%0 Research Notes
%T Recent studies on black spruce management on peatlands in northern Ontario. A literature review
%A Hökkä, Hannu
%A Groot, Art
%D 1999
%J Suo - Mires and peat
%V 50
%N 1
%U http://suo.fi/article/9782
%X Black spruce (Picea mariana, (Mill.) B.S.P.) has been traditionally managed as evenaged stands with artificial or natural regeneration on peatlands of northern Ontario Clay Belt region. However, lack of resources to make artificial regeneration on all clear-cuts and harvest methods unfavorable for natural regeneration often resulted in unsatisfactory regeneration. As a consequence, alternative management methods have been introduced for peatland black spruce, and this literature review discusses studies of these methods. In natural stands, both evenaged and uneven-aged structures may be found, while the second-growth stands originating from old horse-logging are mostly uneven-aged, with abundant advance growth. Currently, mechanized harvest with regeneration protection has been shown to sufficiently preserve residual trees and subsequently produce stands that are heterogeneous with respect to the size structure. In second-growth stands, uneven-aged management can be implemented with minimum diameter limits determined from stand structure and cut-to-length harvesting. Such management perpetuates a stand structure appropriate for uneven-aged management. Simulation study has been made to estimate black spruce yield under uneven-aged management with varying cutting cycle and minimum diameter limit. It seems that in some peatland sites uneven-aged management is a possibility to manage black spruce.