As a kid in Hilo, I vaguely remember a story about some eucalyptus forest planters planting their trees much denser than they intended. I don’t remember all of the details, but I know that generally for a healthy forest that is suited for wood harvesting, the seeds shouldn’t be too densely placed that they will fight to overtop one another. That is, unless the harvesters also can run a thinning process.
Thinning from “Eucalyptus Culture in Hawaii” by Louis Margolin
If the trees are planted close enough together, they will make a rapid height growth, each tree endeavoring to overtop the others to a sufficient amount of light … height growth is made at the expense of increase in diameter … certain trees fall too far behind … and become a hindrance to the better and more vigorous trees. It is then a good plan to cull out the suppressed trees in order to give the better individuals a chance to grow in diameter. This process of cutting out the poor trees is known as a thinning.
Although dense planting can be beneficial, such as near Waipiʻo Valley where windy conditions favor closer spacing, the story I heard was about a tranquil Hilo climate where planters grew the trees densely but failed to thin them.
This overly dense forest in Hilo was planted more recently than Margolin’s 1911 book, where he noted that most planting in Hawaii had been too widely spaced. Perhaps the planters, aware of the dangers of too wide spacing, opted for dense planting instead.
In the section on spacing trees, Margolin goes into each of the main scenarios, explaining what spacing is best for each. It’s not a one size fits all measurement, and depends on what is trying to be accomplished with the forest. However, it is usually preferred to plant the forest a bit denser than very thinly, as repairing a dense forest is easier than growing new trees in shade.
Since the story of the Hilo forest is so vague in my memory, I like to think up my own takeaways from the situation. One of them is that there are rarely one size fits all solutions in systems, and that adding one benefit can introduce more complexity than previously anticipated. Careful consideration and adaptability are crucial when planning a system, as any decision can have far-reaching consequences.
The issue of aiming for one size solutions exists all over the place, as you can see with questions online like “what is the best x for y?” Our response should always first be to think about what the end goal is while also understanding our current situation. Are we selling high-quality lumber with our forest? Are we in a rush? Even with the answer being yes to both of those questions, the immediate answer isn’t necessarily to farm a very dense forest, because we have to also ensure we have a crew who knows how to thin it every few years. But the answer also isn’t to plant a loosely spread forest.
Just like deciding on the density of trees, every choice we make while planning any system will have its positives and negatives. If we make a drastic decision, such as planting all of our forest spaced at 15x15 feet just because we heard it’s not good to plant close to one another, we risk wasting time, land, people, and resources. I think during a planning phase it’s best to not give into hype or extremes, and instead go with safe bets given the genuine use cases.
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