Few regenerated stands have grown to maturity in the Interior of British Columbia, which makes it difficult to estimate the amount of merchantable wood that we can expect to harvest from these stands. There are opinions that, with planting and stand tending practices such as juvenile spacing and fertilization, the growth rate of regenerated areas will be higher than the estimates used in the base case analysis. This could result in an increase in the short- and long-term timber supply.
A test of the possible impacts of a 10 per cent increase in the growth rate of regenerated stands in the Kootenay Lake Timber Supply Area did not show this result. The long-term timber supply did increase, but the short-term supply was unchanged (TSAR p.23).
