Range Forest Officer recruitment Stand Tending, Thinning & Pruning: practice questions

Question 1 · easy

Weeding in a young plantation means:

1. Removing the poorest trees of the crop once canopy has closed to concentrate growth on the rest
2. Removing or suppressing herbs, grasses, shrubs and climbers that compete with young seedlings
3. Cutting the lower branches of crop trees to produce knot-free timber on the butt log
4. Felling dead and damaged trees after a storm so that their timber can still be sold

Question 2 · easy

Which of these is a harmful effect of climbers on crop trees?

1. Fixing nitrogen that doubles the growth of the host tree
2. Shading the soil so that weeds cannot grow under the crop trees at any time
3. Protecting the stem from all insect attack for many years
4. Twining that deforms stems and binds crowns

Question 3 · easy

A thinning is best defined as:

1. A felling at the end of the rotation that removes the whole crop before regeneration of the next crop begins on the same coupe
2. The removal of herbs and grasses around seedlings in the first years after planting
3. The removal of lower branches from crop trees to produce clear, knot-free timber
4. A felling in an immature crop to improve growth and form of the remaining trees without permanently breaking canopy

Question 4 · easy

Removing every third row in a plantation regardless of tree quality is an example of:

1. Crown thinning
2. Mechanical or row thinning
3. Selection thinning
4. Low thinning grade D

Question 5 · easy

In Indian ordinary thinning grades, the A grade removes:

1. All suppressed and dominated trees as well
2. Only dead, dying, diseased and whippy trees
3. Some codominants and all dominated trees
4. Every second dominant tree in the stand

Question 6 · easy

A thinning schedule states:

1. The nursery sowing dates and the seed rates for each species planted
2. The prices at which thinnings must be sold in each year of the rotation to local depots in the division
3. When the first thinning is made, the thinning cycle, the intensity and the stocking to remain
4. The names of the contractors who will carry out each thinning

Question 7 · easy

Salvage cutting is the removal of:

1. Healthy dominant trees to stimulate the growth of suppressed trees beneath them
2. Herbs and grasses competing with seedlings in the first two years after planting on the coupe
3. Lower branches of crop trees so that the logs contain clear wood at harvest
4. Trees killed or badly damaged by fire, wind, insects or disease, to use their wood before it deteriorates

Question 8 · easy

Natural pruning is:

1. Cutting branches with a saw during the dormant season to produce clear wood on the butt log
2. Removing whole trees from the lower crown classes
3. Browsing of shoots by deer and cattle
4. The death and shedding of shaded lower branches, and healing over of the stubs

Question 9 · easy

Girdling (ring-barking) kills a tree by:

1. Cutting the tree at ground level so that it falls immediately and cannot sprout again
2. Pruning all branches from the lower half of the stem
3. Removing a continuous ring of bark, phloem and cambium so that the roots starve
4. Covering the crown with a net so it receives no light

Question 10 · medium

In Indian thinning grades, the B grade (light thinning) removes dead, dying, diseased and whippy trees and also:

1. Dominated trees
2. Suppressed trees
3. Some codominants
4. Dominant trees