We Have Our Work Cut Out For Us-Timber Management

badlander · #1 12/03/12, 08:23 PM

We have been on a waiting list for the Missouri Dept of Conservation Forester to come and look at our timber for months and finally, today was the day.

We knew we needed help with the 22 acres of hardwood timber that we have on our homestead. It had been over grazed by the previous Amish owner and wasn't recovering as fast as we were hoping it would.

All I can say is that the wait was well worth it. The young man who came out today spent over two hours with us, walking the timber and patiently telling us how to jump start it's recovery. It looks like we are going to be felling a lot of overgrowth over the next years in order to clear out the spindly trees and let the more mature trees thrive and stimulate new tree production from the roots of the trees we take down. We are looking at removing at least 4 out of every 5 trees in some areas. The good news is that none of the trees we have to take out are wider than 8 inches in diameter. Mostly hickory, elm and scrub oak varieties. Our timbers recovery will probably take years but we have the satisfaction of knowing that we are leaving a legacy for the generations to come.

What was invaluable was the amount of education that this young man poured into two old heads concerning habitat management and timber management. I would highly recommend taking advantage of your states foresters services. It is well worth your time.

It was a perfect day for this. 70 degrees...In December! I walked out into our shop tonight to discover a confused bat zipping about overhead.

If this is Global Warming I can take a few more days of it in December.

Micheal · #2 12/04/12, 06:10 AM

Ahh, the advantage of "timber management" ain't nothing that's got to be done NOW..... and you can always burn/use up the waste you need to remove.

badlander · #3 12/04/12, 06:22 AM

That's the general plan for the trees we take down as most of it is nice hardwood. One of the end results from running cattle in timber is that they will chew down new tree growth except for hickory so we have an abundance of those trees. He also found a lot of wild cherry which is toxic to cattle (but the silly things love it).

The Dept also offers a free burn clinic that teaches land owners how to safely burn off grass and debris. MODOC has been very beneficial to us as relatively new homesteaders. Our property has both grazing land and timber on it. The pasture is pretty well self maintained but he even told us how to make it healthier by burning.

Last time we tried that was disastrous for both of us so I think the class is in order.

haypoint · #4 12/04/12, 08:19 AM

Many years ago, I had a State Forester come in on a Federal cost share program. They paid me $25 an acre, incentive, to cut the trees on my woodlot that the Forester marked.
He spray painted the tree and its stump. So you could tell that I only cut what was marked. In addition, he marked the trees that were mature and ready for harvest. Then he calculated the board feet I could expect out of those mature trees.
I had lots of maple clumps. He selected one straight tree out of the bunch and marked the rest to be cut. With the roots just feeding one tree, instead of a dozen, growth increased.
I cut a lot out of that 20 acres, but it didn’t look much different.

badlander · #5 12/04/12, 01:56 PM

Wish we could get 25$ per acre. That would at least help towards chain saw oil and gas.

The biggest thing we have to tackle is doing burn off. Anybody on HT ever done controlled burns on you grasslands? What were the results? The reason I ask is that both DH and I had experience doing that prior to us meeting...his resulted in fire trucks and brush fires, mine didn't go that far but left a lasting burnt smoky taste in my mouth..

Darren · #6 12/04/12, 02:29 PM

We've done controlled burns to stop brush fires by creating a bare area the fire can't cross. A lot is weather dependent including strength and direction of the wind. If you have a natural area downwind of the area you want to burn like a road or water course hat can stop a fire, that would help.

It helps to know the wind patterns for your area and if and how they shift during the day. That can vary by location. Some of the material taught in the wildland firefighting courses would help you with that. You can get more variable situations near large bodies of water and more hilly or mountainous terrain. The state forester should be able to explain local conditions you need to know.

My usual recommendation is to talk to the county extension agent for pointers including who at the state land grant college may be the go to persons with the expertise on burning for grassland improvement. You could call the ag school directly.

badlander · #7 12/04/12, 02:49 PM

MODOC is offering a Burn clinic to teach the fine art of burn off.

I'm still worried about multiple firetrucks and water drops...you don't know our luck.

The good thing is that we do have some natural barriers in the form of some wet draws and ravines. Also we were advised to use our disc plow to create a fire stop.

Good thing we bought one about two months ago!

Darren · #8 12/04/12, 02:56 PM

Definitely go to the burn clinic. Make sure they explain all of the weather and time of day variables.

big rockpile · #9 12/04/12, 06:45 PM

Well there is a difference in a Forester and Wildlife Manager.Forester most the time wouldn't hear of burning off Timber,Wildlife Manager knows it brings on so much New Growth.

Was brought up burning every Spring.

We Have Our Work Cut Out For Us-Timber Management - Homesteading Questions

We Have Our Work Cut Out For Us-Timber Management - Homesteading Questions

big rockpile

unregistered168043 · #10 12/04/12, 06:59 PM

I thought the idea was to take down the bigger trees that were near the end of their growth, so the smaller ones could grow? Sounds like OP will be doing the opposite?

haypoint · #11 12/04/12, 07:01 PM

Around here, lots of folks burn hay fields in the Spring. We get so much late summer hay growth, but too cold and damp to cut and dry for hay. Burning insures there'll not be a bunch of dead stuff in the hay.
In most areas, if the hay field fire gets away from you, it jst burns the neighbor's hay field. I live in a more forested area. I was always fearful that my hay field fire would turn intoa forest fire. An old neighbor says it isn't a problem. Once a fire gets into the woods, it is damp and the fire dies out. We have mostly Maple tree forests.
I've seen in Florida where they burn a few hundred acres of planted long needle pine without any damage to the trees.
I know of some swampy, brushy areas the locals would burn off every year to stimulate the ground blueberries.

