Instructions for ORGANON DLL - CIPS



Instructions for using the CIPS Growth Simulator_ORGANON

Introduction

This visual basic program provides the following features:

CONIFERS:

The equations used within the CIPS\VMRC variant of CONIFERS are loaded into the current program, but DLLs which produce estimates of height increment for a given site index need to be obtained for the program to work properly. These can be obtained by contacting Doug Mainwaring at doug.mainwaring@orst.edu.

These equations estimate mortality, height, and diameter growth of pure Douglas-fir stands between plantation ages of 0 and 20 years, and are based on measurements made in western Oregon and Washington. The program also enables users to simulate vegetation control treatments based on percent cover. A plantation generator is included on the CONIFERS page for producing tree lists of newly planted stands.

Site index calculator:

Site indices can be calculated based on height-age pairs. Use of CONIFERS requires a Flewelling et al. (2001) 30-yr SI, and use of ORGANON requires a Bruce (1981) 50-yr SI. Either can be calculated. Stands started in CONIFERS with a Flewelling et al. (2001) site index value and then transferred into ORGANON for further projection will have their Flewelling et al. (2001) site index value converted automatically to an estimate of Bruce’s (1981) site index value. Similarly, the stand age from seed used in CONIFERS will be converted to breast height age used in ORGANON.

ORGANON:

The provided interface is designed only for the three Douglas-fir versions of ORGANON (Hann 2011). A different processor is available for red alder. This processor for the Douglas-fir versions can simulate stand and tree growth under different treatment scenarios, including nitrogen fertilization and three types of thinning (user code, TPA, or RD). The processor also enables use of ORGANON genetic worth and Swiss needle cast modifiers.

Economic analysis:

Present net value of any simulated treatment scenarios can be produced based on age, yield, costs, interest rate, and inflation rate.

Wood quality:

Application of the ORGANON wood quality DLL to projections enables the user to estimate branch and juvenile wood characteristics that can be used to estimate volumes by visual and MSR grade of wood products based on Fahey et al. (1991), and Scribner volume by scaling diameter of cut logs.

Installing Program:

1) Download ORGANON DLL 9.1 from ORGANON web site ()

Select DLL version of ORGANON:

Dynamic Link Library (DLL) version of ORGANON 9.1

2) When CIPS_Growth_Simulator.xls has been downloaded, the visual basic capability of excel needs to be activated, and the program needs to know where to find the downloaded ORGANON DLL.

a) Visual basic activation (This may depend on MS office version):

With CIPS_Growth_Simulator.xls open, choose File…Help- options…Customize ribbon…Check “developer” box on right…OK

b) Change pathway within program:

1) Excel menu will now have a menu item “developer” at top of sheet. Choose Developer…Visual basic (at far left). Choose Module…ORGANON within the

project explorer window in upper left.

2) Change pathway to four ORGANON DLL programs and Flewelling SI DLL.

For example, if the DLL programs were saved in the c:\organon\ directory, change:

Public Declare Sub PREPARE Lib _

"G:\N\growth models\DLL\ORGDLL_MSVB\orgedit.dll" _

To:

Public Declare Sub PREPARE Lib _

"C:\organon\orgedit.dll" _

This needs to be done for all four ORGANON programs: orgedit.dll, orgrun.dll,

orgvol.dll, and orgwq.dll and the Flewelling DLL program CALC_H40.

Use of CONIFERS

Use of Conifers requires plot data and tree data. Required plot-level data within the CONIFERS worksheet is shown in cells A4:H4, and includes a 30-yr site index (which can be calculated from height-age pairs on the SI worksheet), a weed cover (% summed by species), and a plantation age. Necessary tree-level data includes plot, tree, height, and expansion factor.

Existing tree lists can be input manually or new plantations can be generated by clicking on the Generate Plantation button. Generating a plantation will require the user to input a stock age, a minimum height and caliper, and the number of trees per acre. The plantation generator currently creates the absolute value of a normally distributed random number between -1 and 1 (a one-sided bell curve), and multiplies this number by 25% of the value of the inputted minimum height and caliper. This means that an inputted minimum caliper of 8 mm would result in calipers between 0.315” (8 mm) and 0.394” (10 mm) with more values closer to the smaller of those two values. This method is not based on any data, and can easily be changed if users prefer alternative methods.

The length of a projection is adjusted using cell J3. The current equations within this program use data that are up to 20 yrs old (plantation age), and longer projections are not recommended. Vegetation control treatments can be simulated by inputting a plantation age of treatment and a final percent cover achieved by the treatment in cells K5:K9.

The data is projected by pressing the Project stand button. Projected values are output in columns L:S. If this data is to be projected further using the ORGANON DLL, the data can be transferred to the ORGANON DLL TreeList worksheet by putting a 1 in cell K11. Using this transfer function will also estimate a Bruce 50-year site index from the Flewelling 30 year site index, with the age obtained by subtracting the estimated years to breast height (Hann, unpublished) from 30, and assuming a top height equivalent to the Flewelling SI30. This value will automatically be input into the SI50 location on the ORGANON input page. Similarly, stand and breast-height ages will be transferred to the ORGANON input page.

While growth of these trees is based on the equations used within the CIPS/VMRC variant of CONIFERS, the equations within this excel-based simulator have a random error component added to height growth. Without this, there is very little variation among projected trees. The random error component works by multiplying a normally distributed random number between

-1 and 1 by the root mean square error of the height growth.

ORGANON

Setting up for projections

ORGANON runs are controlled on the Stand Input and Treatment worksheets. Prior to a run, the user needs to input the DF site index, the ORGANON version (1-3), the number of plots represented in the TreeList worksheet data, and the stand and breast-height ages. If using CONIFERS data, SI50 will be automatically estimated from SI30, and input into the proper location; For very productive sites, the SI50 estimated from CONIFERS will likely result in a warning that the site index is excessive.

