Irregular Shelterwood Methods for Achieving Ecological and Climate Adaptation Objectives in the Central Hardwood Forest Region

Developing interest in using silviculture to achieve a broad array of objectives such as maintaining or restoring ecological function, increasing adaptive capacity, and providing timber products in the same forest stand has increased the appeal of irregular shelterwood methods. Despite growing application in Canada, Europe, and other regions of the United States, use of irregular shelterwood is limited across the Central Hardwood Forest Region, USA. Obstacles to broader implementation include a need for intermediate treatments to address existing challenges to oak regeneration, unfamiliarity with terminology, limited local guidance and insufficient access to demonstration sites, and greater demand for careful planning. To address some of these challenges and generally increase the accessibility of the methods, we present three case studies that illustrate how variants of irregular shelterwoods have been tailored to specific sites and objectives on the Cumberland Plateau (Kentucky, USA), in the Driftless Area (Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, USA), and in the Blue Ridge Mountains (North Carolina, USA). Each case study details the specific objectives each irregular shelterwood was designed to achieve and quantifies harvest outcomes. Irregular shelterwood methods are not appropriate for all situations, but with these examples we demonstrate potential ways they can be used to achieve ecological and adaptation objectives in the Central Hardwood Forest Region.