Forests and Their Management

Dr. Ankur Awadhiya

Department of Biotechnology
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur

Module - 02
Basics of Silviculture
Lecture – 01
What is silviculture?

(Refer Slide Time: 00:16)

[FL] Today we begin the 2nd module, which is Basics of Silviculture. In this module we
will be having 3 lectures - What is silviculture? Plant growth factors, and ecological
succession.
(Refer Slide Time: 00:28)

(Refer Slide Time: 00:31)

So, let us begin with W’HAT IS SILVICULTURE? The word silviculture comes from
these word roots, “silva” meaning wood, or forest, or tree because we are getting wood
out of trees, and “cultura” is cultivation. So, essentially silviculture is wood cultivation
or this art and science of cultivating forest crops. So, when we talk about silviculture
what we are trying to say is that we want to have a forest that is managed in such a
manner that we are able to extract or cultivate wood out of it.
Now, this field of silviculture is intimately related with another field which goes by the
name of SILVICS. Now, silvics is the study of life history or general features of forest
crops with respect to environmental factors as basis for the practice of silviculture. So,
what is it saying? It says that SILVICS is the study of life history of forest crops.

So, when we say life history the point of the question is, if we look at any particular
species of tree or, if we are looking at any stand, how does this stand develop? So, for
instance in the case of any tree it will start say as a seed, and then it will grow into a
seedling, and then it will become a small plant, and then it will grow, and after a while it
will become aged it, and then it will die.

So, this life history how much time is this is tree going to remain as a seed? How long
will its life expectancy be? These are the things that go in the field of the life history of
the forest crop. General features look(s) at things such as how do you identify these
species in a forest? Or say how much is the amount of light that this plant requires?

(Refer Slide Time: 02:38)

So, for instance, in the case of plants, we can have two different kinds; so, we can have
light demanders, and we can have the shade tolerance. Now, light demander as the word
indicates “is a species that requires quite a lot amount of light.” So, for instance if you
have a forest if you have a tree and say if you grow or a light demander at this location
where you are getting ample amount of shade of the mother plant.
So, in that case, this light demander will or may die out, whereas in the case of the shade
tolerance, they are able to tolerate shade. So, they are able to grow in this location as
well. So, silvics the study of “life history or general feature of forest crops with respect
to environmental factors,” so the next level of complexity is the environmental factors.

So, if we have a forest stand, if we are looking at a forest what is the impact of
environment on this forest? Is also something that we study in silvics. So, for instance, if
you have a stand of cheed pine plants, so cheed pine is a species that grows in
mountainous areas or in cold areas.

Now, if there is an environmental change, so for instance, we are having a global

warming these days. So, if the temperature of this location goes up what will be the
impact on the stand? Is also something that we are going to study in silvics. So, we are
looking at the life history or general features of forest crops with respect to the
environmental factors, as a basis for the practice of silviculture.

So, why are we interested in knowing all of these? We are interested in knowing all of
these because we want to make certain decisions. So, for instance, when you are having
global warming; when temperature is going up at a particular location, and suppose you
are planning to have a forest that has to be created, and you are going to extract wood out
of it say after 90 years, or say 100 years.

So, in this period of 100 years, if we are expecting that the temperature is going to
increase in this period, what are the species that we should plant in that area? Or for
instance, if there, if because of your climate changes there is an increase in the extreme
factor, such as draughts. So, should you go for the indigenous plants or should you go for
some draught resistant varieties of these plants? - is also something that we are interested
in knowing. But, we can only make these sorts of decisions when we actually know what
is the impact of draught on each and every of these species.
(Refer Slide Time: 05:33)

So, what we are trying to say is that you have species 1, species 2, species 3, species 4
and so on. Now, the first species is able to tolerate draught, and the second species is also
able to tolerate draught. But you are having a situation in which the first species, if there
is an increase in temperature it is going to die out. But, the second species is able to
tolerate changes in temperature as well, and then probably you have a third species that
is able to tolerate say - insects. So, there is an impact of insects, and you are having the
situation. Now, when you know all these factors that - what is the impact of these
different factors on different species, then only you can make a decision.

So, for instance, if you have a location in which in the period of 90 years, we are going
to have say an 80 %probability of a draught, probably a 70% probability of an insect
infestation, but say only a 10 percent probability that you are going to have an increase in
temperature.

