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General Forestry => Ask The Forester => Topic started by: Good Feller on September 20, 2008, 10:18:26 PM

Title: marking trees
Post by: Good Feller on September 20, 2008, 10:18:26 PM
How do you guys mark timber for harvest AND keep regeneration in mind????  I think I've asked this question before but I'm still a little confused.  I know there is a ton of variables and all sites are different.  I'm just trying to figure out how I can mark the nice big stuff so there is incentive for a sale,,, yet leave enough seed trees to insure proper regeneration.  Also, Im worried about highgrading if I mark too many good ones.   
The species I'm concerned about right now is walnut and white oak.  There's got to be some rules of thumb.  Is there a percentage per acre of seed trees that I should leave?     
Title: Re: marking trees
Post by: SwampDonkey on September 21, 2008, 06:51:21 AM
A tree marking guide such as the one linked to below may help you out.

Ontario Tree Marking Guide (http://www.mnr.gov.on.ca/en/Business/Forests/Publication/MNR_E000526P.html)

Your marking is based on the cruise. Thus, the diameter distribution, basal area, crown position, age and quality. To ensure no high grading there are principals to follow as I think any guide such as this will discuss. I know up here that 16 m2/ha is on the low side for post harvest residual basal area, 18 m2/ha is more comfortable (70-90 ft2/acre). Your priority is the remove poor quality, although if your market isn't there it's a challenge.
Title: Re: marking trees
Post by: Good Feller on September 21, 2008, 09:17:31 AM
So from a forester's perspective priority one is to always mark the poor stuff first (what if the site only contains poor stuff?)

After that what?  Mix in a few higher quality trees if the site allows for it, to make the sell more attractive?   

I read in that guide to leave 3 seed trees per acre minimum.  That link had a lot of info. btw. lol. :o  If this can't be summed up with less than 279 pgs that explains why this is such a difficult skill to learn. 



Title: Re: marking trees
Post by: Tom on September 21, 2008, 09:41:53 AM
Yes, that is why so much time is spent in college and time recommended as an apprentice before a forester generally hangs out his shingle to practice what he has learned.   It's not just "working in the woods".  It is a bonafide profession.  :)
Title: Re: marking trees
Post by: Good Feller on September 21, 2008, 05:47:44 PM
 
I can remember spending hours upon hours learning the scientific names of trees....  that's useful.   Oh yeah and they taught us tree ID striclty by using the leaves.... that's helpful in the middle of winter.   
I also spent a ton of time learning about tree species and diseases of Southern trees and trees out West.  That's useful here in the midwest.  That's the problem with college they try to throw EVERYTHING at you. We didn't spend anytime on marking trees, grading logs.
  
 
Title: Re: marking trees
Post by: Ron Scott on September 21, 2008, 06:06:06 PM
Didn't your college have a "summer camp" as such where classess were taight in actual forestry field applications?? Marking timber was one of such classes and actual application in the field.

If not, try and obtain the marking guides that are published for the tree species you will be working in. Copies should be available from your college or the USDA-Forest Service, local extension service, etc.
Title: Re: marking trees
Post by: SwampDonkey on September 21, 2008, 06:24:31 PM
Continuing education is paramount my friend. Many colleges and forest tech schools have continuing education courses. I've taken tree marking, directional felling and hardwood management courses over the years. Some were even offered with local woodlot owner groups. And as Ron asked about summer camps. We also had a fall camp to, in the fourth year.
Title: Re: marking trees
Post by: Clark on September 21, 2008, 11:24:04 PM
And now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Quote from: Good Feller on September 20, 2008, 10:18:26 PM
How do you guys mark timber for harvest AND keep regeneration in mind????...Is there a percentage per acre of seed trees that I should leave?

One of the first things you need to recognize is whether or not the stand is in need of regeneration?  I've marked plenty of red pine stands where regeneration is not a factor; in a thinning softwoods it normally isn't.

If the stand is all poor quality as you allude to, the best option might be to regenerate.  If it is higher quality stuff it might be better thinning it out and doing some sort of crop tree release. 

In relatively intolerant hardwoods such as white oak and walnut (and heavy-seeded in this case) you are looking at a more difficult to regenerate stand.  Most often some sort of shelterwood method of regenerating would be employed in this sort of stand, but then you run into taking enough to allow the seedlings enough light to grow and not taking too many seed trees.  It might be an academic debate of whether or not it is a true shelterwood or seed-tree cut.

I doubt that your questions can be completely answered on a forum; real, solid advice would be better given on the ground at the site where you want to do the harvest.

