Intermediate Management

This section decribes the various silvicultural techniques defined as intermediate management. Intermediate management is a regimen of silvicultural treatments designed to tend to stands between their formation and their final harvest. Intermediate management can involve practices that improve the site (fertilization, etc.) or manage pests, as well as intermediate cuttings.  The primary objective of intermediate cuttings is to reallocate resources to the residual stand.  Other objectives of intermediate cuttings are to: (1) shorten rotation lengths; (2) increase final harvest diameters; (3) increase potential stand value by eliminating poor-quality, undesirable trees; (4) alter or maintain species composition; and, (5) provide intermediate financial returns.

The several types of intermediate cuttings are distinguished by the stage of stand development at which cuttings are made and what criteria are used for targeting tree removal. Thinnings are intermediate cuttings made in immature stands to control stand density. Release operations are intermediate treatments designed to free young stands from undesirable vegetation that threatens to suppress them.  Improvement, sanitation, and salvage cuttings are intermediate treatments aimed at removing poor quality trees, reducing susceptibility to insects or diseases, or utilizing dead or dying trees.  In addition to the above treatments, which tend to focus on the condition of the stand, crop-tree management  is a type of intermediate management that focuses on individual trees of potentially high value to the landowner.