Natural Resources students have worked with Timothy Smith, Rutland City Forester and Arborist, and Joseph Epler, Assistant Forester and Arborist this semester. STC NRF and the foresters decided last spring to foster more wildlife, different age classes, and species of trees at the Norway Spruce plantation where we did our timber harvest last year.
Like many 20th-century European Plantations, this one is quite in need of more habitat. We studied the basic tenets of the European silvicultural management practice, “Femelschlag”
which is a gradually expanding patch-cut on the interior of the plantation. After selecting three sights, we helped the foresters mark trees for harvest and will be working there through the winter months.