So, which of these species should you go for? If you say went for this species - species 2.
So, there is a good chance of a draught it will be able to tolerate that, there is a good
chance of an insect infestation, but then your species to will not be able to tolerate that.
The species 3, if you have a situation of draught, it will die out; in the case of the species
4, you have draught and it dies out. But, in the case of species 1, it is able to tolerate
draught, it is able to tolerate insects, it is unable to tolerate changes in temperature. But
then because you have a very low probability that there is going to be an increase in
temperature at this particular location, you can go for the such species.

So, to make these managerial decisions, you need to know the characteristics of each and
every of these species, and the characteristics of different forests - both in the native
conditions and in the changed conditions. So, silviculture is the study of life history or
general features of forest crops with respect to environmental factors, as basis for the
practice of silviculture.

So, what is silviculture then? Silviculture is applied silvics. You are doing an application
of all this knowledge that you have gathered in the field of silvics to grow your plants.
So, that is - applied silviculture - is applied silvics is silviculture.

(Refer Slide Time: 08:30)

Now, in the case of silvics, we need to understand the impacts of all of these different
components of forests on the characteristics of the forest. Now, forest happen to be
biological communities, so they will be having abiotic components as well as biotic
components. Now, abiotic component includes soil, water, air, sunshine and so on.
(Refer Slide Time: 09:00)

So, abiotic is non-living, so non-living components includes things such as your soil,
water, air, sunshine and so on. Now, what is the impact of all of these? So, let us see
consider the impact of water. So, you have certain species in your forest, and these
species are able to grow at a presence of water that let us say on a unit of 0 to 10 you are
having a level of 5, and these species are able to grow in this forest.

What will happen if this 5 becomes say 3 or it becomes 7? So, if you have a condition in
which the amount of water is less, you will probably be having a draught like situation.
So, what is the impact of a draught on these species? or if you are having an excess of
water you probably have a situation of water logging or a situation of flooding. So, what
is the impact of an increase in water on these species or these individuals, is something
that we also study in silvics.

So, we study the impacts of the abiotic components as well as the impacts of biotic
components. Now, biotic components include(s) trees, shrubs, vines, grasses, insects,
birds, reptiles, and mammals. So, do you think that all of these will be having an impact
on forests? So, let us see look at the impact of grasses.
(Refer Slide Time: 10:34)

So, you have a forest in which you have seeds, and these seeds are now developing into
seedlings, but in this location, we also have tall grasses. So now, the amount of sunlight
that is available for your seedling, is controlled by the amount of grass. So, the length of
the grass, or the height of the grass, and also the density of the grass that is impact
sunlight - that is it seedlings.

Now, if your seedling is shade tolerant, in the, then it probably will be able to tolerate a
much greater amount of grasses as compared to if it were light demanding. Similarly, if
your seedling has a characteristic that is that it is able to better extract out water and
nutrients from the soil as compared to the grasses, it will be able to out compete the
grasses.

But, in certain situations you can have a situation in which the grasses out compete your
seedlings, in which case your seedlings will die out. Similarly, if you look at the impact
of another biotic component, say insects. So, there are a number of insects that feed on
seeds. So, in that situation, you will have your seeds that are here on your trees and the
insects eat them out or these seeds have fallen on the ground and then the insects devour
on them.

So, this will have an impact on the forest. So, both the abiotic as well as the biotic
components are integral parts of the forest, but they also regulate the forest and they are
also important when we look at silvics or silviculture.
(Refer Slide Time: 12:41)

(Refer Slide Time: 12:49)

The next concept is that of the layers of a forest. So, if you look at any forest, we will see
probably four layers. So, here is your soil, then you will be having certain species that
form a thick canopy. Now, canopy refers to the uppermost branches of trees in a forest
that form a more or less continuous layer of foliage. So, canopy is something that you
can think of as an umbrella.

So, in this forest, these plants are making a continuous layer on top, so this is a
continuous layer, so this is the canopy. And, these trees will form the canopy layer, so
this is the canopy layer that is growing in your forest. But then you will also have certain
species or certain individuals that are of a height that is less than the height of your
canopy piece. So, probably you will have a plant that grows at this height.

