1000 NE Multnomah Street
Portland, Oregon  97232
USA TEL: 1-503-281-6111

1000 NE Multnomah Street
Portland, Oregon  97232
USA TEL: 1-503-281-6111

1000 NE Multnomah Street
Portland, Oregon  97232
USA TEL: 1-503-281-6111

1000 NE Multnomah Street
Portland, Oregon  97232
USA TEL: 1-503-281-6111

FBRI Registration Page

Topics

This workshop covers the important details of:

1. how FPS simulates growth (height and diameter), mortality, and regeneration,
2. how to design and simulate silvicultural prescriptions and interpret results, and
3. how to collect data from your land base for localizing site, taper, and regeneration relationships in FPS.

Topics will include growth projection methods, visualizations, natural regeneration, silvicultural regimes (clearcut, seed tree, shelterwood, selection), economic analyses (costs, values, discounting) This is an opportunity to learn about the internal structure of the Forest Projection System (FPS) growth model, site curves and taper profiles.

The registration information is at:

FBRI Registration Page

Workshop Agenda

14.5 CFE Cat 1 hrs through the Society of American Foresters

Lunch included each day.

Day 1:

• Definitions and Purpose
• Site Productivity – What is it and How to measure it?
• Quantification of Tree Taper & Volume
• Identifying Valuation and Cost Structures

Day 2:

• Critical Factors for Growth Model Applications
• Modeling Early Silvicultural Treatments
• Modeling Mature Silvicultural Treatments
• Modeling Major Silvicultural Systems

Day 3:

• Developing Silvicultural Regimes – Clearcut, Seed-tree, or Selection?

FBRI Registration Page

Register HERE

We are providing three essential workshops in 2013 (Inventory, Growth / Silviculture and Planning). These workshops will be taught at a graduate B.S. forester level. Previous workshops were formatted for beginners at the college sophomore – junior level where only basic sampling, database and silviculture were assumed.

This series of workshops will use Microsoft Windows 7, Office 2010 and ESRI ArcGIS geo-databases. An all-new tutorial textbook will be used and distributed at each workshop. It will emphasize how to conduct each forest management activity, not why. A separate textbook (or series) will be available in 2014 which explains and documents the science, research and methods behind each functional activity in the tutorial references.

We strongly recommend that every consulting forest analyst and corporate management forester should participate in each of these 2013 workshops. Regardless of your objectives, these methods are essential to the viable management of working-forest ownerships. These methods are taught nowhere else.

We expect to provide every professional forester with a working knowledge of:

• Microsoft Access & ESRI ArcGIS – buffers, intersects and dissolves
• Stand-based forest inventory database objectives
• GIS polygons for vegetation, soils, productivity, operability, access and constraints.
• Methods of sample selections among stands
• Methods of sample designs within stands
• Merchandizing, valuation, and cost accounting – operations, silviculture and harvesting
• Silviculture effects and management implications of clearcut, seed-tree, shelterwood and selection structured regimes.
• Year-end reporting and database management – growth, harvest, depletions and new data.
• Implications and methods of managing constraints – riparian, wildlife, operability, access

What is really required, but only marginally understood.

Determining forest growth capacity, harvest capacity and making investment decisions are all reduced to guesswork without a strong, well-maintained and dynamic forest inventory. The essential components, methods and tools are provided in this upcoming FBRI Workshop on March 5 – 7, 2013 at the DoubleTree Hotel in Portland, Oregon.

This is an all-new workshop curriculum featuring a significantly updated Forest Projection and Planning System (FPS Version 7.07) database structure and documentation. Schedule to participate now, seating is limited. Participants will take home an all-new tutorial reference book for conducting each step of a robust forest inventory management system.

Regardless of the management objective of the forestland owner, the quality (accuracy and timeliness) of the forest inventory is essential to all investment decision-making. This includes staffing, silviculture, harvest methods and expected cash flows. This Workshop provides the most complete source of all aspects for managing a working forest inventory. These methods and procedures are not taught in any other professional education series or university curriculum.

Important features of this Workshop include:

• Stand-based Inventory and GIS essentials
• What cruise methods, intensities and frequencies are necessary?
• When and how are fixed-area plots, variable plots and line transects applied?
• How many stands per stratum and how many plots per stand are necessary?
• What is the role of sub-samples for height, defect, grade, age, taper and damage?
• When, why and how to expand cruised-stand samples to un-sampled stands?
• Why and how to establish a permanent site productivity and habitat stratification?
• How to inventory and manage riparian and wildlife buffers in a working forest?
• How to update and report annual harvest depletions, growth and land exchanges?
• When and how to conduct a forest inventory audit or accuracy assessment?

This Workshop is essential background to participate in the upcoming Workshops later this year in Growth & Silviculture (May 7 – 9) and Forest Planning (September 10 – 12).