Default output is stand level data, but tree-level data for each growth period can be output by requesting an output of the treelist (cell b10 on the Input worksheet).

Once the TreeList is entered and the settings have been changed, a run can be made by pressing the Run ORGANON button. If there are any problems in the data, the program will halt and indicate the error types on the Completed Treelist (columns R or T) or ProjErrors (columns J, L, N, P, R) worksheeets.

Projection length and treatments

Projection length and treatment requests are made within the Treatment worksheet. The three Douglas-fir versions of ORGANON work on a five-year growth cycle. Testing on untreated stands has indicated that linear interpolation of the five-year growth period to annual growth periods will not degrade predicted stand-level predictions too much after 100-year projections. However, application of annualization to treated stands has not been tested and it is believed that the treatment modifiers used in ORGANON for thinning and fertilization will not work appropriately under annualization. Therefore, it is strongly recommended that treated stands should be only run using a five-year growth period. Final harvest can occur at any time, as can the first thinning and fertilization. However, once thinned or fertilized, subsequent output of values and subsequent thinnings and/or fertilizations should occur only on a five-year growth cycle from the first thinning and/or fertilization until 25 years has elapsed. After 25 years, then the stand can be viewed as being untreated.

Projection length is indicated by inserting a stand age in column B. For example, if a stand was to be grown to a stand age of 53 years without any other treatments, the entry would be the following:

[pic]

Up to five thinnings and five fertilizations can be applied. Thinning types are described below:

User thin: Used to remove specific trees. On the TreeList worksheet, the user code should be 0 for all trees unless it will be thinned at a specific time. If, for example, the user wanted to remove four specific trees from the treelist at age 33, five trees from the treelist at age 43, and perform a final harvest at age 53, these would be coded as below:

[pic]

With this setting, the four trees to be thinned at age 33 would need a user code of 1 in the TreeList, and the five trees to be thinned at age 43 would need a user code of 2 in the TreeList, as indicated within column d.

Thinning from below can be simulated using Reineke’s relative density as a thinning trigger. At the designated age, the stand is thinned from below (after a proportional amount provided by the user is removed) to a provided residual RD. In the following example, a stand is thinned to an RD of 35 at age 32. Assuming a final harvest at age 44, the settings would be:

[pic]

TPA thin—This type of thinning is a thinning from below to a specific residual trees per acre. To simulate an operational thinning where forwarder corridors may remove trees of all sizes, a specified percentage of trees from all diameter classes can be removed before the strict thinning from below is initiated. For example, if the user wants to thin a stand to 275 tpa at bh-age 20 (assumed stand age of 23), with the assumption that a mechanically harvested stand would result in 8% of the land harvested for forwarder corridors, the settings would be as follows (harvested at a final age of 63):

[pic]

Fertilizations are performed by indicating the amount of applied nitrogen (elemental). For example, if after a TPA thinning at age 23, three N applications of 200 pounds each were made at age 28, 33, and 38, followed by a final harvest at age 48, the settings would be:

[pic]

The user may want the output from different treatment scenarios compared to an untreated run. By putting a “1” in cell E10, the program will make both runs, and produce graphs which compare Scribner yield and present net worth of a treatment and control run.

Finally, interpolated stand and tree-level output can be requested at any time using type=5. For example, annual data between two growth periods at age 39 and 44 can be requested using the following:

[pic]

Once all settings are properly made on the Stand Info and Treatment worksheet and the TreeList data is subjected to the OrgEdit routine, the data can be projected. To do so, press the Run Organon button on the Projection worksheet. Stand data will be provided on the Projection worksheet, and tree-level output and wood quality output will be provided (if it was requested) on the TreeList output and WQ_output worksheets.

Economic analysis

An economic analysis of any projection is automatically performed, and details can be found on the Economics worksheet or will be seen on the Comparison to Control worksheet if that option is chosen. All economic inputs can be altered on the Stand Info page (cells b29:b53). The economic worksheet as currently set up is based on a chemical site prep and 1 release spray. If other release sprays have been applied such as in the CONIFERS simulator, this needs to be accounted for as described in cell K13. Final present net values by year are found in cells K14:K33.

Wood quality

Wood quality output can be requested on the Stand info worksheet (cell b11), and provides estimates of 5-yr whorl height, as well as max branch diameter, juvenile wood core diameter (currently defined by age), and inside bark diameter at each of the whorl heights on the WQ_ouput worksheet. Volume by scaling diameter (according to the merchandizing specs provided on the Input worksheet) and by visual and MSR lumber grades (using Fahey et al. 1991 equations) can be accessed by pressing the Estimate product volumes button.

Questions

Any questions about the simulator should be sent to Doug Mainwaring (doug.mainwaring@orst.edu).

Literature Cited

Bruce, D. 1981. Consistent height-growth and growth-rate estimates for remeasured plots. Forest

Science 27:711-729.

Fahey, T.D., Cahill, J.M., Snellgrove, T.A., and Heath, L.S. 1991. Lumber and Veneer Recovery

from Intensively managed young-growth Douglas-fir. USDA Forest Service, PNW-RP-437. 25 p.

Flewelling, J., Collier, R. Gonyea, B., Marshall, D., Turnblom, E. 2001. Height-age curves

forplanted stands of Douglas-fir, with adjustments for density. Stand Management

Cooperative, College of Forest Resources, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA. SMC WorkingPaper Number 1. 25 p.

Hann, D.W. 2011. ORGANON User’s Manual edition 9.0. College of Forestry, Oregon State

University. 134 p.

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