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Item Impacts of the July 2016 windstorm on the UMN Cloquet Forestry Center forest(2024-01) Gill, Kyle GA windstorm blew through northern Minnesota on July 21, 2016. Varying levels of impacts to forests were observed across the region. This report outlines the methods and results of a windstorm impacts assessment for the University of Minnesota Cloquet Forestry Center forest. Windstorm impacts were assessed on total of 246 continuous inventory plots and the traverses between plots for both monitoring reasons and to assess whether or not salvage logging operations were needed. Plot-based results showed that 86.6% of the forest had no impacts, 12.2% had low impacts, and 1.2% had high impacts. Traverse-based results, which were more sensitive, suggested that up to 34% of the forest may have had low impacts. Lowland forest cover types were slightly more likely to have been impacted than upland cover types. No salvage operations were deemed necessary based upon these results.Item University of Minnesota Experimental Forests project activity summary for 2022(2023-11) Gill, Kyle G; Olesiak, Rachael AThis report provides an end-of-year update of the status of projects across the Experimental Forests network that were considered Active in 2022 in the project records data management system. A total of 103 projects had a status of either Active or Long-term during 2022. Projects had 62 unique leaders. A total of 44 projects has a primary purpose categorized as Research, 26 as Demonstration/Case Study/Monitoring, 18 as Teaching/Education/Outreach, eight as Other, and seven as Management. Eighteen new projects were accessioned into the project records database, seventeen of which had their status transition from Proposed to Active. All project leaders were contacted to submit a year-end status update for each project through a Google Form-based year end check-in survey. A total of 87 projects had their status updated through survey responses and 16 were updated through other forms of communication. At the end of the check-in, 87 projects retained a status of Active, 11 projects a status of Complete, and five a status of Long-term, meaning that they have been Active for 10 or more years.Item University of Minnesota Experimental Forests project activity summary for 2021(2022-12) Gill, Kyle GThis report provides an end-of-year status update for the project record database for calendar year 2021 and a description of how we define "Status" in the project records data management system. A total of 88 projects were included in the end-of-year check in list. Project status for 29 projects was updated via direct communication with the project leader and through the Google Form based survey for 59. Status for five projects was changed to "Complete" and the rest remained "Active" or "Long-term." Projects ranged across primary purpose categories (research, teaching/education/outreach, demonstration/case/study/monitoring, management/stewardship, and other) and occurred at three of the four experimental forests sites.Item University of Minnesota Experimental Forests project activity summary for 2020(2021-07) Gill, Kyle GThis report is intended to provide an overview of project activity during the 2020 calendar year that either occurred at or was based out of one of the University of Minnesota (UMN) Experimental Forest properties. A majority of projects are tracked as part of the UMN Experimental Forests Forest Management and Research (FMR) project record data management system, though there are some that are not due to precedence of scope. A total of 57 projects had field, lab, or analysis/writing activity during the 2020 calendar year. Of these, the primary purpose was listed as "Research" for 35, teaching, education, and/or outreach for 14, four as "Management", three as "Case study/monitoring", and one as "Other". The report includes a table of projects and their activity for 2020 and a table for the references of works that came out from projects during 2020.Item Investigating red pine and white spruce growth dynamics in microplots: three-year results(2021-04) Russell, Matthew; Gill, Kyle GMiniature scale or “microplots” can be used in forest experiments to speed up the time period needed to understand forest dynamics. This reports analyses three years of red pine and white spruce growth in microplots located at the Cloquet Forestry Center, Cloquet, MN. Spacing of the microplots and species mixture did not influence the relative height and groundline diameter growth trees in the microplots after three years. Future work will continue to monitor these trees through annual measurements and a destructive sampling effort will inform biomass partitioning patterns that can be compared to operational scale plantings.Item University of Minnesota Cloquet Forestry Center Programmatic Burn Plan 2020(2020-10) Godwin, Daniel; Lasky, Dave; Graeve, Matt; Johnson, Lane B; Gill, Kyle G; Priestly, Paul; Lynch, MikeThis programmatic burn plan identifies resources and conditions necessary to bring prescribed fire (also known as planned or controlled fire) back the University of Minnesota Cloquet Forestry Center (CFC). The primary objective for all prescribed burning operations is to