Growth cycle
In the first year, the ground is prepared usually by the combination of burning, herbicide spraying, and/or cultivation and then saplings are planted by human crew or by machine. The saplings are usually obtained in bulk from industrial nurseries, which may specialize in selective breeding in order to produce fast growing disease- and pest-resistant strains. In the first few years until the canopy closes, the saplings are looked after, and may be dusted or sprayed with fertilizers or pesticides until established. After the canopy closes, with the tree crowns touching each other, the plantation is becoming dense and crowded, and tree growth is slowing due to competition. This stage is termed 'pole stage'. When competition becomes too intense (for pine trees, when the live crown is less than a third of the tree's total height), it is time to thin out the section. There are several methods for thinning, but where topography permits, the most popular is 'row-thinning', where every third or fourth or fifth row of trees is removed, usually with a harvester. Many trees are removed, leaving regular clear lanes through the section so that the remaining trees have room to expand again. The removed trees are delimbed, forwarded to the forest road, loaded onto trucks, and sent to a mill. A typical pole stage plantation tree is 7–30 cm in diameter at breast height (dbh). Such trees are sometimes not suitable for timber, but are used as pulp for paper and particleboard, and as chips for oriented strand board. As the trees grow and become dense and crowded again, the thinning process is repeated. Depending on growth rate and species, trees at this age may be large enough for timber milling; if not, they are again used as pulp and chips. Around year 10-60 the plantation is now mature and (in economic terms) is falling o f the back side of its growth curve. That is to say, it is passing the point of maximum wood growth per hectare per year, and so is ready for the final harvest. All remaining trees are felled, delimbed, and taken to be processed. The ground is cleared, and the cycle is repeated. Some plantation trees, such as pines and eucalyptus, can be at high risk of fire damage because their leaf oils and resins are flammable to the point of a tree being explosive under some conditions. Conversely, an afflicted plantation can in some cases be cleared of pest species cheaply through the use of a prescribed burn, which kills all lesser plants but does not significantly harm the mature trees. Thinning in forestry is the selective removal of trees, primarily undertaken to improve the growth rate or health of the remaining trees. This may be done to make the stand more profitable in an upcoming final felling. Overcrowded trees are under competitive stress from their neighbors. Thinning may be done to increase the resistance of the stand to environmental stress such as drought, insect infestation or extreme temperature.[1] A thinning in which the trees removed have little or no economic value is called a pre-commercial thinning. Ecological Thinning is a variant of this being trialled for use in forest conservation in Australia. Chemical thinning is a form of non-commercial thinning in which the trees are killed while they stand by injecting a chemical such as glyphosate (Round Up) into a cut made in the stem. This reduces the number of live stems remaining, providing a benefit to those that remain and may be undertaken where the cost of a traditional thin is high. It can also be done on very exposed sites where breaking the canopy through a traditional thinning operation would expose the stand to a high risk of windthrow.