Now, these plants typically will be shade tolerance, whereas your canopy was a light
demander. So, your shade tolerant plants that are growing below your canopy layer from
the understory. So, in this understory, you have a condition in which the amount of light
is much less than what was available to the canopy plants because, these plants are
growing in a shade like situation.

At the same time, the amount of wind pressure on these plants will be less, because they
are surrounded by these canopy plants. Also, the amount of moisture that is typically
present in this understory layer is much greater than what is present in the canopy layer.
Because, in the case of the canopy, you have the sun that is leading to some amount of
desiccation; it is leading to it is leading to transpiration from your canopy plants.

But, then these plants in the understory layer, they have a much greater amount of - they
have a situation in which a much greater amount of moisture is present in the
surroundings. So, typically the amount of transpiration in this layer is much lesser, Then,
you can also have some plants that grow above your canopy layer.

So, there can be certain individuals that above the canopy, so these go by the name of
EMERGENT LAYER. So, these are the plants that have a height that is greater than the
canopy, and these individuals will have a much greater amount of wind pressure to
tolerate. They will also have much greater amounts of desiccation that they should be
able to tolerate, if they have to emerge out of these canopies.

Then the fourth layer goes by the name of - the forest floor. Now, forest floor typically
will be having grasses; it will also have the leaf litter that is falling from all of these
plants, whether the canopy plants, or the emergent layer, or the understory plant. So, it
will also be having a huge amount of dead leaves or the fallen leaves. It will also be
having some twigs, or some branches that have fallen down, and this layer which goes by
the name of the forest floor.

Now, what are the kinds of switch of situations that this layer plants should be able to
tolerate? One, they will be having very less amount of light. Because, any light that is
left out of the emergent layer and the canopy layer and the understory layer, is the light
that is coming to these grasses.

So, the amount of light is very less, the amount of carbon that is there in the soil, or the
amount of humus that is there in the soil is very huge. Because, all the leaves and the
dead twigs are falling into this layer and they are decomposing. The amount of small
animals or insects or microorganisms that these plants should be able to tolerate will be
very high.

(Refer Slide Time: 17:24)

So, these are the four layers of the forest. So, you have the canopy layer, you have the
emergent layer, you have the understory layer, and you have the forest floor that is
typically comprised of grasses and hubs. Now, why do we need to understand all of this
in the case of silviculture? This is because, when we go with silviculture, we will be
having certain management objectives. Now, suppose your management objective is that
you want to extract the maximum amount of wood from this forest.

Now, if you want to extract the maximum amount of wood, and you are, and you want it
to be in a situation that you are able to extract it out in the most economical manner or in
the most simplistic of manners. You will probably want to go with a forest that only has
one species of trees. So, for instance, you would want to have a situation in which all
your plants are teak plants.
So, in that case, you will have to construct a situation in which your emergent layer is
gone, your understory is gone, and probably even you can let some grasses remain, or
you will want to have a situation in which even your grasses are gone. Now, if you know
the characteristics of all these different layers, you will be able to tinker on modulate
your forests to meet your silvicultural goals.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:49)

Now, what can be the other silvicultural goals? Why do we do silviculture? We do

silviculture to achieve certain desired outcomes, such as quality timber production. Now,
if your aim is to go for a quality timber production, you will probably want to go with
monoculture. You will not want to have a situation in which you have a huge amount of
biodiversity or different layers in your forests.

You will only want to have a situation in which all your plants belong to the same
species, probably also of the same age. So, that the all your plants are having typically
the same height and the same girth, so that will be, that can be one silvicultural objective.
Another objective could be say - production of species of economic value. Now, if we
look at this forest, probably you have different species that have different market values.

Now, for instance, you can have a situation in which these grasses probably they are
medicinal grasses, and they have a huge market value; they have a huge market potential.
So, in that case, your silviculture will comprise of a situation in which you will want to
get rid of all these trees, and create a situation in which your grasses can grow in a
profuse manner, or say for instance, you have a situation in which you have some teak
trees and say mango trees.

Now, the timber value or the economic value of the timbers from teak is much greater
than the economic value or the cost of the timber from mango. So, you will want to have
a situation in which you replace your mango trees and move towards the teak trees, so
that can be another silvicultural objective. A similar silvicultural objective could be to
increase your production or the volume of timber per unit area per unit time. Now, this
could be say, because of your economic considerations or this could be as a way of
mitigating your climate change.