Agenda: Forest Inventory Workshop

Day 1: 10:00am – 5:00pm

• Working with the Inventory database
  • Tables, Flags, Menus, Queries, Reports, GIS interfaces
• Stratification, Sampling Intensity & Design
  • Sampling from a Sorted List, Within Stand plot designs and measurements
  • Compiling, Re-merchandizing, Valuation, Error Statistics and Reporting
  • Intensity, Investment and Replacement Frequency of Cruise Plots
  • Off-Plot tree samples, Off-Stand plot samples and Sampling Riparian Zones
  • Snags, Down Woody material & Non-tree Vegetation Sampling

Day 2: 8:00am – 5:00pm

• Determine, Classify and Map Site Productivity Capacity
  • Limitations of Traditional Site curves and the 10-meter Site method
  • Building the GIS SiteGrid permanent layer – topography, soil & climate
  • How to initialize using FBRI Regional Site observations
  • How to localize using direct field measurements and past inventory data
  • Linking and Transferring data between GIS layers and the FPS database
  • Verifying and Updating the GIS SiteGrid – alternative methods

• Growing the Inventory Forward from past Cruise years
  • Tracking Plantations, Natural Stands and variable Silvicultural History
  • Using Past (Admin.Origin) and Future (Stand.Regime) Silviculture

• Expanding Cruise Samples to Un-sampled Stands
  • How, When, Why and How Often should we use Stratification

Day 3: 8:00am – Noon

• Year-end Updating of the Inventory
  • Starting with the GIS Vegetation Layers – Past and Present
  • Updating Road and Riparian Buffer Layers
  • Updating the SiteGrid Layer
  • Intersecting Vegetation, Roads, Riparian and SiteGrid Layers
  • Running FPS Lump / Split Updates from the New GIS Layers

• Year-end Reporting
  • Database Updates and Harvest Removal Reporting
  • Database Updates and Forest Growth Reporting
  • Database Updates and Cruise Sampling Reporting
  • Database Updates and Regional Library Reporting
  • Archiving Previous FPS & GIS Layers
  • Establishing the New Master FPS & GIS Databases

Register HERE

FPS User Informational Meeting: Moving From Discreet to Continuous Regions
DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Portland

1000 NE Multnomah Street
Portland, Oregon  97232
USA TEL: 1-503-281-6111

Why: This is an FBRI supporting organizations / FPS user informational meeting:  We are seeking your input on moving FPS from discrete to continuous regions.  Your participation is encouraged to help guide the Future of FPS Calibration.

When & Where: 10 AM–5 PM January 28, 2013 and 8 AM–noon January 29, 2013, DoubleTree Hotel near Lloyd Center, Portland, Oregon

Lodging: Lodging is available at the DoubleTree Lloyd Center by calling either (503) 281-6111 or (800) 996-0510.  Reduced rate lodging will be available thru the group code: FBR.

The Forest Biometrics Research Institute (FBRI) has released the long-awaited FPS Version 7 software for all applications in inventory, silviculture and forest planning.

The next step will be to update the FPS regional libraries for site, volume, growth and yield with new analyses and datasets in 2013 and 2014. These will include FPS libraries for Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho and Montana. Due to the original (1995 – 2003) cooperative agreements for each FPS library, the boundaries of each of these regional libraries are defined by state lines and administrative boundaries.

On January 28-29, FBRI will propose to shift these discrete administrative boundaries to regional boundaries based on the range of primary tree species (as demonstrated in the western species library map below). This map brings together biologically similar research installations into a common analysis for stronger datasets.

The purpose of this January FBRI developmental meeting is to request your input, advice and support for this shift in FPS regional library boundaries.

The January discussions will also address a further, more in-depth level of FPS library update based on recent FBRI 10m site research. This in-depth localization will facilitate significant improvements in the application of these regional library growth and yield factors to those factors found on your own forest landbase (topography, climate and soils).

This developmental meeting will begin at 10:00 am on Monday, January 28 at the DoubleTree Hotel near Lloyd Center in Portland, Oregon. The existing FPS regions will be presented along with proposed shifts in boundaries and regional library databases. It will conclude at noon on Tuesday, January 29. The Tuesday morning session will be dedicated to laying out schedules of analyses among regions and depth of analyses in existing or shifted-boundary libraries. These discussions will impact all FBRI FPS library update analyses planned in 2013 and 2014.

Please RSVP with Richard Zabel (503) 226-4562 at Western Forestry and Conservation Association for FBRI meeting reservations and participation on January 28. workshops@forestbiometrics.com or use the FBRI order form (click here)

See you on January 28 and best wishes in the New Year

Coming soon handouts and worksheets supplied at the field tour…

Tour Description as printed:

This hands-on field workshop will be about measuring and mapping forest site capacity across an ownership, watershed, or forest. The Forest Biometrics Research Institute has developed an effective methodology for identifying and classifying natural site growth capacity that can be applied in any region and on any tree species. This method provides a means to extrapolate site growth capacity across nonforested and heavily cut-over forest acres, provides a strong and stable productivity basis for long-term forest planning, and has shown great potential as a basis for quantifying possible shifts in growth capacity due to climate change.

Each field location will have felled sample trees for making detailed measurements and effects of differences in soil, topography, and climate between sites will be discussed. All participants will obtain complete written details on computing and using the 10-meter site index methodology on individual trees and methods of building forestwide GIS site maps.

The Presentation can be downloaded here: Working Forest Costs

Topics will includes inventory design (stand, plot, tree), database structure, gis basics, photo classification, habitat classification, cruise expansion, acreage reduction for roads (gis), stream buffer computations, polygon management (lump/split/harvest depletion) and year-end reporting.

This workshop provides: (1) an in-depth examination of how to build useful forest inventories with a focus on stand-based approaches, (2) a thorough review of how FPS processes inventory data, and (3) recommended procedures for managing an operational inventory, including year-end reporting, inventory updates, and depletions. A laboratory day has been added for enhanced hands-on activities.
This workshop has a maximum capacity of 24 seats available on a first come/paid, first serve basis. Workshops will be cancelled if fewer than 7 participants sign up. Refunds are non-refundable if cancellations are made less than 10 business days before the first day of the workshop.

Computers will be provided

Agenda:

Lodging: You are responsible for your own accommodations.