trees recruit
    • PLS Methods
  • Forest Inventory & Analysis (FIA) database to:
    • corroborate the PLS calculations
    • determine change in forests during the past 100 to 150 years
    • FIA Methods (update 3/2/2012)
  • Minnesota DNR’s releve database to:
    • understand how tree regeneration related to parent trees and all other plants in the forest community
    • Releve Methods