Juniper Trees ??

For those folks who  strongly advocate removal of Western Juniper from areas of Central Oregon, there are some things about removal programs that should be of interest.

Through observation, it looks to me like cutting down Western Junipers, regardless of age or size, or cutting them up for fence posts does not remove them.  Both actions create more junipers, with more robust growth.

Cutting one juniper tree to make multiple fence posts creates lines of uniformly aged and spaced trees.  One tree becomes many.  There is one illustration here, but there are many examples all over Central Oregon.  Examples are easy to spot once one starts looking.

Cutting down Juniper trees and letting them lie, or removing the cut off portion but leaving the stump, results in renewed, and in some cases, multiple new growth,  It is possible for multiple new trees to start and take root from one branch lying on the ground.   One cut down tree then becomes the generator for multiple tree starts.

One of the reasons people give for recommending juniper removal is that they use too much water.  The argument seems to be that if Junipers are removed, there will be more water.  In the area in which these two photographs were taken, two examples are in the very middle of an old water course.  Instead of increasing water by removing junipers, water use will increase because more junipers were started.

One of those mid water course examples is shown below.

All of the above examples are from publicly administrated lands.   My concern is that people have been convinced that removal of Western Juniper is a sound environmental choice and lend their support to agencies performing that removal regardless of actual results of such action.  If the reader is of the opinion that removal is appropriate, then please investigate the method that will be used and seek examples of management areas where those removal techniques were employed before lending support.

My preference is to leave Grand old Junipers that have been in place for hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of years.