(Refer Slide Time: 21:15)

Now in the case of climate change, you are having more amount of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere, and you want to create a situation in which the trees that are growing in your
forests are able to sequester or absorb all of these carbon dioxide, convert it into biomass
and store it in their bodies. So, if you have this kind of an objective - to enhance your
carbon stocks in the fastest possible times - that can also be one of your silvicultural
objectives.

And that would require a very different kind of management, as compared to say, a
silvicultural management for maximum economic production. So, for instance, you can
have a situation in which you have teak trees, which typically say take 90 years to form,
say 100 tons of carbon in their bodies. But probably you have say mango trees, which
say it take 50 years to form 100 tons of carbon in their body. Now, if your aim is to go
for - say carbon sequestration, you will want to have mango trees in preference to your
teak trees. So, what you want will depend on what is your silvicultural objective!

Now, another objective could be reduction of rotation age or average age at which a tree
is considered mature for felling. So, in this case, what we are saying is that typically your
teak trees are currently taking 90 years to reach the maturity. Can you do something to
reduce it from 90 years to say 70 years? Probably, by say, putting more nutrients in the
soil or going for better varieties of teak, so that you are able to reduce the rotation age or
the maturity age. So, that can also be one of your silvicultural objectives. Now, in that
case you will be managing your forests in a way that the faster growing trees are retained
in this forest, and the slower growing trees are removed from this forest. So, that after a
while you have individuals that grow faster, and in that case their progeny will also be
individuals that have these characteristics of growing faster. So in that case, you will be
able to convert your rotation age from 90 years to 70 years. Another silvicultural
objective could be raising of new forest in blank areas.

(Refer Slide Time: 24:06)

So, for instance, if you have a situation of a mine, so there was this land, which was then
mined out, so there was mining that was done in this area. Now, after you have extracted
out your minerals or the ores, you have a situation in which - you have this situation.
Now, this area is a blank area, so it does not have any vegetation, whatsoever. So, you
can have a silvicultural objective to fill this area again with certain type of soil, and then
re-grow your forest on top of this mined area. So, that could be one of your silvicultural
objectives, and in that case the kind of management that you will do will be very
different from the other kinds of management.

Another silvicultural objective would be or could be, the creation of wildlife habitat. So,
probably you are doing silviculture not to extract wood, but to have the largest numbers
of wildlife in your area. Now, wildlife will require a very different kind of situation than
your timber production area. So, for instance, you can have this forest in which you have
grasses, so you will have some grazing animals that are able to use these grasses. You
will have canopy layer in which there could be some birds that make their nest in the
canopy layer.

You will even want to retain your understory because, probably your understory is
providing certain fruits to the wildlife. You will even want to retain the emergent layer
because there could be certain species (birds) that only reside in very tall plants. So, if
your silvicultural objective is to manage your forest for wildlife, you will go for a very
different kind of treatment to the forest. Similarly, your one of your aims could be doing
it for aesthetics, so in the case of aesthetics, you will do certain treatments such that your
forest looks beautiful.

So, a beautiful forest in certain situations it could be going towards monoculture. So, that
all your trees look of the same size and the same height, or in certain other situations you
would want to go, if your aesthetic view point is to have a mixed sort of a forest, you can
probably go for a mix sort of a plantation. So, that can also be one of your silvicultural
objectives, or you can have an objective of introduction of a foreign species, or an exotic
plant, such as eucalyptus.

So, when eucalyptus was introduced in the Nilgiris that was a silvicultural objective, or
you, or one of your objectives could be protection and maintenance of a site for
intangible returns. Now, what are intangible returns? These are the returns that you
cannot see or feel with your senses; with your senses.

So, intangible return could be say - things like purity of air in your area, or reduced
amount of pollution, or reduced amount of noise in your area. So, you can have a
situation in which you are doing silviculture, so that you are able to protect or maintain a
site for the intangible returns. So, for instance, when we talk about planting of trees
along the roadsides, that could be one of your silvicultural objectives.

(Refer Slide Time: 27:48)

So, next let us have a look at a short history of silviculture. So, how does this, how did
this discipline come into being?

