VALUE AND USE
SPECIES: Populus grandidentata | Bigtooth Aspen 



WOOD PRODUCTS VALUE : 
Bigtooth aspen wood is light colored, straight grained, finely textured,
and soft.  It is primarily used for pulp, but is also used to make
particle board and structural panels.  Minor uses include log homes,
pallets, boxes, match splints, chopsticks, hockey stick components, and
ladders [33,43].

Bigtooth aspen bark is pelletized for fuel and supplemental cattle feed
[29].



IMPORTANCE TO LIVESTOCK AND WILDLIFE : 
Bigtooth aspen provides food and cover for wildlife.  Moose and
white-tailed deer browse bigtooth aspen [3,60].  Beaver eat bark,
leaves, twigs, and branches [29].

Aspen provides the basic habitat for ruffed grouse over much of its
range.  Ruffed grouse feed on the leaves in the summer, staminate flower
buds in the winter, and catkins prior to the breeding season.  In
feeding, ruffed grouse prefer quaking aspen to bigtooth aspen [20].

Approximately 116 nongame bird species breed in aspen-birch (Betula
spp.) forests [5].

Cavity nesters use bigtooth aspen [21,65].  In a mixed hardwood forest
in central New York, bigtooth aspen accounted for 25 percent of the
trees with cavities although it made up only 12 percent of the potential
cavity trees sampled [65].



PALATABILITY : 
Bigtooth aspen leaves are highly palatable to ruffed grouse [20].



NUTRITIONAL VALUE : 
Dry-weight bigtooth aspen browse averages 5.0 percent protein, 3.4
percent ether extract, 14.8 percent crude fiber, and 26.6 percent
nitrogen-free extract [61]. The simulation of animal use by clipping did
not alter the nutritional quality of bigtooth aspen browse [11].

Other normal foliar nutrient levels have been reported [9].


COVER VALUE : 
Bigtooth aspen provides cover for ruffed grouse.  The best cover is
provided by 5- to 25-year-old sapling stands with 3,000 to 8,000 stems
per acre (7,000-20,000 stems/ha) [20].




VALUE FOR REHABILITATION OF DISTURBED SITES : 
Bigtooth aspen is of limited importance for revegetating coal mine
spoils.  Bigtooth aspen has been planted on mine spoils in Ohio and West
Virginia [63].

Bigtooth aspen naturally regenerated on acidic sites in Pennsylvania,
especially on sites where the soil had been ameliorated [26].

Bigtooth aspen regenerated naturally on barren, acidic,
metal-contaminated soil near Sudbury, Ontario.  The soil, contaminated
by smelter fallout, had been treated with a surface application of
limestone.  Bigtooth aspen apparently colonized the site from off-site
seed [67].



OTHER USES AND VALUES : 
NO-ENTRY


MANAGEMENT CONSIDERATIONS : 
In the literature, the management of bigtooth aspen is rarely
distinguished from that of quaking aspen.

In order to regenerate a well-stocked vigorous aspen stand, the
overstory must be removed [29,41].  Removing apical dominance stimulates
aspen suckering [41,64].  If the parent stand is not harvested, it can
be removed by shearing, chainsaw felling, girdling, treating with
herbicide, or prescribed burning [41,42].  Discing and roller chipping
are not recommended because these techniques damage the roots [41].

For optimum sucker density the parent aspen stand must have had at
least 20 square feet basal area per acre (4.6 sq m/ha).  At age two, an
adequately stocked sucker stand exceeds 4,000 to 5,000 stems per acre
(10,000-12,000 stems/ha) [41].

Although aspen groves thin naturally, additional thinning improves
growth [29].  When thinning, bigtooth aspen should be favored over
quaking aspen because of its superior growth and resistance to disease
and insects, especially on dry sites [2,41].  Clones with superior
growth and stem form should also be favored.  Yields differ as much as
200 percent between clones on the same site [41].  Barnes [7] has
developed a list of characteristics to use when distinguishing between
clones in any given season.

Only one thinning is recommended for aspen forests managed for for pulp.
The stand should be thinned at age 30, leaving 240 trees per acre (590
trees/ha).  Two thinnings are recommended if sawtimber is desired, one
at age 10 leaving 550 trees per acre (1,360 trees/ha) and one at age 30
leaving 200 trees per acre (490 trees/ha).  The final cut should be
delayed for as long as the stand is healthy [41].

Repeated harvest of aspen on a site, especially by the whole-tree
method, may reduce long-term productivity [2].  Short-term rotation
management also reduces a stand's long-term health.  Repeated
short-rotation aspen harvest increases the colonization rate of
Armillaria root rot (Armillaria mellea) [57].

Regeneration failure of aspen occurs if roots have been damaged by
harvesting equipment.  Aspen harvested on flat or gently rolling sites
early in the summer may also have regeneration problems because of
saturated soils [8].

Genetic improvement research on aspen has been conducted in the past two
decades because of the increasing importance of aspen as a source of raw
material for the pulp and paper industries.  However, most recent work
has concentrated on quaking aspen [4].

Bigtooth aspen responded to fertilizer (nitrogen, phosphorus, and lime
in various combinations) with increased height, diameter, and volume
growth during the 10-year period following the treatments.  However,
mortality of quaking aspen fertilized with nitrogen suggests further
study is necessary before utilizing widespread fertilizer application in
bigtooth aspen stands [49].

Herbicides control bigtooth aspen [34,66].

Bigtooth aspen is more disease resistant than quaking aspen.  The most
serious disease of bigtooth aspen is Hypoxylon canker (Hypoxylon
mammatum) [29,68].  Other rots, fungi, and root decay affect this
species [29].  Bigtooth aspen is a preferred host of gypsy moth.  Death
occurs when nearly complete defoliation by gypsy moth is followed by a
fungal infection by Armillaria spp. [22].

By cutting trees and damming waterways, beaver destroy large aspen
stands [29].

Biomass estimates have been reported for bigtooth aspen [36,39].

Related categories for Species: Populus grandidentata | Bigtooth Aspen