Coppice Methods

Coppice methods use vegetative means to regenerate species; tree crops originate mainly from shoots and suckers, and are grown in relatively short rotations (Helms 1998, Society of American Foresters 1989). Coppice methods are applicable only to the species and individual trees that have a capacity to sprout or sucker. That requirement limits coppice systems mainly to stands of broadleaved species, and to trees of young to moderate ages.

The coppice method involves clearfelling all trees in the original stand in blocks, strips, or patches. Clearfelling allocates total space to the new age class, and makes maximum resources available to the sprouts and suckers. Because the new shoots live off well-established and large root systems of the parent trees, with many absorbing and actively growing tips, new coppice grows rapidly and forms a closed canopy sooner than in even-aged seedling stands (Nyland 1996).

Two variants of coppice methods are distinguished by whether they include trees of seed origin. Simple coppice methods retain only trees of sprout origin, while the coppice-with-standards method rentains both sprout- and seed-origin trees (Nyland 1996).