(Refer Slide Time: 27:58)

So, if we look at the impact of humans on environment of forests, we have this equation
that
 I=PxAxT

So, the amount of impact that humans will have on a forest, I goes, I refers to the impact
is dependent on the population pressure, so more the number of people more is the
impact of those people on the forest. A is the effluence or the per capita need for
resources.

(Refer Slide Time: 28:34)

So, if you have a society, in which 1 person requires, say 10 kgs of firewood, and you
have another society in which 1 person requires 100 kgs of firewood. Probably because
in the first situation they were only using it to cook food, but in this situation, they are
using it to cook food to keep their houses warm, probably also for the lighting of the
nearby areas. So, in this situation, we will say that the amount of affluence of this society
is greater than the amount of affluence of the previous society.

Now, more is the amount of affluence or the per capita need for resources, more will be
the impact of this society on the nearby forests. Now, T refers to technology or the
ability to extract resources. Now, probably in this situation, you have a society that
requires all of these resources, but here you are only able to extract, so you require 10
kgs of firewood, but you are only able to extract 9 kgs.

And in this, in the second society, you have a lot more affluence, but even though they
require 100 kgs of firewood, they are only able to extract say 50 kgs. So, this is another
factor that will govern the amount of impact of your society on the forest. So now, let us
look at it in numerical terms. So, you had 10000 people each of them requiring 10 kgs of
firewood, but the technological efficiency was only 90 percent, or was 90 percent.

Now, in this second society probably you have 50 persons each of them requiring 100
kgs of firewood, and the efficiency of extraction or the technological efficiency is here
50 percent. So, the impact of the first society is 10000 into 10 into 90 percent. The
impact of the second society is only 50 persons into 100 kgs into 50 by 100. So, in this
case you have 90000 kgs of wood extraction, and in this case, you have 2500 kgs. So,
even though the second society has a much larger requirement of firewood per capita, the
total impact is lesser. So, I = P x A x T.

(Refer Slide Time: 31:42)

Now, if you look at primitive societies, so if we look through history, earlier you had
aboriginal societies, so people were hunter, gatherers, and the population was very small.
The requirement of word or resources was also very small, because in those days we did
not have computers, we did not have large scale extraction of minerals, we did not have
very good agriculture, we did not require or we did not have access to fertilizers or
pesticides.

So, the amount of resources that one person needed was very small; the population size
was also it very small, because it was the beginning of the civilization. And, the
technological ability to extract the resources was also very small, because we did not
have access to the modern science and technology.

So, what was the impact of this society, so small population, small affluence, small
technology, so there was a little impact on the forest, and the forest were in plenty. So, in
those stages, there was no need for any silviculture. So, there was little need to conserve
the forest, though in certain societies certain food or fruit or fodder trees may be
conserved as religious trees.

So, in those days, people started worshipping those trees that were of utility to them. So,
the only amount of silviculture was that if you have a fruit tree that was there in your
vicinity, you protect that tree you do not cut that tree for firewood, but other than that
there was hardly any need for large scale intervention, then with time there was
modernization.

(Refer Slide Time: 33:23)

With modernization the population increased, the affluence increased, so with

modernization you now require more amount of resources per capita. The technology
also increased to extract these resources. So, the amount of impact of a modernizing
society is much greater than the amount of impact of a primitive society.

So, with the growing impact on the forests due to unabated exploitation, forests started
getting scarcer. So now, people started feeling that there was a pinch of resources or a
pinch of forest resources. But in these times, though there was an increasing need to
conserve forests, people could go with an expansion of their empires.

(Refer Slide Time: 34:23)

So, for instance, you had this much amount of in your land, you had these many forests.
But, because of affluence and more use of resources, your forests are getting now scarce,
so now, you have only this much amount of forest that is left. But what you can do is that
you can expand your territory, and in that case, you can have access to the other forests
that are available, so this was the second stage of the development of silviculture.

So, even though people started feeling that there is a dearth of resources, the forests are
getting scarcer, the amount of conservation in increased a bit, but not to a very large
extent, because, the needs were met by expansion of the empires for example, the
expanding of Roman empire or the British empire.
(Refer Slide Time: 35:18)

But, then after a while we reached the 3rd stage of the societal development, so the
population has now increased. The affluence is large; the amount of technology is large;
the amount of impact on the forest is also very large. But now, you do not have any more
areas that are left for increasing your expansion or the exploitation of the forest. So now,
you are having a situation in which the impact is very large, but you do not have newer
areas in which you can go and extract the resources.

