CG: n
CT: Silviculture is the art and science of controlling the establishment, growth, composition, health, and quality of forests and woodlands to meet the diverse needs and values of landowners and society such as wildlife habitat, timber, water resources, restoration, and recreation on a sustainable basis. This is accomplished by applying different types of silvicultural treatments such as thinning, harvesting, planting, pruning, prescribed burning and site preparation. Intermediate treatments (thinning) are designed to enhance growth, quality, vigor, and composition of the stand after establishment or regeneration and prior to final harvest. Regeneration treatments (harvesting) are applied to mature stands in order to establish a new age class of trees. Regeneration methods are grouped into four categories: coppice, even-aged, two-aged, and uneven-aged.
S: USDA – https://www.fs.usda.gov/forestmanagement/vegetation-management/silviculture/index.shtml (last access: 17 April 2025)
N: 1. “forestry, cultivation of forest trees,” by 1851, earlier in French, from combining form of Latin silva “woods, forest” (see sylvan) + -culture as in agriculture, etc. (see culture (n.)).
2. Silviculture is the branch of forestry concerned with the theory and practice of controlling forest establishment, composition, and growth. Like forestry itself, silviculture is an applied science that rests ultimately upon the more fundamental natural and social sciences. The immediate foundation of silviculture in the natural sciences is the field of silvics, which deals with the laws underlying the growth and development of single trees and of the forest as a biologic unit. Growth, in turn, depends on local soils and climate, competition from other vegetation, and interrelations with animals, insects, and other organisms, both beneficial and destructive. The efficient practice of silviculture demands knowledge of such fields as ecology, plant physiology, entomology, and soil science and is concerned with the economic as well as the biologic aspects of forestry. The implicit objective of forestry is to make the forest economically useful to humans.
- The practice of silviculture is divided into three areas: methods of regeneration, intermediate cuttings, and protection. In every forest the time comes when it is desirable to harvest a portion of the timber and to replace the trees removed with others of a new generation. The act of replacing old trees, either naturally or artificially, is called regeneration or reproduction, and these two terms also refer to the new growth that develops. The period of regeneration begins when preparatory measures are initiated and does not end until young trees have become established in acceptable numbers and are fully adjusted to the new environment. The rotation is the period during which a single crop or generation is allowed to grow.
3. Silviculture: silviculture.
- The theory and practice of controlling the establishment, composition, constitution and growth of forests.
4. Silviculture is the care and cultivation of woodlands (as opposed to arboriculture which is the care and cultivation of individual trees). There is a wide range of different silvicultural systems which are, broadly speaking, management prescriptions for particular types and areas of woodland. Forestry, at its most basic level, is the interaction between tree species, site characteristics and a silvicultural system. There are a number of different silvicultural systems described here:
Silvicultural systems
There are many variations on silvicultural systems which are usually tailored to a site and the tree species to be grown. There are, however, categories (which have broad similarities) and a number of variables, which allow you to describe a system in detail.
Coppice systems
There are a number of silviculture systems which include a proportion of coppice
Coppicing consists of cutting back the stem of certain broadleaf species to near the ground and allowing the growth of multiple stems from the stool. Not all species coppice, and some coppice unreliably. Coniferous species do not coppice.
S: 1. Etymonline – https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=silviculture (last access: 17 April 2025). 2. EncBrit – https://www.britannica.com/science/forestry/Purposes-and-techniques-of-forest-management#ref393374 (last access: 17 April 2025). 3. TERMIUM PLUS – https://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/tpv2alpha/alpha-eng.html?lang=eng&i=1&srchtxt=silviculture&index=alt&codom2nd_wet=1#resultrecs (last access: 17 April 2025). 4. FR – https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/tools-and-resources/fthr/biomass-energy-resources/fuel/woodfuel-production-and-supply/woodfuel-production/forestry-for-woodfuel-and-timber/silviculture/ (last access: 17 April 2025).
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CR: biomass, biome, clearcutting, defoliation, deforestation, desertification, ecology, environment, forest clearance, forest fire, inoculum, land clearing, log, osmosis, peat, sapling, stere, stump, tropical rainforest.