Darren · #12 12/04/12, 07:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darntootin

I thought the idea was to take down the bigger trees that were near the end of their growth, so the smaller ones could grow? Sounds like OP will be doing the opposite?

There's a forester in this area that manages his own acerage. He used to offer tours. He does the same thing. The idea is to cull the trees regardless of size to allow faster non-competitive growth by the larger trees to maximize income. The goal is to maximize the income over time for the owner. That means allowing some of the largest trees to continue to grow.

Loggers and some foresters will go for the biggest payout for them. The landowner and his future earnings don't count. Cutting all of the larger trees is a holdover from the past. In the Northeast that means you can harvest on 80 year intervals. The other method of much more frequent but smaller harvests numbers wise, results in more timber and more money.

DaleK · #13 12/04/12, 07:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darntootin

I thought the idea was to take down the bigger trees that were near the end of their growth, so the smaller ones could grow? Sounds like OP will be doing the opposite?

Depends how it's been managed (or not) in the past and what species are there. Typically you would do a combination, culling crooked or damaged trees or less desirable species, thinning out larger marketable trees where they're crowding but leaving some where they still have good growth potential or are needed for seed, and the same with the smaller ones.

If you were in a situation where somebody had high-graded the bush in the past (for example) you'd want to let a lot of the remaining larger trees grow.

badlander · #14 12/04/12, 08:09 PM

Bingo, Darren and Dalek.

The way it was explained to us is that grazing the timber has destroyed the new growth. The idea is to break up the canopy in order to allow trees that have fought their way to the top and developed symmetrical crowns to bush out and strengthen, you take out the smaller, skinnier, less perfect and bent trees around it. To do this, you select the best specimen in a group of five trees and eliminate all the less ideal trees that are vying for the sunlight. Now you might think as we did that this would kill the tree. Nope. The hardwoods, especially the more desirable oaks will rejuvinate from the trunk. That is where your new growth comes from. We were amazed to learn this. The new sprouts will come up from the roots around the trunk and in 10 years you will have a dominate sprout representing new growth. In the mean time those sprouts are producing buds for deer and birds to feed on and cover for ground game birds like quail and turkey.

The only place we are seeing new growth is where in the past, smaller oaks were harvested for some reason. No new growth is occurring because of the denseness of the canopy from trees competing for sunlight. One good example was showed us around our house where the trees are producing limbs growing towards our house where the land was cleared for building. On the sides of the trees facing the timber, limb growth was substantially less noticeable.

As for the burning, what we learned is that the burning will benefit quail and turkey in the long run, especially after we treat some areas for brome growth and allow native species to replace it.

Our ultimate outcome is to return our timber to a more desirable habitat for wildlife. We enjoy hunting but we enjoy wildlife more. It would be nice to see quail and pheasant in our timber as well as woodcock.

Alice In TX/MO · #15 12/04/12, 09:11 PM

Glad you have a good forester in northern Missouri. Ours stinks. Won't return phone calls, won't mark the trees in a timely manner. We've been waiting MONTHS. For us, there has been NO advantage of signing up for their program.

agmantoo · #16 12/05/12, 10:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by badlander

Bingo, Darren and Dalek.

The way it was explained to us is that grazing the timber has destroyed the new growth. The idea is to break up the canopy in order to allow trees that have fought their way to the top and developed symmetrical crowns to bush out and strengthen, you take out the smaller, skinnier, less perfect and bent trees around it. To do this, you select the best specimen in a group of five trees and eliminate all the less ideal trees that are vying for the sunlight. Now you might think as we did that this would kill the tree. Nope. The hardwoods, especially the more desirable oaks will rejuvinate from the trunk. That is where your new growth comes from. We were amazed to learn this. The new sprouts will come up from the roots around the trunk and in 10 years you will have a dominate sprout representing new growth. In the mean time those sprouts are producing buds for deer and birds to feed on and cover for ground game birds like quail and turkey.

The only place we are seeing new growth is where in the past, smaller oaks were harvested for some reason. No new growth is occurring because of the denseness of the canopy from trees competing for sunlight. One good example was showed us around our house where the trees are producing limbs growing towards our house where the land was cleared for building. On the sides of the trees facing the timber, limb growth was substantially less noticeable.

As for the burning, what we learned is that the burning will benefit quail and turkey in the long run, especially after we treat some areas for brome growth and allow native species to replace it.

Our ultimate outcome is to return our timber to a more desirable habitat for wildlife. We enjoy hunting but we enjoy wildlife more. It would be nice to see quail and pheasant in our timber as well as woodcock.

I have read your post several times. My interpretation of the above is that you will be doing similar to what the English do to grow their hedgerows. The term is coppicing. Coppicing will as I understand do many of the things you mentioned such benefiting wildlife, allow sprouts to generate from the stumps and create a supply of firewood indefinitely. I cannot or have not understood how it will generate quality lumber. Coppicing is a non timber (saw log) producing practice from my understanding. You may want to get a second opinion on the recommendation if you plan on selling timber in the future. I have hardwood timber, natural regeneration and some planted, but I concentrate on growing pine products for biomass and pole timber. Were you supplied with any literature on the process recommended?.. I would like to read more on the subject if there is a source you can direct me.

RedTartan · #17 12/07/12, 08:45 AM

Marking this thread so I can find it again later.

Of course, if you all want to talk about this more, yay

badlander · #18 12/07/12, 09:41 AM

For some reason my reply didn't post.

Here is the link: http://mdc4.mdc.mo.gov/Documents/318.pdf

Hopefully it will get through this time.