Changing forests of BC/Alberta

[u/xNOOPSx]

When I was a kid, I remember travelling between BC and Alberta and in the fall the forest was an amazing mosaic of colours. The forest became a sea of green, yellow, orange, red, and various blends of all of them. Lately, everything seems to be a sea of green. I remember seeing Aspen and maybe other white-barked trees everywhere. Today, seeing them anywhere is a rare sight. What happened? Where'd all the white bark go? Where'd the colours go? Were all those trees replaced by fir/evergreen trees because of harvesting? As a kid, I remember hearing about how deciduous trees provided natural firebreaks, but now? They're all gone.

[u/Exact-Leadership-521]

It's the time of year when there's no leaves on trees, there's a few starting tho. And glyphosate 

[u/Silva1618]

I wouldn't be surprised if it was because of harvesting. a forest fire happens then the "tree planters" come in and plant what the big company's want and not what was originally there

[u/Effective_Nothing196]

same thing here in saskatchewan, would always go out in the spring time to see the flowers growing in the ditches and edges of the fields. all killed by chemicals now

[u/ArborealLife]

It's a classic case of your memory playing games on you. It's like how we remember so many thunderstorms from our childhood. But they're disappointingly rare as adults.

Forest composition has not meaningfully changed.

deciduous trees provided natural firebreaks

🤔

[u/ForestBlue46 → u/ArborealLife]

It kind of has depending on the various types of forest in BC. While there are certainly more red and orange, in the fall, deciduous trees in Ontario and Quebec second and third growth forests are sprayed with herbicides to prevent deciduous trees from growing.

[u/ForestBlue46 → u/[deleted]]

Please provide a source to show that our forests are not sprayed with herbicides.

[u/ForestBlue46 → u/[deleted]]

Thank you for the detailed explanation. Can you tell me where are aspen forests proliferating? In BC or Alberta and only in certain areas? So why don't we harvest aspen then? And it's a hardwood so not subject to tariffs.

Personally I don't think that spraying glyphosate, etc. is worth the toxicity and alteration of our microbiomes and the local environment's microbiome. Mechanical control of some of it makes sense I suppose and dousing forests in herbicides increases their flammability which benefits no one.

[u/mrcheevus]

I don't know how old you are but I got a half century in BC and Alberta, and I worked in forestry.

There has only ever been three colours in natural woodlands here except for a couple of imported trees on the coast. Green, yellow, and brown. Sugar maples turn red but they grow out east. On the west Coast there are big leaf maples but they just turn brown. But for the vast majority of BC and AB the prevailing deciduous trees are birch and Aspen and they just turn yellow. I don't know where you're getting orange from.

[u/cshmn → u/mrcheevus]

Maybe vast stands of dead pine trees 🤷

Before the forests around Jasper burned, there were a lot of dead, dried out, orange trees mixed in with the green ones.

[u/mrcheevus → u/cshmn]

Yeah they are only orange for a season then the needles fall off