You are
here

Inside This Issue

• A visit to some hybrid poplar plantations in Bas-Saint-Laurent, Quebec: Great Participation!
• Hybrid Poplar Crop Manual for the Prairie Provinces
• Chairman's Annual Report 2006
• Executive Secretary's Report
• Technical Director's Report
• Treasurer's Report

Version française

Newsletter in PDF format (324 kB)
Version française (323 kB)

A visit to some hybrid poplar plantations in Bas-Saint-Laurent, Quebec: Great Participation!

Patrick Filiatrault
Forest Engineer, Réseau Ligniculture Québec, Université de Sherbrooke

Photographs by Brigitte Bigué, Réseau Ligniculture Québec, Université Laval

The Intensive Silviculture Network of Quebec (ISNQ) organized another field tour of plantations of fast-growing species in the Quebec regions. The success of these field tours in terms of participation continues! On June 28 this year, about 50 people visited hybrid poplar plantations in the Bas-Saint-Laurent region. The tour was organized by the ISNQ in collaboration with Norampac and with the participation of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Wildlife of Quebec (MNRWQ), the Transcontinental Agro-forestry Corporation and the Taché forestry and agriculture co-operative. The event brought together participants from federal, provincial and municipal governments, universities, private forestry and forest industry.

The field tour had two objectives: first to provide information on poplar cultivation in general and, secondly and more particularly, to demonstrate successful Norampac plantations in order to stimulate discussion among the participants.

Norampac is a leader in poplar cultivation in Quebec. The company establishes almost 100 hectares of poplar plantations each year to supply its cardboard mill. The first plantations were started on former agricultural land in 1996. Today, the company is putting this species in the ground on forest sites as much as on agricultural land. Uniquely, Norampac has its own hybrid poplar nursery, which produces more that two-thirds of its needs, while the company continues to obtain stock from the provincial tree nursery at Saint-Modeste.

At the first stop, about 20 kilometres from the mill, the participants could see a forest site planted in 2001. The tour guides explained the silvicultural work done in this plantation. Site preparation was done with a “V-blade.” As the name implies, this involves using a “V”-shaped blade mounted on the front of a bulldozer on a site harvested the previous year. The final result left the site with cleared strips 2.7 meters wide and bands of debris 2.3 meters wide. Poplars were planted at the edges of the cleared strips. The participants were able to see the effects of manual clearing done in 2003, as well as pruning in the spring of 2006. Discussion focused on the clones used in the plantation (505273 and 505227, i.e. Populus maximowiczii × (P. deltoides × P. trichocarpa)), the extent of rooting and the spacing between trees. The plantation spacing (2.5 m by 5.0 m) had been chosen with pulpwood as the intended fibre use, while not excluding the possibility of using some of the wood for saw logs, depending on the quality of the logs. It is important to mention that a plantation with the primary goal of producing saw logs would have a lower density, or, in the case of higher initial density (about 1000 stems per hectare) it would be thinned during the rotation.

This field tour allowed the participants to see and understand Norampac’s poplar management strategy which is based on optimal fibre production according to site conditions and resources available. On forest land, the approach of using a “V-blade” for site preparation and mechanical cleaning is preferred. On agricultural land, ploughing and cultivation are the methods used. In addition, the company specializes in planting cuttings, a route which has proved successful. In conclusion, the participants appreciated the field tour and some did not hesitate to mention that their view of hybrid poplars had changed – in a positive direction!

Top

Hybrid Poplar Crop Manual for the Prairie Provinces

Cees (“Case”) van Oosten
SilviConsult Woody Crops Technology Inc.

The ‘Hybrid Poplar Crop Manual for the Prairie Provinces’ was recently completed under contract with the Saskatchewan Forest Centre (SFC) and received financial and in-kind support from many organizations; the Poplar Council of Canada’s financial contribution is gratefully acknowledged.

In 1991 the Brockville ‘Fast Growing Forests Technology Development Unit’ of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources produced a handbook ‘A Grower’s Guide to Hybrid Poplar’. This handbook has been out of print for quite some time and would have required a major upgrade to reflect new knowledge and developments. Information about growing and managing so-called SRIC (‘short-rotation-intensive-culture’) hybrid poplar was scattered in many different documents and publications and was difficult to access by farmers and land owners. There is increased interest in the Prairie region to grow SRIC hybrid poplar crops for a variety of reasons; however, there was insufficient expertise to support the successful establishment and management of this new crop. Since there was no consolidated source of information in Canada aimed at the Prairie region, the new ‘Hybrid Poplar Crop Manual for the Prairie Provinces’ aims to fill this void.

The objective of the manual is to provide growers and land owners with a ‘how to’ manual and the basis for informed decision making about SRIC hybrid poplar crops. The manual is a vehicle of technology transfer, which can be downloaded free of charge from two websites:

• Poplar Council of Canada: http://www.poplar.ca/whatsnew.htm (follow the link ‘Hybrid poplar reports for the Prairies - Hybrid Poplar Manual now available’).
• Saskatchewan Forest Centre: http://www.saskforestcentre.ca/ (under ‘Agroforestry Reports’, or under ‘Forest Development Fund - Agroforestry Reports’)

Information was compiled based on the experience of the manual’s author, augmented with local information and knowledge from various experts and practitioners in this field. The Manual is intended to be dynamic and thus suitable for updates and improvements over time. Under an agreement between the Saskatchewan Forest Centre and the Poplar Council of Canada, the responsibility for this will rest with the Poplar Council of Canada, subject to need and availability of funding.

The manual is published in a PDF format, which requires the user to have Adobe Acrobat Reader software (the latest is Adobe Reader 7.0). Adobe Reader can be downloaded free of charge by visiting the Poplar Council of Canada website, which has a link to this software (http://www.poplar.ca/publications.htm), or by visiting the Saskatchewan Forest Centre website (http://www.saskforestcentre.ca/), under any of the choices of ‘Reports and Tech. Sheets’.

The manual is formatted for double-sided printing. The electronic format has several navigation features, allowing the user to move around in the document with ease.

The manual consists of the ‘Introduction’, followed by 10 modules. The ‘Introduction’ is recommended reading as many terms and principles are explained here. The first seven modules follow the flow of the crop planning, establishment and maintenance process and include ‘Site Requirements & Selection’, ‘Clone Selection & Deployment’, ‘Stock Procurement’, ‘Crop Density, Spacing & Layout’, ‘Site Preparation’, ‘Crop Planting’ and ‘Crop Maintenance & Improvement’. The last three modules can be considered reference or support modules, dealing with ‘Growth & Yield’, ‘Diseases & Insects’and ‘Economic Analysis’. A ‘Glossary of Terms’ and ‘Appendices’ are linked electronically to the ‘Introduction’ and the 10 modules. There also many external Web links that allow the user to expand his information base.

Top

Chairman’s Annual Report 2006

John Doornbos
Poplar Council of Canada

This has been another busy year for Poplar Council. While the Council and many of its members have been quite active, I have not been able to give the Council as much time as I would have liked to this year. I have been quite busy with French language training and this has had an impact on my ability to work on Council activities. I would like to thank those of you who have picked up and carried the ball on my behalf.

In this report, I would like to update you on some changes, touch on some of this year’s activities and try to take a look forward to see where we could or should be going over the next few years. Other reports will go into more detail on some of these areas.

A significant change for Poplar Council has been the hiring of a new Executive Secretary. Sandra Williams, after many years with the Council, has taken a fulltime permanent position with Canadian Forest Service that began April 1. I would like to thank Sandra personally and on behalf of all the Council members for all her hard work over the years and wish her all the best in her new position.

For those of you who have not met her, our new Executive Secretary is Lisa Bowker. Lisa has a BA in Communications, worked for several years with Canadian Forest Service as a Communications Officer and assisted Jan Volney with the editing of the Canadian Journal of Forest research for a number of years as well. During her first few months with us, Lisa has very quickly picked up a good understanding of the Council’s financial and business activities. As I noted above, Lisa has a strong background in communications; I would like to utilize this to enhance our newsletter and other communications activities. Please welcome Lisa to the Poplar Council.

Barb will comment on the finances in more detail in her report. I only want to add that Canadian Forest Service has had to discontinue support for the Executive Secretary position as a consequence of funding reductions. CFS still provides office space and computer and network access as they have in the past. As a result of revenues from some project work (primarily with CFS) in 2005, this should not put too much additional strain on our finances for the next two years. We will, however, have to be careful with our expenditures.

The Herbicide Working Group has been quite active over the past year and been quite successful in its efforts. A good part of the success is due to the expertise that we have been able to access through the Prairie Pesticide Minor Use Consortium (PPMUC). Poplar Council took out a membership in this consortium several years ago, resulting in considerable progress on the registration of a number of herbicides. These herbicides, while registered for use on other agricultural crops in Canada and on poplars in the United States, are having the registered use extended to poplars in Canada through the efforts of the Herbicide Working Group. I encourage you to read through our August 2006 newsletter, I am impressed by what the group has accomplished. Our commitment to the PPMUC was for three years; given the changes to our financial situation, we will have to consider carefully if we should continue with the PPMUC and also examine other ways to support our membership.

The Poplar Clone Database has been complete for some time, unfortunately I have not had the time to dedicate to this that I would like or that it requires. The intent is to make it available as a searchable database on our website. As with providing any database via the Internet, there are several ways to manage and present the information. I hope to make progress on this initiative this fall with Barb’s ongoing support.

The “Hybrid Poplar Crop Manual for the Prairies” has been completed. The manual should be available soon on our website. This project was supported by Canadian Forest Service and the Saskatchewan Forest Centre with considerable in-kind support from the province of Saskatchewan. Poplar Council and a number of Council members also provided funding support. The manual will be a valuable resource for land owners who wish to establish poplar plantations as well companies and other organizations who work with landowners. We will send out an announcement once the manual is available.

In 2005, a major funding proposal was submitted to Genome Canada to begin using the information resulting from the mapping of the Poplar Genome and to begin developing tools from this information. While the proposal was not accepted, work on the development of tools has begun albeit at a slower pace than we had hoped. Two useful products that have resulted from this process are the “Poplar Genomics to Poplar Production” Discussion Paper and the “Glossary of Terms” on poplar genomics, genetics and utilization. Both are available on the Poplar Council website (www.poplar.ca). Note that we consider the glossary a First Draft and will be updating it periodically; please let us know of any additions or changes you would like to see.

Last year the Executive of the Council began a strategic planning exercise. This process began after the survey that we had sent out earlier in 2005. It has been a slow process however the Executive has taken it to the stage of identifying key issues, establishing priorities and suggesting actions. The real challenge that remains is bringing life to the actions as much of the work that needs to be done will have to be carried out by other organizations, some of which are not that closely affiliated to the Council. I have let this slide for the past few months but I would like to move this ahead with this during the fall and winter.

I would like to thank all the members for their support this past year. Particularly I would like to thank Barb, Jim and Cees for all their hard work this past year as well as Lisa for jumping right in and doing so well in such a short time. Thanks again to Sandra for all her hard work. I would also like to thank Canadian Forest Service for their continued support; even with the recent reduction, we still receive significant support from CFS.

Top

Executive Secretary's Report 2006

Lisa Bowker
Poplar Council of Canada

I am pleased to file my first report to the Poplar Council of Canada. The Executive Secretary’s responsibilities include managing the daily operations of the Secretariat; looking after finances, membership and associated services; preparing agendas and recording minutes for meetings; soliciting articles for and editing and formatting the newsletter; coordinating permanent files and membership lists; maintaining a library of technical information; and responding to and providing referrals to information requests. The Executive Secretary is also responsible for conference services including registration, events planning and organization. This year I will briefly address membership, and best practices for the Secretariat.

Membership

The Poplar Council welcomes three new Individual members for 2006, Pete Degraff; Elwood Wenig and Pierre Bédard two new Student members, Toma Guillemette and Marie-Eve Sigouin; and four new Corporate memberships: Saskatchewan Forest Centre, Pacific Regeneration Technologies, Northwest Agro Forestry Services, and Coast to Coast Trees. Currently, Corporate membership stands at 15 members with 47 affiliates while there are 39 Individual, 2 Student, and 3 Associate members. Total membership is at 106 including paying and non-paying members. Please see www.poplar.ca/members to obtain contact information for current and new members.

Secretariat Operational Guide

In order to establish consistency in office procedures and policy within the PCC Secretariat, Sandra proposed that a committee or working group be established to address standard practices for office operations in the form of a clear and concise handbook. This would include finances (tracking, accountant’s review, GST reporting, corporate filing fee reporting) as well as membership, newsletters, communications and nominations, to name a few. I will review the need for the Secretariat Operations Guide and welcome suggestions.

Conclusion

A special note of appreciation goes to Jim Richardson for his patience, guidance and understanding, during my first few months with the Poplar Council. I look forward continuing to work with the Poplar Council and its members in 2007.

Top

Technical Director 's Report 2006

Jim Richardson
Poplar Council of Canada

This is the tenth annual report to the Poplar Council membership from the Technical Director, a position created by the Executive Committee in April 1997. The general objectives of the Technical Director are to supply technical services and advice to the Council, to promote awareness and support for the Council and to increase membership. More specifically, the responsibilities of the technical director include maintaining and updating the Council’s website; responding to technical enquiries using E-mail, phone, fax and mail; providing an international dimension to the Council through participation in the International Poplar Commission; contributing to the PCC Newsletter and supporting technical aspects of the organization of the PCC Annual meeting; and providing services to members and the Board of Directors of a technical rather than purely administrative nature. The specific responsibilities continue to change somewhat, reflecting the changing ways in which the Council operates and the new directions and initiatives of the Council.

Recognizing the limited budget of the Council, the services of the technical director are provided for a minimal level of compensation. I work out of my home office in Ottawa, devoting on average about five days a month to Poplar Council business. However, the actual time commitment varies greatly depending on the tasks at hand.

Website

Management and maintenance of the Poplar Council website (www.poplar.ca) is now perhaps the most significant on-going responsibility of the technical director. The ‘What’s New’ pages and the ‘Events’ page in particular need to be reviewed and updated regularly, as well as ‘Links’. Information about individual and corporate members is updated once a year. The site is an important source for the electronic newsletter, which is normally uploaded to the site soon after each new issue is sent to members by the Executive Secretary by E-mail. While the E-mailed version is in PDF format, both PDF and HTML format versions are available on the website. The website is a key resource for information about the annual meeting. Considerable information has been added to the site this year as outcomes of the ‘Genomics to Production’ workshop held in Edmonton in April 2005. (See later section of this report for details.) Several new electronic publications related to hybrid poplar in the Prairies are being added to the site: ‘Crop density for hybrid poplar in the Prairie Provinces’ prepared by Cees van Oosten is available now; a ‘hybrid poplar crop manual for the Prairie Provinces’, also prepared by Cees van Oosten is available in summary form, with the complete manual coming soon. When it is available, the poplar clone directory may also be made available on the site. With all the new information, the site continues to be well used, with the number of ‘hits’ and ‘visits’ over the past year approaching 25,000 and 1800 respectively per month, peaking this year in the March to May period.

Technical Enquiries

The technical director deals with a regular stream of technical enquiries, most of which are received as a result of contact through the website and are dealt with by E-mail. For reasons that are still unclear, the number of such enquiries has remained low this year, as it was last year, compared to previous years. When I am unable to provide the information requested myself, I involve other Council members who are experts in the particular field of interest of the enquirer, or who are closer to the geographic location of the enquirer. Whenever possible, advantage is taken of the opportunity to promote Council membership in responding to enquiries from non-members.

International Dimension

Together with my colleague, J.G. Isebrands of Wisconsin, I continue to coordinate the preparation and publication of a completely revised and updated edition of the FAO-IPC book on poplars and willows. This book, to be published by FAO initially in electronic format, is entitled ‘Poplars and Willows in the World: Meeting the needs of society and the environment’. An international team of 12 ‘lead chapter authors’, supported by many individual contributing authors, has been put together to prepare the content. Leading the preparation of the chapter on ‘Properties and Utilization’ is John Balatinecz, professor emeritus of the University of Toronto. Other Canadians, including Cees van Oosten, are among the contributing authors. Progress generally is slower than expected, but complete drafts of individual chapters have started to reach the coordinators. The coordination work is supported by personal service agreements with FAO.

The Fourth International Poplar Symposium (IPS), organized by a IUFRO working party, took place in Nanjing, China in June 2006. The IPS series involves scientific/technical conferences held every four years, in between the Sessions of the International Poplar Commission (IPC) which is a Subsidiary Body of FAO. Both Barb Thomas and I attended the 3-day conference and 2-day field study tour, both of which were very well organized by our extremely hospitable Chinese hosts. Our participation was not underwritten by PCC. A report on the conference and field tour will be prepared for the next edition of the newsletter.

Newsletters and Other Publications

The technical director makes regular contributions to the Council’s newsletter, including reports from meetings and other events. Three such articles were contributed to the newsletter in the past year, and I have also edited and reviewed others. The Council’s website, though not the primary source of information about this year’s joint annual meeting with the US, was an important link for information from the US-based organizers.
In collaboration with Barb Thomas, considerable effort was devoted to preparing and distributing reports, summaries and other information resulting from the ‘Genomics to Production’ workshop organized by PCC in Edmonton in April 2005. These include an executive summary, a presentation summarizing workshop findings and a ‘white paper’ intended to stimulate further discussion, all of which are available on the website. Also available on the website to PCC members only are a detailed workshop summary, all the workshop presentations and a list of participants. Barb Thomas was responsible for coordinating production of a related glossary of terminology of genomics, genetics and utilization which can also be accessed on the website.

With the help of several PCC colleagues, I am preparing a paper reviewing the history of poplar research in Canada. This is intended for publication in a special issue of the Canadian Journal of Botany which will be devoted to papers on current poplar research in Canada. Though this is not a PCC project, the solicitation by guest editors Janice Cooke and Stewart Rood for this special issue has resulted in a significant number of offers of manuscripts which should be of interest to PCC members.

Acknowledgements

Once again, I would like to thank John Doornbos and the Council’s Executive for their continued support and confidence throughout the year. It is a pleasure to work for the Council under the leadership of the Executive. I also express my sincere appreciation to Sandra Williams, the Council’s Executive Secretary since 1999, who recently accepted a new full-time position with CFS. Sandra’s experience, dedication and wisdom will be missed, but I look forward to working with her successor Lisa Bowker.

Top

Treasurer 's Report 2006

Barb Thomas
Poplar Council of Canada

2005 was a prosperous year for the Poplar Council of Canada. We had a net operating surplus of $28 067.45 – $12 415.00 of that money came from memberships. The PCC provided banking services to the Alberta Forest Genetics Research Association and finished the Crop Manual and Genome to Production project (also PA Model Forest?)

On the revenue side, we received service fee money from CFS, for the Forest 20/20 program, and AFGRC. This money has allowed the PCC to remain self sufficient and not cash in any investments.

On the expenses side, the increased costs compared to the budget were attributed to the salary dollars. The CFS is no longer funding the Executive Secretary position, so PCC may have to cash in some investments in the coming year.

The PCC financial statements were prepared by Harris S. May. Mr. May found that the financial statements are a fair representation of the financial position of the Poplar Council of Canada. Note that the statements are not audited.

Top

Home | Members | About PCC | Contact PCC | Publications | Links

Copyright © 2004 Poplar Council of Canada

Last edit: 2008-01-10