Clark
Title: Re: marking trees
Post by: Ron Wenrich on September 22, 2008, 11:00:40 PM
I had the same complaints about college, and at the time, I took it to one of the professors that I really looked up to.  He wasn't allowed to teach much, since he only had a Masters instead of a PhD.  But, he had a ton of experience that went from British Columbia to Brazil and was heavy to the industry side.

One day I asked him why they didn't teach us how to do much in the field.  His response was that they felt they should teach us why we do things, and they felt we were bright enough to figure out how.

I wasn't very satisfied with that answer, but it had stuck with me for several years.  Then, when I was finally working in the woods some 8 years after college, it finally dawned on me.  Its not how you do things, its why.  Why you mark a certain way is how you end up with the end result.  Why something happens is how you avoid it or recreate it.  After I had figured out why, the how part was pretty easy. 

I also heard another wise old sage say that when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

So, if you're going out there and marking only the best stuff out of a stand, there isn't too much why to it.  You're just another one of thousands who only care about how much money you can make now.  But, when I do work, my how is to leave things in better shape than I found them.  Why?  Because its the right thing to do.
Title: Re: marking trees
Post by: Splinter on September 23, 2008, 12:29:06 PM
College fills your box with tools, it up to you how you use them once out.
Best way to learn how to use them is work with a real pro for a few years, whatever your field. Learning to use them yourself is always an option, depends how many mistakes you can afford.


D
Title: Re: marking trees
Post by: Good Feller on September 23, 2008, 03:42:38 PM
How about this.....

Priority 1
Mark the damaged stuff,,, insect, disease, ice/tornadoe, etc.

Priority 2
Mark trees that appear to be very mature and won't make it until the next harvest time.

Priority 3
Mark trees of poor form or undesirable speicies.

Last priority
Mark trees of excellent form and very desirable.  Only do this where the stand appears to have an abundance of these types. 

This seems like good logic to me. 
Title: Re: marking trees
Post by: Ron Wenrich on September 23, 2008, 04:39:30 PM
Two other things to look at.  Regeneration, if this is going to be a harvest before the final harvest.  It would make a difference which trees to take ahead.

Final stocking levels.  If your level is too low, it may encourage regeneration of unwanted species and it will increase the occurrence of epicormic branching.  That will cause a degrade in the residual stand.  Too many guys disregard this aspect and I see it every day in a log that gets opened up into lumber.
Title: Re: marking trees
Post by: BaldBob on September 23, 2008, 06:16:49 PM
Good feller,
I think you are missing the point of what Ron is telling you. Before you make out a list of what you are going to do, you need to make out a list of the things you are trying to accomplish with this harvest (this list should be developed with the landowner in order to meet the objectives he/she has for their property). 
Possible goals might be: optimizing the net present value of the stand, maintaining stand diversity, optimizing wildlife values, setting the stand up to provide the maximum return at some specific future date (e.g. retirement, children's education), provide an aesthetically pleasing condition (as defined by the landowner),  provide the maximum income now without destroying future values, provide for as even flow of income as possible. Some of these goals are mutually exclusive of each other or at least somewhat antagonistic to each other.
Your first job is to work with the landowner to develop a realistic set of goals and to educate him as to what is realistically possible. If you decide how you are going to mark before setting up objectives, it would just be a lucky accident if the end result meets the landowners objectives. Having just one set of marking guidelines for all landowners means that you have decided what's best for all of them regardless of what they may want or need.  Once you know what it is you are trying to accomplish, what you learned in forest economics, silviculture, plant physiology, and forest pathology should guide you in what you need to do to accomplish those goals.
Title: Re: marking trees
Post by: woodtroll on September 25, 2008, 10:19:22 AM
You have asked enough questions about this woods and the landowners objectives.
College education is just a start. You have to learn from where you are in time and location. And you are trying. Stick to it.

You are working with hardwoods, oak and walnut.  Any established seedlings/saplings of these desirable species?
What amounts? Do you have pole sized walnut and oaks present what quality?
To give you a generic site unseen prescription...
If you have regen established, open it up. release them from overtop competition.
These species need light to develop from seedling/sapling to pole size. They just need to be there. If they are not there you may want to harvest less or even thin. Get the regen established then implement a harvest. It may take a few years for natural regeneration to develop.
With a hardwood stand in your area you may drop your ba to 65sqft if the regen is present. This should include any thinning/TSI practices. This will allow your stand to grow in to a good stocking level for good growth.
What you listed is a good list. Just remember you will not likely be able to sell just low grade. You will need to figure your markets out. What will sell or what will kill your sale.
You may try to find time to walk a harvest in your area. See what the loggers are taking, visit mills see what they can use. We all know that good clean logs sell,  it is the marginal ones that are difficult.
Title: Re: marking trees
Post by: Bothy_Loon on October 18, 2008, 02:29:56 AM
Quote from: Ron Wenrich on September 22, 2008, 11:00:40 PM
I had the same complaints about college, and at the time, I took it to one of the professors that I really looked up to.  He wasn't allowed to teach much, since he only had a Masters instead of a PhD.  But, he had a ton of experience that went from British Columbia to Brazil and was heavy to the industry side.

