Tree Planting after the fire

[Brian]

I understand how the post could be seen as commercial. That is not how it was meant. My name is Brian Mack, I have been actively clearing trails for more than a decade in the Ventana. Many members of the VWA have ran across me on the trail, and I've been posting to this forum for more than 4 years. Furthermore I have 20 video's youtube about backpacking in big sur, my youtube account name is 5998b. Clearly im not a salesperson who wants to make the most last years fire.

This is why I made the offer: From all that I know the tree's along the pine ridge trail and J. Sierra are mostly gone. I hope that my kids can see the trails as I did when I first walked them. Its my opinion that human actions meant to control fires caused this die off.

The VWA is the only logical GOV or NGO who could realistically handle this task. This is why I believe the VWA could include a small reforestation effort in key area's of the wilderness. I'm just a guy from Salinas who wants to help in any way I can.

I happen to work for a company that has experience in this. My offer still stands, to help with tree planting.

Warmly
B

[Lindsay Jeffers]

Betsy raises some interesting points regarding the Ventana as a "partially" managed environment. I would add that perhaps there has also been a systemic change to our local wilderness since the long drought in the early 70's. I started visiting the trails, the Pine Ridge Trail in particular, in the early 60's and remember an essentially unbroken forest cover of mature trees from Church Divide to Ventana Camp Trail junction. There were some open areas above Bear Basin and on the stretch above Redwood Camp, but my memory is of a mature forest, especially along Pine Ridge. The Marble Cone Fire killed a large proportion of those drought and storm stressed trees on the ridge and down into the canyons and left many of the rest unsupported by neighbors. And from then on, chaparral became the primary hill cover and trail obstacle. And each succeeding major fire has continued this process of replacing trees with faster growing chaparral.
If my memory is supported by the experience of others on this list, I would suggest that we may be looking at a shift in the vegetation our environment can support, and that if we consider re-planting the forest (as much as I would like to see that happen naturally,) we would really not be creating another wilderness but an engineered park that would remain fragile and out of context.

[Betsy M]

Interesting question of whether we need to re-plant or whether things just come back naturally. In an ecosystem not managed by humans, small early-season fires would not be immediately extinguished, and would burn through some of the understory in forested areas, leaving clearer forests less susceptible to the hot, crown fires that kill the trees. The theory is that these early-season fires, when there is more moisture in the fuels, would not become infernos but would burn themselves out. They would create clear areas that work as fire breaks in addition to clearing the brush. But we don't allow fires to burn, for many reasons, and the fires that do burn, usually later season, are more likely to kill trees. Reports from the Big Pines area are that all the pines are totally dead, and no seedlings have regenerated.

Since we're "managing" the environment already by not allowing any small fires to run their course, it might be appropriate to assist recovery in areas where all the trees are dead.

See Introduction to Fire in California by David Carle, and Fire in California Ecosystems by Sugihara et. al. Not sure how the current fire ecology fits with this, since we're now seeing such early big fires like the one in Santa Barbara.

[Boon]

My opinion is that this post is somewhat commercial, but not blatant enough to merit removal. After all, the poster is a contributing member of the forum (has posted before on other topics), and this message in question specifically states that the mentioned services would be donated, not sold for a fee. I do believe that the offer is in earnest, and post-fire planting seems like a relevant topic for discussion here.

[bracteata]

No offense to the poster, but this really appears to be a commercial post/ advertisement,

[jonl]

Why the hell do we need to plant trees, fertilize and inoculate the soil??

If you get out there and hike around you'll see that everything is coming back without interference...as it always has.

[retrosurf]

WHICH mycorrhizal inoculum? Does the company collect fungus from the region where it
will be repopulating trees and create the inoculum from that, or does it just use its own
inoculum without regard for the site?

[guest]

not sure if the forum admin here will consider this commercial post, but you may have better luck contacting the local landowners who had their land burned. For example some of the ranches as well as perhaps the monterey bay area council of the boy scouts of america, where their camp pico blanco land burned in the fire.

[5998b]

Reforestation Technologies International out of Salinas CA will donate products. They have been used in over a quarter billion new tree plantings in the US and Canada. Experienced with after fire restoration and native restoration they can also provide technical advice. They produce slow release fertilizers and mycorrhizal inoculum to ensure tree's have all the help they can get for the first years of growth.

Contact: