Collaborating on Douglas-fir with Oregon State University

31 August – 21 September

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We have the pleasure of welcoming Nate Osborne this week to INRA in Champenoux. Nate is a visiting doctoral researcher who will work with the LEFoB unit for three weeks this month until September 21. Nate is working towards his PhD under the supervision of Professor Doug Maguire of Oregon State University, a Guistina Professor of Forest Managment and Director of the Center for Intensive Planted-Forest Silviculture (CIPS), which inspired our GIS “Cooperative data on the growth of forest stands”. Both are specialists in growth, yield and wood quality modeling for Douglas-fir and attended together the MoMoWood conference in early November 2013.

Nate describes his objectives during his brief stay in France:

Our first project is to integrate the ORGANON model into the Capsis platform.  Organon is an individual tree growth, yield and wood quality model for Douglas-fir in the Pacific Northwest developed at Oregon State University by the Center for Intensive Planted-forest Silviculture.  

Our second project is to scan Douglas-fir trees from France using computer tomography (CT).  With processed CT images, we plan to refit models developed in the Pacific Northwest for macroscopic wood structures in Douglas-fir.  Currently, we are in the experimental design phase of this project.  During my three week stay, I will work in Nancy and Montpellier.  On Monday, September 8, I will describe some work done at Oregon State University to model branch angles and implied branch pith curvature at the Doc/Post-Doctorate seminar hosted by LABEX.  On September 19 of my stay, I’ll make a presentation within the LERFoB about how to use the Organon growth and yield model.

Nate will come back to INRA next year to take part in the tomographic analysis of trees sampled in the GIS plots. Nate’s visit is supported by LabEx ARBRE.