So now, there is a pinch period in which you do not have any other option than to
manage your forest in a scientific manner, so that you are able to increase your
productivity. So, now in this stage, the forest conservation becomes imminent, and the
scientific management of forests gets born as a discipline to meet the needs of the
society. So, if you consider, say the British empire in the beginning, they had very less
number of people, there was hardly any impact. Then when the society started to become
more modernized, they started expanding their empire, they reached India, and they
started exploiting the forests of India.

So, when in those days, for instance, the ships were made out of wood, so there was a
very large-scale extraction of wood that was done in India, and all of that timber was
then moved to the - to Britain. But, then after a while your exploitation has grown to
such an extent that now no more trees are left in India, what do you do then or very less
number of trees are left in India.
So, then the Britishers started thinking what we can do is to increase the number of trees
that are there in the forest. How do we do that? They started to think should I cut a tree
when it is say - 10 years of age in which it has reached its height, but the girth is very
small, or should I wait for say 20 more years, so that the thickness of this tree also
increases.

When is a good time to cut this tree? When is a good time to plant a tree? What are the
resources that are required by a tree to grow?

So, when you start thinking about all of these different factors, then you are moving
towards a scientific discipline of silviculture. So, most of the world from the mid-
nineteenth century is in this stage.

(Refer Slide Time: 37:54)

Now, these stages or these stages of development of silviculture can also happen in a
cyclical manner, because societies go - move from an ebb to a tight. So, for instance, if
you look at the Mauryan civilization - the Mauryan empire - they had strict codes for
conservation. But then I after a while when we had the British period, they moved
towards the expansion period, and the forests were cut indiscriminately. So, you can also
have a situation in which an earlier society is putting much more emphasis on
conservation than a later society. So, these things can also move in a cyclical manner.
(Refer Slide Time: 38:40)

So, that was the short history of silviculture. Now, how do you do silviculture? So,
silviculture is done through silviculture practices that are made into silvicultural systems.
So, what is a silvicultural practice? Silvicultural practice consists of various treatments
that may be applied to forest stands to maintain or/and enhance their utility for any
purpose.

So, a practice is a treatment that you are given to a forest stand. What can be a treatment?
A treat can - a treatment may mean say cutting of trees, or say cutting of the climbers
that are growing on a tree, so all of these things are silvicultural practices. Another
practice could be to go with an artificial regeneration of forests; you go into a forest and
you plant start planting trees. So, all of these things are silvicultural practices. They are
treatments that are applied to forest stands.

Now, why are you applying these treatments? To maintain these forest stands, to
maintain the utility or to enhance the utility, for any purpose. Now, what are these
purposes? These purposes are the silvicultural objectives that we looked at before. So,
your objective could be to extract more amount of timber; your objective can be to have
biodiversity in that area; Your objective could be to maintain it for aesthetic reasons. But
given those objectives, what are the treatments that you are applying to this forest to
maintain its utility or to enhance its utility goes by the term of silvicultural practice, and
a set of practices forms a silvicultural system.
(Refer Slide Time: 40:22)

So, a silvicultural system is a planned program of treatments during the whole life of a
forest designed to achieve specific stand structural objectives. So, you have these
treatments, but then when do you give these treatments. So, for instance, one treatment is
to plant trees.

(Refer Slide Time: 40:50)

So, when should you plant a tree? You have a forest and you are going to cut this forest
for a period of say 90 years. So, in a period of 90 years, your plant moves from a seed
stage to a maturity stage. Now, in the case of a forest, suppose you have this piece of
land, should you say go with seeding in all of this area or planting in all of these areas.
And then, you wait for 90 years and then you cut these forests. Is that what you want to
go for? Or for instance, you have this forest and you divide it into four sections. You are
going to plant this section in the, so you have these four sections, and or let us divide it
into 9 sections.

So, for the first 10 years, you are going to plant the section, then you are going to leave
this area, then you cut another section, and then you plant this area, then you cut here.
So, earlier you had trees everywhere, and now what you are doing is you are cutting trees
in one ninth of the forest, and then planting seeds, then you cut trees in this one ninth of
our forest and then you plant the seeds.

So, that when you reach from 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, so when you reach at this stage. So,
you have cut this forest, and you have planted the trees. You have a situation in which
the forest of the first section have now reached to a maturity stage. So, if you go with this
kind of a system, probably you will be having a work at every point of time.

In this section or in this system, you had a situation in which you planted the whole of
the area, and then you had nothing more to do in the next 90 years. And at the end of 10
years, you again have a huge amount of work to do to cut these trees, and to plant it
again. In this system, you have divided your work in a temporal fashion, so the
silvicultural system is a set of all of these different management options that you have.

So, the silvicultural system is a planned program. So, you are doing a planning of when
to apply which silvicultural practice. It is a planned program of treat - treatments during
the whole life of a forest, designed to achieve specific stand structural objectives. Now,
what can these objectives be? They can be to achieve a certain age class structure. Now,
what do we mean by in age class structure?
(Refer Slide Time: 43:41)

So, if you look at a forest, if we have, and this is the number of plants. Now, typically the
number of seeds or the number of saplings that are from the age of 0 to 1 will be very
large; so, you have large number of small plants. Now, in the middle stage, you probably
have less number of plants, and in this stage, you have a very less number of plants.

Because at every stage, you are going to have certain amount of mortality, so for
instance, you started with 10000 plants. So, you have 10000 small plants, but then these
plants are also getting eaten up by insects or probably by mammals - the herbivores they
are eating up these plants. So, at the end of 1 year, you say - are only left with 1000
plants. At the end of the 2nd year, now your plants have become a bit taller, and they are
now known what the preferred species.

So, at the end of the 2nd year, out of these 1000 plants, probably you have lost only 200
plants and 800 plants remain. Now, as these plants are now increasing their, in the ages,
the amount of resistance that they can give to an organism that is trying to eat this plant
or is trying to attack this plant, will go on increasing.

But still you will be having certain diseases that these plants are subject to. So, at the end
of say 5 years, in place of 800 plants only 600 plants remain. Now, you will, so in this
situation you have a case in which the number of plants was very large to begin with,
then it drops and drops and drops, and after a while you have a very small number of
plants that remain, and the number of plants becomes constant.
But then you also are having some certain amount of mortality, because the age is
increasing. You have plants that are of an older age and they are dying out, because of
the age factor. So, you have this sort of a curve. So, this is a certain age class structure
that is present in a natural forest.

But now if you want to manage this forest, if you want to cut timber or extract timber out
of this forest, you would want to have a situation in which probably, for a certain section
of the forest, all your trees are of the same size, the same height, and the same diameter.
So, in that case, you want to shift from this sort of section to a forest in which you have
these many trees that are from say 0 to 10 years of age. The same number of trees that
are from 10 to 20, the same number of trees that are from 20 to 30, the same number of
trees that are from 30 to 40 and so on.

So, this can be your stand structural objective to achieve a certain age class structure that
may be a natural age class structure or a modified age class structure. Or, your stand
structural objective could be to change the site occupancy in the preferred species
mixture. To give an example, you started with a natural forest in which you have say 20
different kinds of species of trees. But, only two of those 20 species are off, and of a
commercial value.

(Refer Slide Time: 47:33)

So, you want to change your forests, so that in place of 20 species, you have only 2
species, or you have only 1 species, in which we case in which case we call it a
monoculture. So, that can be your stand structural objective to change the preferred
species mixture to change the site occupancy of these trees. Or, you want to have a stand
structural objective to change the spatial distribution of trees from clumpy to uniform or
vice versa.

So, in the first case, you have a situation in which you - so this is your forest, and these
are the trees. So, trees here, you have a group of trees here, you have a group of trees
here, and in the other areas there is a very small number of trees. So, you have a clumpy
distribution of trees. You probably want to change this into a situation in which your
trees are uniformly distributed in the whole forest.

So, this can be another of your stand structural objectives. So, you would want to convert
it into a uniform distribution, if you are trying to extract it for timber. Whereas, if you
want to manage this forest for wild life, probably, you would want to move towards this
forest. Because in this case, you will have certain species that live in these clumps; there
are certain species that live in these grass lands, which have less number of trees.

