The different modes of forestry: REGULAR FOREST

In the treatment of a regular high forest, the trees are educated in a stand of the same age and of similar dimensions. The exploitation concerns all the stands of a given plot when its regeneration is programmed. The production system is discontinuous at the level of the management unit (the plot) but its continuity is obtained at the level of the whole forest.

Several stages of evolution are distinguished according to the average dimensions reached by trees (height and diameter) with age. It goes from seedlings, to thickets, saplings, pole stage, high pole, high forest and finally mature forest or old high forest. The number of stems decreases in young age under the action of competition. Gradually, under the influence of forestry, the stand is oriented in its composition and the beautiful trees develop themselves to constitute the final stand which will be regenerated at the end of the cycle.

At the different stages of evolution of the regular forest, cleaning and thinning cuts are made as soon as the sapling is formed. Forestry work must be carried out in order to obtain, at 150 years of sowing, a maximum of trees with the best qualities. This mode of treatment of high forest is said: solid or regular forest. It gives trees with slender and cylindrical trunks, perfect for the use of cooperage.

Illustration : Regular Forest cycle (source CRPF)