Principles of nutrient management for sustainable forest bioenergy production

Abstract

Nutrient management is an important part of ensuring sustainable forest production. Essential concepts for managing site nutrients are built on the knowledge of types of soil, tree nutrient demands, and how these are impacted by silviculture, harvesting, and other management practices. Managers must clearly define forest management objectives, and how bioenergy production or carbon dioxide‐offset objectives require special consideration. Managers must examine how silviculture, harvesting, and other management practices might affect nutrient pools and availability. Soil fertility management practices are designed in response to these evaluation steps. Fertility management alternatives may include altering management practices that affect the distribution of harvested tree branches, foliage, and tops, as well as addition of fertilizers, nitrogen‐fixing plants, or wood ash. Planting on sites with pre‐existing nutrient deficiencies may require adding nutrients to obtain merchantable tree growth over the short and long term. Nutrient management principles may also be required to minimize off‐site impacts of management practices, for example, on water quality or climate change. Managers must determine what nutrients are needed on forested sites, amendment rates, and timing, and take into account the relationships among nutrients, soil, climate, and plant processes throughout the rotation. Soil and foliar analysis and the use of soil and plant bioassay tools can assist in these evaluations. Sustainable management practices require that nutrient control strategies evaluate economic and energy balances, and if necessary, modify management practices, including nutrient amendments, to ensure that they are sustainable. Examples of forest nutrient management practices are described. This article is categorized under: Bioenergy > Systems and Infrastructure Energy and Development > Science and Materials Energy and Development > Economics and Policy Energy and Development > Climate and Environment

Soil Organic Matter: A Sustainability Indicator for Wildfire Control and Bioenergy Production in the Urban/Forest Interface

“…Site quality, however, is not a fixed stand attribute, and forest management can improve or reduce it (Kimmins et al, 2008). Modelling, combined with risk mapping, could be important tools to design site-specific management plans for biomass production that could avoid nutrient losses from the stands in the long term (Mea and Smith 2012). It is becoming clear that modeling forest ecosystems under changing conditions (e.g., new management practices, forest decline, climate change, invasive species, etc.)…”

“…In addition, in the most severe cases of potential SOM losses (most of the them in the sub-boreal SBS zone), the model predicted an average of 23% losses, in the "red light" zone that indicates additional ecological assessments are needed before implementing any forest management for biomass. Therefore, we consider that given the capability of the tool to segregate between different site conditions, risks for nutrient losses, and add off-site costs, FIRST Heat would be a valuable tool to follow the 10 principles of nutrient management in forest biomass production regimes (Mea and Smith 2012).…”

“…The tool uses SOM as an indicator of long-term ecological impacts, and provides a "traffic light" index to help forest managers and community planners to identify the situations in which biomass removal could produce undesirable long-term ecological consequences. In designing this tool, we have tried to address four of the 10 principles recently identified by Mea and Smith (2012) as basic to manage nutrient cycling in forest biomass production for energy (risk mapping, developing site-specific nutritional management plans, considering off-site impacts, and using decision-making aids). The objective of this paper is to analyze the sensitivity of the FIRST Heat tool to project SOM changes in different forest types, and its capacity to account for differences among ecological zones, site qualities, and forest ages.…”