SILVICULTURAL CONCEPTS AND SYSTEMS DEFINITION OF TERMS

Let's assume you don't know anything on silviculture, I'm going to sheild light on the contents shortlisted below;

==DEFINITON AND EXPLANATION OF TERMS;
== IMPORTANCE OF SILVICULTURAL SYSTEM;
== DIFFERENT SILVICULTURAL SYSTEMS;
== FACTORS TO CONSIDER IN SILVICULTURAL PRACTICES.

Now to the definitions
1. SILVOLOGY: The study of forest and wood.
2. SILVICS: The study of life history and general characteristics of forest, trees and stands with particular reference to locality factors.
3. SILVICULTURE: It is derived from two Latin words ‘silvi’ which means forest, and ‘cultura’, meaning growing.  So silviculture is simply forest growing. Therefore, silviculture is the science and art of growing and tending forest crops based on the knowledge of silvics; i.e. the study of life history and general characteristics of forest trees and stands with particular reference to locality factors.
4. SILVICULTURAL SYSTEM: This is the process by which the crops constituting the forest are tending to remove and replaced by new crops resulting in the production of forest of a distincting form. It is also the process of tending, harvesting and regenerating a forest.
Silvicultural system aims at two things:
1. Managing forest component such that it remains productive
2. Activities are carried out on the forest to ensure healthy growth on sustainable development of tree crops. Silviculture involves the formation of new stands or regeneration of old forest and caring for them until they are matured for the intended use or uses.


IMPORTANCE OF SIVILCULTURE
The essence of silvicultural practices cannot be overemphasized in the development and conservation of forest life. Some of these importances include:
1. Shelter: about three million people live in forests worldwide, including an estimated sixty million indigenous people whose survival depends entirely on native woods.
2. Weather control: if trees in the forest are well nurtured as a result of silvicultural practices,   large forest influence regional weather patterns, and even creates their own micro climate. The Amazon, for example, generating atmospheric condition that not only promote regular rainfall there and in nearby farmland, but potentially as far away as the great plains of North America.
3. Promoting foreign exchange: if the trees in the forest are well nurtured, they can be exported, which will in turn improve the country’s GDP.
4. They are important for forest composition: this involves the application of treatment that would restrict the composition of a stand/ specie that most suit the locality economically and biologically. Species of inferior quality are renown from the forest stand and economically viewable trees remain.
5. Indirect benefit or provision of non-wood products: your proper silvicultural practices or system will allow for other benefits than wood. Such benefits include; protection of wild life habitat.
6. Food production: not only the trees provide the food; nuts, seeds and sap, but they also enable a cornucopia near the tree floor from edible mushrooms, berries and beetles to larger game like deer, turkeys, rabbits and fish.
7. Medicinal purpose: Forests provide wealth natural medicines and increasingly inspire synthetic spin-offs. The asthma drug theophylline comes from cocoa tree, for example, why a compound in eastern red cedar needles as been found to fight MRSA, a type of staph injection that resists many anti biotic drugs. About 705 of all named plants with cancer-fighting properties occur only in rain forests.
8. Employment opportunities: more than 1.6 billion people rely on forests to some extent for their livelihood, according to the UN, and 10 million are directly employed in forest management or conservation forests con tribute about 1% of the global gross domestic products through timber products and non-timber products, the latter of which alone supports up to 80% of the population in many developing countries.
9. Production of raw materials: where would humans be without timbers and resin? We’ve long used this renewable resources tom make everything from paper and furniture, to homes and clothing, but we also have a history of getting carried away, leading to over use and deforestation. Thanks to the growth of tree, farming and sustainable forestry, though, It’s becoming easier to find responsibly sourced tree products.                                                                                                            
                                                                                                                                   
A SILVICULTURAL SYSTEM
It is a planned programmer of silviculture treatment throughout the life of the stand to achieve structural objectives based on integrated resources management goal including harvesting, regeneration and stand tending methods or phases. It covers all activities for the entire length of a rotation or cutting circle.

A silvicultural system variant further describes the function attributes of a system. A variant describe the general distribution of cut- and - leaf areas or leave- free on an area over time

DIFFERENT SILVICULTURAL SYSTEMS
Silviculture system is divided into two main categories:
1. High forest system
2. Coppice system
I. High forest system: They are those silvicultral system in which the regeneration is normally of sidling origin, either natural or artificial or a combination of both and the rotation is generally long.
a. Regular or even aged system: felling and regeneration for the time being concentrated on part of the forest area only:
• Clear cutting system: old crop cleared by a single felling; usually artificial but natural regeneration sometimes possible by siding from adjoining areas or from seed or advanced growth already on the ground; resulting to crop even aged.
• Shelter wood system: systems of successful regeneration felling. Old crop cleared by two or more successive fellings; resulting crop more or less even aged or somewhat uneven aged. The subsystems under the shelter wood system are:
• Uniform system
• Group system
• Irregular shelter wood system
• Tropical shelter wood system
• Strip system
• Wedge system
b. Irregular or uneven aged systems: felling and regeneration distributed continuously over the whole area. Crops are wholly uneven aged with adequate representation of all age classes. The systems under the irregular or even aged systems are:
• Selection system
• Group selection system
c. Accessory systems, arising out of other system: the sub systems under this include;
• Two storey high forest system
• High forest with standard system.
II. Coppice system: this system relies on stems or root suckers as the main source or regeneration. Reproduction under this system is more certain, rapid and cheaper. Sub systems under this included;
• Simple coppice system
• Coppice system
• Coppice selection system
• Shelter wood coppice
• Coppice of two rotations
• Coppice with standard system
• Pollard system

Factors to consider in silvicultural practices
1. Nature of trees: the nature of the forest trees ought to be considered when adopting any silvicultural procedure. One has to put into consideration, the type of plant; is it one that has high demand for water, if so , on will consider planting such in a place where there is enough soil water.
2. Temperature of the forest zone: it is very important to consider the nature of the forest zone. Some trees might not survive or grow well in zones of extreme temperature, so, it is important to plant such trees in temperate forest zones.
3. The maturity state of the trees: it is very important to put the maturity state of the forest trees to consideration, because the concern of silviculture is to ensure the growth, quality and care for the fosrest. Therefore, it is preferable that one should fall only matured trees, and leave the younger ones to grow.
4. Means of transporting the forest resources to the place of processing: most of the forest trees are usually heave, therefore, it is necessary to consider the road condition, the type of vehicles that can carry the wood stands.