So, again changing of this spatial - spatial distribution of trees can be your one of your
stand structural objectives. Or, another objective could be the creation or maintenance of
desirable special structural attributes, such as trees for wildlife, or snag trees. So, in this
case, what you are saying is that your objective is to have certain special trees such as a
snag tree. Now, what is a snag tree? A snag tree is a tree that is, that probably is, of a
large height, but more importantly, it is probably - a dead tree.
(Refer Slide Time: 49:58)

So, in this tree you have hardly any leaves that are here, but then you have certain
hollows that have formed in the timber. Now, these hollows can be used as nesting sites
for certain species. So, your specific your stand structural objective could be to create
these trees with these special attributes, or to maintain these trees with these special
attributes, so that can be another of your stand structural objectives.

So, your silvicultural system is a planned program of treatments during the whole life of
a forest designed to achieve specific stand structural objectives. Now, when you are
trying to achieve these objectives, you will also have to look at certain other branches of
forestry.
(Refer Slide Time: 50:52)

So, they are intimately linked with silviculture. One such field is forest protection or the
branch of forestry that concerns with the activities of prevention and control of damage
to the forest. This damage may be due to man, animals, fire, insects, diseases etc. So,
what we are saying here, is that you are trying to maintain this forest for timber
extraction.

So, you wanted to have this forest, but then your forest had a forest fire, and all of these
trees got burnt, so that is not a desirable situation. So, in that case, apart from having this
spatial distribution, you will probably want to have certain fire lines. So, these are the
sections in which you are not growing any plant, so you are leaving these portions of soil
denuded, so that your fire is not able to jump from this section to this section.

Now, when you are, when you are incorporating this feature into your forest, even
though it was not a part of your stand objective, you are doing this, because you want to
protect your forest. So, forest protection and the concepts of forest protection will be
intimately linked to silviculture. Another field that is intimately linked this forest
mensuration, mensuration is measurement.

So, forest mensuration is the art and science of providing the quantitative information
about trees and forest stands, necessary for forest management, planning and research.
This information may be about dimensions – Example, diameter, height, volume of trees
or stand, form, age, increment etc.
So, we will, we are going to look at these points, when we look at the module on forest
mensuration. But what this is saying essentially is that, if you are unable to measure your
forest you will not be able to manage them. What cannot be measured, cannot be
managed. So, for instance, you want to manage your forests to have the maximum
amount of carbon sequestration. But, if you do not know what is the amount of carbon
that is sequestered in your forest, how are you going to manage it?.

(Refer Slide Time: 53:20)

So, forest mensuration is an integral part of silviculture. Another is forest utilization or

the harvesting, disposal and use of the forest produce. You are trying to harvest the forest
produce, you want to dispose it off, in a market you want to use it for certain purpose, if
you do not know how your forest or timber is going to be utilized, you will not be able to
manage it properly.
(Refer Slide Time: 53:44)

So, for instance, you want to have a forest, and in this case, probably you are going you
are trying to extract your timber using large sized machines. Now, if you want to use
these large size machines, you will have to incorporate into your silvicultural system
something that permits your large size machine to enter into this area. And, something
that protects the small seedlings or the saplings from the impacts of these large size
machines. So, if you do not know how your forest is going to be utilized, you will not be
able to manage it for your silvicultural objectives.

Another branch is forest economics, or the branch of forestry dealing with forests as
productive assets subject to economic principles. So, your silvicultural objective was to
have the largest amount of money that you are able to earn from these forests. But, if you
do not know how to value these forests, how to do a cost computation of your inputs and
the outputs, how are you, how will you select a system that is able to provide you with
the maximum economic returns.

So, forest is economics is also a branch of forestry that is intimately linked with
silviculture, also forest management or the practical application of the scientific technical
and economic principles of forestry. So, you wanted to manage your forest, for say
carbon sequestration, for that you want to plant certain species; you want to plant them at
certain periods of time. So, there is no way in which you can overlook things such as
human resources. So, you will have to recruit certain people; you will have to train those
people; you will have to provide them with certain resources. So, this portion that
technically goes with the field of management is also something that you will have to
study and implement, if you want to - objectives. So, all of these branches are intimately
linked to silviculture.

So, silviculture or the cultivation of trees or the cultivation of a wood is a field that
requires the knowledge of silvics, which is the study of the life history of the plant
growth. It is also something that requires a knowledge and application of all of these
different fields of forestry. So, this is the basics of silviculture, and we will build on these
topics, in the next lecture.

Thank you.