reintroduce fire as an ecological and cultural process to promote and maintain historically fire-dependent forest communities. The plan contains twenty-one elements following the standard established in the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) Prescribed Fire Plan Template, PMS 484-1. Elements that are addressed include, but are not limited to, burn unit descriptions, prescriptions and objectives, safety hazards, resources needed for ignition, holding, and contingency, and a Go/No-go checklist for the day of burns. Seven burn units are identified across the CFC totaling 201.4 acres. The burn units range in size from 3.6-53.7 acres. Four units, totaling 75.2 acres, are identified as priority units and have site-specific information for prescribed fire implementation including maps. These units require minimal preparation to be ready for burning as of 2020; preparation primarily requires fire line establishment or refreshing where the unit perimeter is not already bounded by a road. Three additional units, totaling 126.2 acres, are identified as secondary units. These units require structural modification, primarily forest canopy density reduction through thinning, prior to being burned. This plan will serve as an umbrella document for the development of site-specific materials for these remaining units. For all units, appendices can be added, as necessary, with updated burn unit structure and fuel conditions.Item A report on the identification and mapping of the Native Plant Communities at the Hubachek Wilderness Research Center(2020-02-18) Gilson, Liam W; Gill, Kyle G; Prange, Rebecca J; Johnson, Lane BThe Minnesota Ecological Classification System (ECS) uses historical and present biotic and abiotic ecosystem components to define Native Plant Communities (NPC). The University of Minnesota Hubacheck Wilderness Research Area (HWRC) is a parcel of 365 acres of land located near Winton, MN on the Ely - Knife Lake Bedrock Complex landtype association that is primarily passively managed as an ecological “Reserve”. In 2017, we went through three phases to identify and delineate potential NPCs across the HWRC. Historical and contemporary remotely sensed data were used to delineate preliminary classifications. These were field-verified by establishing 13 sampling plots that were established and sampled, following the Relevé method, and analyzed, using ECS identification methods established by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Adjustments were then made, where necessary, to produce final NPC class, type, and subtype classifications. A mosaic of nine different upland and lowland NPC classes was identified and delineated. Upland FDn43 and ROn23 communities occupied 71.2% and 3.4% of the land, respectively. Lowland communities occupied 25% of the land and included APn80, FPn73, FPn82, MRn83, MRn93, WFn55, and WFn64 classes. ROn23 and some lowland communities were found to contain somewhat novel species assemblages in comparison to the MN DNR ECS field guide and may warrant further study.Item A report on the identification and mapping of the Native Plant Communities at the Cloquet Forestry Center(2020-02) Gilson, Liam W; Gill, Kyle GThe Minnesota Ecological Classification System (ECS) is used to define plant communities within the National Heirarchical Classification of Ecological Units using known land-use history and present biotic and abiotic ecosystem components. This report describes the process and results of how the ECS was used to identify and delineate potential Native Plant Communities (NPCs) across the landbase of the University of Minnesota Cloquet Forestry Center (CFC). All NPCs were located in the Northern Superior Uplands section on the Brimson Sand Plain landtype association. Eight ecological systems, all from the northern floristic region, and 16 native plant community classes were identified. The ecological systems identified were acid peatlands (AP), fire dependent forest/woodlands (FD), floodplain forests (FF), mesic hardwood forest (MH), open rich peatlands (OP), wet forests (WF), and wet meadows (WM). Of the 3391 total acres assessed, upland FD and MH forests covered 68% and lowland systems covered 32%. The FDn33 Northern Dry-Mesi Mixed Woodland NPC class occupied 44% of the total CFC landbase. The shapefile developed as part of this work is available upon request.Item Defining the University of Minnesota Experimental Forests Landbase(2019-12) Gill, Kyle G; Johnson, Lane B; Olesiak, Rachael A; Prange, Rebecca J; David, Andrew JAccording to the University of Minnesota Real Estate Office the Allred Trust, the Boone Trust, the Cloquet Forestry Center (CFC), and the Hubachek Wilderness Research Center (HWRC) are properties across northeastern Minnesota owned by the University of Minnesota that are to be used for natural resources education and research and administered by the Coordinator at the CFC. These primarily forested properties cover a total of 4196.8 acres. This technical note summarizes property information found in the University of Minnesota Real Estate Office Inventory Report (2018) and defines these properties as the land base associated with the Experimental Forests collection in the University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy.