Renewing a forest—to replace harvested trees or those that died from insects, disease, fire, old age, or extreme weather events—is key to sustainable forestry. Foresters refer to the process of establishing new tree seedlings as “regeneration.” They also refer to the seedlings established in the forest as “regeneration.”
Aspen regeneration two months after clear-cutting in a site in Cass County, Minnesota. Photo: Eli Sagor, Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0).
Regeneration can be accomplished through two basic approaches: (1) natural regeneration, which …