Firth Maple Products professional forestry staff uses uneven-aged silviculture to promote diversity in our woodlots.  By harvesting only the biologically mature trees, regardless of size, we concentrate the resources and genetic future of the stand on the healthiest, highest potential trees.

We refer to our harvest criteria as “worst first.”  Just like a garden, Firth Foresters select the unhealthy “weed” trees, and carefully remove them to allow the better “crop” trees more sunlight and nutrients.  The harvested trees may be unhealthy for a variety of reasons such as storm damage, insect infestation, disease or competition.  Promptly removing unhealthy trees allows the landowner a small, steady income from his or her woodlot while the principle value continues to grow.

This process makes our woodlots different from most other actively managed forests.  Because we emphasize long-term economics our woods maintain a diversity of trees, wildflowers, shrubs, habitat and wildlife, all of which contributes to a healthy forest ecosystem.  Additionally we allow trees to live longer and reach a larger size than other operations, maintaining more characteristics of old-growth forests.

This method of cultivating trees is very similar to what would happen in a natural, undisturbed setting.  Worst first tree selection means that we allow natural processes to decide which trees should be cut, rather than following immediate economic needs.