One day I asked him why they didn't teach us how to do much in the field.  His response was that they felt they should teach us why we do things, and they felt we were bright enough to figure out how.

I wasn't very satisfied with that answer, but it had stuck with me for several years.  Then, when I was finally working in the woods some 8 years after college, it finally dawned on me.  Its not how you do things, its why.  Why you mark a certain way is how you end up with the end result.  Why something happens is how you avoid it or recreate it.  After I had figured out why, the how part was pretty easy. 

I also heard another wise old sage say that when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

So, if you're going out there and marking only the best stuff out of a stand, there isn't too much why to it.  You're just another one of thousands who only care about how much money you can make now.  But, when I do work, my how is to leave things in better shape than I found them.  Why?  Because its the right thing to do.
I like the way you think. Makes a lot of sense to me.
Title: Re: marking trees
Post by: moonhill on October 18, 2008, 06:31:37 AM
I don't get into this section much.   I work on a very small scale and found the comments interesting.  I sit on 200 acres +/-.  I buy most of my logs.  My lot was heavily cut twice in the last 25 years(time flies).  The operation was a take the best leave the rest approach.  Than the owner sold, I bought, cheap.  I use the remaining stands to select the odd or, I need it today, logs.  I don't have much to choose from but I make use of it.   The ones I select are the lower grade trees.  I look at the nicer ones and wait.  I am sure some I will never use, the next generation will.  We are coming up on the perfect time of the year to be in the woods, I'm looking forward to it. 

As I was going through this thread I came across the term "epicormic branching".  Would anyone care to expound on this.  Thanks,   Tim
Title: Re: marking trees
Post by: SwampDonkey on October 18, 2008, 07:39:30 AM
Epicormic branching occurs when you open a stand up, or if you will, remove too much crown, to allow too much full sunlight to hit the forest floor. There are dormant, advantageous buds kept alive under the bark of trees, both hardwood and softwood, that will respond to the increased light intensity. This will promote them to break and grow new limbs on what used to be a smooth clear bole for 20 feet. Now you have new limbs coming out where old ones died under low light conditions as the tree was growing and developing. Interestingly enough however, in many hardwood species that have reached maturity and canopy dominance this is not a problem. It is a lot more likely to occur on young trees. I have seen several old sugar maple and yellow birch opened up to full sun all around them and they don't develop epicormic branches at all. But, young pole wood and immature wood will turn into a brushed up pole.
Title: Re: marking trees
Post by: pappy19 on October 18, 2008, 01:43:32 PM
At Louisiana Tech, you get in alot of field experience, not just book learning. When I took freshman forestry, you were taught where the first sawmill was located and other very important and interesting information. We did get alot of field trips to watch logging and mill operations and summer camp was all about field exercises. Thing was that by the time you got to junior-senior summer camp, you were locked in to becoming a forester whether you liked it or not. When I graduated and started on my masters program, I got to teach freshman forestry. I threw the regular freshman forestry book away and I taught these mush-heads everything that they would be doing as a grunt forester. In the classroom we discussed timber sales, marking, finding corners, courthouse investigations for tax maps, deeds, etc. Then on field days we used what they learned for real.

Marking timber is as much of an art as is being an artist and some are better than others. As has been said here, most of the way you mark is dependent upon the landowner's desires for the results. If all they want is good wildlife habitat, then the old rotten, holes, dead branches, etc. are fine to leave; then mark the good stuff. If the LO wants his stand to be healthy and growing, then remove all of the diseased, forked, low quality trees/species and only remove enough of the high quality trees to make it profitable for the logger. A recreation or development cut is more like an understory removal with mature or dominant trees being left. As a general rule of thumb, as you look up into the stand from below, if branches are touching, something should get cut.

Like I said, you can get 100 foresters to mark a stand and you will get 100 different marks. That's not a bad thing in and of itself, but some timber markers are better than others.
Title: Re: marking trees
Post by: Ron Wenrich on October 18, 2008, 03:19:05 PM
Or you could get one forester to mark it 100 different times and it will still be different each time.   :D
Title: Re: marking trees
Post by: Tom on October 18, 2008, 06:41:24 PM
I just want to make a comment on my perception of Forestry Education.

I have read, in several places, where Marking Trees, Cruising, timber sales, in-the-woods-jobs, etc., are entry level jobs.  That makes me a little uncomfortable as a land owner.  If I have my life, a generation before me, and probably a generation following, dependent on the knowledge my timber cruiser has assembled, to get me the most bang for my buck, as well as improve the health of my woodlot, I want a person, in an industry that considers this the ultimate proof of his knowledge.  Why would these be entry level jobs?

Why would I hire someone to mark and oversee the harvest of my trees who had no, or little, formal training and no experience?  I haven't the years on this earth nor the deep pockets to train a forester.  I'm hiring them to look after me, not me after them. :)
Title: Re: marking trees
Post by: SwampDonkey on October 18, 2008, 07:38:07 PM
Depending on jurisdiction and public versus private land. I know forestry companies here will let new blood do early silviculture surveys such as planting, survival and pre-commercial thinning assessments. You will not be let loose fresh out of college to do inventory, forest development surveys, harvest layout, trails, marking ..etc. without a big brother looking over the work. However on small woodlots, non industrial, you will often find new graduates doing the work for land owners to develop a management plan. And in some jurisdictions, someone is checking a sample of the work being completed for the woodlot owner. Often it will be folks in a woodlot owner group. But, not everywhere and not all work. Work of summer students studying forestry is often reported by some employers to the University they are attending.  ;)

The first cruise I ever did for a woodlot owner had the logger all upset and saying the wood isn't there. No way it can be right. After the wood was cut the logger said the volume harvested was pretty much the same as the estimate in the cruise and every time I meet the woodlot owner he brags up my work and shakes my hand. I remember the day I presented it to the owner, a full spreadsheet out over the hood of the pickup showing how I calculated the figures. Seems funny now, had to be there I guess. :D

One stand in particular was 80 foot tall large tooth, no canker, straight as a gun barrel. The logger couldn't believe the wood in there even when he was cutting it. :D
Title: Re: marking trees
Post by: Ron Wenrich on October 18, 2008, 11:37:02 PM
Tom, I think you make a very good point.  When I was doing summer work for BLM, they wouldn't think of letting anyone like me mark wood.  I was just good enough to splash on paint, and measure dbh.  The real foresters told me which trees to mark.  But, what did make a difference is that I could ask questions.

I have seen guys come fresh out of college, and start selling timber or buying timber.  I've also seen guys justify all types of work.  The prescription for the stand is done by taking a good survey of what's on the ground, then plotting that out, and figuring a good direction for the stand.

Unfortunately, private landowners don't want to follow that route.  They want someone to walk through the stand, give a gut reaction, and hold on to their pants seat while they mark the stand.  I've done it myself, and I never liked it.

The best prescription for any landowner is to get a forest inventory, and develop a management plan.  Then timber should be marked after the inventory.  The proficiency of the forester is only as good as the basis of their planning.  I've seen some old foresters that do lousy, or should I say lazy, work.
Title: Re: marking trees
Post by: pappy19 on October 22, 2008, 10:33:45 PM
Like I said, some foresters are better artists than others. No different than any other resource educated person. More has to do with the type of education the mush head received. If it is a college with an enviro/habitat/anti-harvest education, how do you think they will handle their first job as a timber marker? Or their 100th job? Most forestry schools today teach habitat management, not forest management as it is not politically correct to cut trees anymore. It is a sad situation.
Title: Re: marking trees
Post by: Rocky_Ranger on October 25, 2008, 08:32:50 PM
Still politically correct in my neck of the woods, 30 million feet a year (and then some).  Nothing like seeing forest management for future generations in action and doing a darn good job of what we are doing.  The comment on young foresters not marking timber and as to why?  Look at our food joints; minimum wage, young kids (relatively) feeding us meals - now that's scary!
Title: Re: marking trees
Post by: Rick Alger on October 28, 2008, 08:33:04 AM
Another thing good timber markers do is mark wood with the logger in mind - no leave trees on turns in the trails, small groups of trees instead of random singles where appropriate, straight trails and acute extraction angles etc.
Title: Re: marking trees
Post by: Ron Scott on October 28, 2008, 11:26:47 AM
Ditto! Mark the trees so that "all activities" of the intended harvest operation can be performed in an efficient and effective manner with the least impact to the landscape and residual stand.