Silviculture Guide to Managing Spruce, Fir, Birch, and Aspen Mixedwoods in Ontario Boreal Forest

This guide contains ecological and silvicultural information for the sustainable management of certain stands of spruce-fir-birch-aspen forest mixtures in northern Ontario. This silvicultural guide was developed to provide:

• definitions for boreal mixedwood sites and stands
• a synopsis of the ecology of boreal mixedwood stands
• an overview of what is currently known about boreal mixedwood silviculture in Ontario, and other jurisdictions
• a repository for silvicultural experience in Ontario’s boreal mixedwood forests
• a suggested approach for developing forest units and silvicultural ground rules for mixedwood objectives
• a training and educational tool

This guide is intended to provide a framework and context for generating, collecting, validating, and applying local knowledge and experience for the boreal mixedwood forest of Ontario. It is not intended to be the sole source of silvicultural information, or constrain the application of sound silvicultural practices.

Relationship to other forest management guides

This document is one of a series of silviculture guides, that are part of a larger group of forest management guides. Other forest management guides cover such topics as the provision and protection of wildlife habitat, resource-based tourism and cultural heritage values, the construction of access roads and water crossings, and maintaining the forests’ health and biodiversity.

View document

This printer-friendly publication is available in Portable Document Format (PDF). You must have a PDF reader to view the publication in PDF format. A free PDF reader is available from the Adobe website.  For help with common PDF viewing problems, visit Adobe's support section.

We recommend that you download the PDF to your computer for viewing or printing. Windows/Linux users: right-click on the link and select your web browser's save option; Mac users: hold-click on the link and select your web browser's save option.

For more efficient online viewing and downloading this document is split into smaller sections. A zip file (33.3MB) is available for off-line viewing.   

• Title page, table of contents, preface etc. (PDF 1.0MB 17 pages) 
• Cover page for printing purposes - (pdf 1.1MB)
• Section I: Introduction (PDF, 1.4 MB 13pages)
• Section II: Ecological Framework (PDF, 2.3MB 16pages)
• Section III: Silvicultural Practices (this section contains the following 4 files):
• • 1 of 4 (PDF, 1.5 MB 8 pages)
  • 2 of 4 (PDF, 2.3MB 6 pages)
  • 3 of 4 (PDF, 3.0MB 14 pages)
  • 4 of 4 (PDF, 1.2MB 13 pages)

• Section IV: Ecological Interpretations (PDF, 2.4MB 36 pages)
• Section V: Understanding Management Interpretations (PDF, 1.2MB 11 pages)
• Section VI: Management Interpretations (this section contains 2 files):
• • 1 of 2 (PDF, 2.6 MB 37 pages)
  • 2 of 2 (PDF, 1.3MB 33 pages)

• Section VII: Autecology of Selected Forest Plants (PDF, 2.6 MB 26 pages)
• Literature Cited (PDF, 1.3MB 34 pages)
• Glossary (PDF, 656KB 19 pages)
• Species List (PDF, 455KB 7 pages)

Appendices:

• Appendix 1: The Ecozones and Ecoregions of the Application Area (PDF, 957 KB 9 pages)
• Appendix 2: Creating Boreal Mixedwood Forest Units and Preparing Forest Operations Prescriptions (PDF, 797 KB 20 pages)
• Appendix 3: Northwest Ecosite Fact Sheets (PDF, 2.5 MB 16 pages)
• Appendix 4: Northeast Ecosite Fact Sheets (PDF, 3.0 MB 15 pages)
• Appendix 5: Blank Forms (PDF, 512KB 5 pages) (sample pre-harvest assessment worksheets)

Download Zip files for off-line viewing:

For slower connections or for users who prefer to view large documents off-line, it is recommended that you download the zipped files to a folder on your PC. (It is important that you download the files to the same folder in order for the indexing features to work).

Zip format - (33.3Mb)