Timber stand improvement serves to alter two major properties of your forest: the growth rate of crop trees and the species composition. While altering growth rate is primarily a timber management tool, altering species composition is a tool that should be used to accomplish a number of goals including native ecosystem restoration, wildlife habitat, and beauty and scenery. Timber stand improvement mimics natural disturbance, including the integral disturbance of fire that humans have removed from a number of ecosystems that depend on it. Below, I detail four methods of timber stand improvement that each forest stand can use to some extent: crop tree release, understory weeding, cull tree removal, and invasive species removal. In many situations, these practices are needed on a large-scale across your property and may be cost-shared through th

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