[NatureNS] Red Herring & Forestry

Date: Thu, 24 Dec 2015 16:15:59 -0500
From: Fred Schueler <bckcdb@istar.ca>
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&gt; Ser
Quoting Stephen Shaw <srshaw@Dal.Ca>:

> A question regarding Fred & Peter's point about loss of nutrients.
> In a natural deciduous forest of any type that has not been  
> harvested at all, for a 100-year old tree (say), what proportion of  
> the total recyclable nutrients per tree-area will have come from the  
> accumulated annual leaf fall (+ fallen dead branches + feasting  
> caterpillar, squirrel and woodpecker turds, etc), and what  
> proportion will be returned only after the woody trunk and main  
> branches have finally died, fallen down and decayed at age 100?
> If the first is dominant then the argument about loss of nutrients  
> by logging and tree removal is not strictly valid, whereas if the  
> second dominates, it is.

* gosh we did this in plant ecology lab at Cornell in 1968, but I  
don't remember the numbers (and I didn't really understand what we  
were doing at the time). I think about 30% of the nutrients in a  
matureish forest is in the trunks of the trees - the other loss of  
nutrients is the disturbance that accompanies harvesting allows the  
release of lots of nutrients from the soil into ground water.

fred.
> ________________________________________
> From: naturens-owner@chebucto.ns.ca [naturens-owner@chebucto.ns.ca]  
> on behalf of Fred Schueler [bckcdb@istar.ca]
> Sent: Thursday, December 24, 2015 12:28 PM
> To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca
> Subject: RE: [NatureNS] Red Herring & Forestry
>
> Quoting John and Nhung <nhungjohn@eastlink.ca>:
>
>> Yeah, I get the impression that the main problem with the Point Tupper
>> monster is its size.  A smaller operation might have fit in quite nicely.
>> Of course, the NewPage surprise added to the mess, but mess it is, and I
>> hope the government ad the operators can ramp back its biomass consumption
>> to a more sensible, sustainable scale.
>
> * I was crafting a more complex reply to this thread, but I'll just
> say that the problem with biomass harvesting from forests is to get
> the nutrients removed in the wood back into the forest so successive
> generation of trees can grow at a decent rate. We tried to deal with
> this in our county forest here but certain foresters reacted so
> negatively to the question of fertilization that the advisory
> committee was illegally terminated as a consequence - but here's our
> discussion of the nutrient question in forests that are having wood
> removed - http://pinicola.ca/limnutr.htm - on sand and limestone we've
> got very low intrinsic levels of nutrients, but the problem exists in
> all woods if they're intensively exploited.
>
> fred.
> ==========================================================
>>
>> Fingers crossed for a mild winter, with minimum demand for firewood!  All
>> this tells me we still need to take solar heat and other renewable sources
>> more seriously.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: naturens-owner@chebucto.ns.ca [mailto:naturens-owner@chebucto.ns.ca]
>> On Behalf Of Stephen Shaw
>> Sent: December 24, 2015 11:59 AM
>> To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca
>> Subject: RE: [NatureNS] Red Herring & Forestry
>>
>> Ed Darby?   Abraham Darby I around 1709 modified the blast furnace that had
>> already been evolving for over a millenium, to consume coke instead of
>> charcoal as the source of carbon that formed the carbon monoxide used to
>> reduce raw iron oxide to pig iron, the starting point for other iron
>> products.   Charcoal gave a purer iron product, but making coke from coal
>> proved much cheaper than making charcoal from harvested trees, by then a
>> scarce commodity.   For both charcoal and coke, a main byproduct was/is CO2
>> gas from the finally oxidised carbon, released into the atmosphere.   The
>> cheaper Darby coke method, later improved, caught on rapidly: a gnomic irony
>> of this is that while saving some of the CO2-consuming much diminished
>> forests from approaching extinction, it led rapidly to much greater iron
>> production via burning fossil carbon that underpinned the Industrial
>> Revolution in Britain, which in turn led to ever increasing CO2 emissions,
>> eventually worldwide.
>>
>> On a lesser point not covered by reporter Aaron Beswick's article in the C-H
>> that Dave referred to, if you had tried to get a few cords of 16" cut
>> firewood for your wood stove in early 2015, as we did, you would have found
>> that initially, none of the local suppliers around Halifax could get any
>> logs, because they believed that such wood that had been harvested was
>> nearly all going directly to Point Tupper biomass monster, because that had
>> been built too large for the available supply of so-called 'waste' wood and
>> bark.  Central planning at its very best.  Our supplier eventually got some
>> logs from New Brunswick, but the price went up considerably.
>> Steve
>> ________________________________________
>> From: naturens-owner@chebucto.ns.ca [naturens-owner@chebucto.ns.ca] on
>> behalf of David & Alison Webster [dwebster@glinx.com]
>> Sent: Wednesday, December 23, 2015 7:12 PM
>> To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca
>> Subject: Re: [NatureNS] Red Herring & Forestry
>>
>> Hi Nick & All,              Dec 23, 2015
>>     I have only few minutes so will deal with the "gnomic" question first
>> and return later to the rest.
>>     It was a new word to me so I had to consult a dictionary which referred
>> me to sententious= Aphoristic, pithy, given to the use of maxims; (of
>> persons) = fond of pompous moralizing; maxim= A general truth drawn from
>> science or experience.
>>     I think we should both plead guilty to the "gnomic" charge and be
>> flattered. As for the "pompous moralizing"; I am frequently inclined to
>> quote the King James Bible but then remember: "Be not righteous over much,
>> neither make thyself over wise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself ?";
>> Ecclesiastes 7:16; and decide not to.
>>
>> Merry Christmas All & A Happy New Year
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Nicholas Hill<mailto:fernhillns@gmail.com>
>> To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca<mailto:naturens@chebucto.ns.ca>
>> Sent: Wednesday, December 23, 2015 4:32 PM
>> Subject: Re: [NatureNS] Red Herring & Forestry
>>
>> A friend recently accused me of being "gnomic", and ill-educated lout as i
>> am, i took issue at being called a gnome, but moving into this here case at
>> hand, I think the gnomes have it: "And warning that use of biomass is not
>> green is perhaps already an effective way to indirectly kill trees." Not
>>