Ep. 600 - The Ecological Side of Silviculture

Matt Candeias (0:00)

Conversations like you're about to hear do not happen unless you support In Defense of Plants. And now more than ever, we need conversations like this to reach as many ears as possible. One of the best ways to help keep In Defense of Plants up and running is to become a patron over at patreon.com/indefense of Plants. In return for a tiny bit of support each month, you will get access to a completely separate podcast. It explores a lot of really fun gardening topics, everything from seed collection and storage to growing native plants, the struggles of trying to garden in different climates, and so much more. It's a heck of a lot of fun. We're learning so much and we're trying to share that with you. So come on and join the Patreon over at patreon.com/indefense of Plants and help keep this show up and running in the process. I hope to see you over there. But in the meantime, on with the show.

Hello everyone and welcome to the In Defense of Plants Podcast, the official podcast of indefenseofplants.com. What's up? This is your host, Matt. Welcome to the show. How is everyone doing this week? I'm doing great because we are talking about silviculture, the art and science of controlling the establishment, growth, composition, health, and quality of our forests. Forest management has never been a more important topic globally, but especially here in North America, and understanding how we can make this process more ecologically friendly, support biodiversity, and manage forest health into the future is such an interesting topic. Joining us to talk about this is Dr. Ben Knapp, who spends a lot of time thinking about forest regeneration and restoration. As you're going to hear, this is all about where land use history and planning come together to make a better forest for all of the species, including us. So I don't want to keep you from it any longer. Let's just jump right into it. Without further ado, here's my conversation with Dr. Ben Knapp. I hope you enjoy.

All right, Dr. Ben Knapp, welcome to the podcast. It is so great to have you here. Let's start off with an introduction. Tell everyone a little bit about who you are and what it is you do.

Ben Knapp (2:03)

Yeah. Thank you very much, Matt. I'm very happy to be here with you today. My name is Ben Knapp and I'm a professor in the School of Natural Resources at University of Missouri. My area of study is silviculture, and that's something that a lot of people do not know what it is.

Even students coming into our program when they start, a lot of times don't know what it is. Basically, it is a study of the way that we manage forests, the tools and techniques that we use in order to work with forests for different objectives, a whole suite of those objectives, which can range from the production of timber and other products to ecosystem services, biodiversity, wildlife habitat, or things that are more hands-off and set aside, that can be a management objective that we do within the field as well.

Matt Candeias (2:57)

Awesome. And what brought you to this field? I mean, were you just an outdoorsy person growing up, or did you have a specific interest in forestry, silviculture, those types of things, or really just kind of stumbled into it?

Ben Knapp (3:09)

Yeah. I think about this a fair bit because I am often talking to students about kind of pathways. And growing up, I always loved being outside. I liked fishing. I liked camping. But I had very little exposure to forestry and what it is and what it isn't. And so I think back in the high school days, I recognized there are a number of things that I did not want to do. And I was kind of looking around for things that I did want to do.

And I was fortunate to have a high school class in natural resources that touched on forestry and kind of led me to that as a undergraduate program at Purdue University. And then sort of took steps to figuring out what I wanted from there. So it was never just a clear focused vision on Sylvan culture. Like I mentioned, a lot of people don't even know what that is, entering college programs.

But as I experienced more things and saw the value in the area to public at large, lots of different sort of ways that that comes into value for our society, I became really passionate about it, developed the research interest and kind of took it from there. I've been in the position at University of Missouri since 2012 So getting some years here and just absolutely love what I do.