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Thinning question

Started by Bill in U.P., December 20, 2006, 09:49:34 PM

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Bill in U.P.

First of all I'd like to say how impressed with this site I am. I've been reading for hours on it the last week and finally registered. My question is-I live on 40ac. of maple, hemlock, balsam fir. 20 of which the previous owner had logged pretty hard about 10 yrs ago. This 20ac stand is coming back with balsam and maple sprouts from the stumps. What if any ia the best way to thin these maple sprouts(5 to 15) sprouts per stump about 15' tall? I'd like to have the maple not become bushy and grow for future sawlog/firewood use. Thanks.

PineNut

Welcome to the forum Bill. There is a lot of expertise here on many different subjects. I am not qualified to answer your question but am sure that there are a number of members that can.

PineNut

SwampDonkey

Hi Bill,

Welcome to the forum. I have been involved with thinning exactly the same stand types your describing, for probably 17 years. I have been involved with the monitoring and quality checking end of it and the actual brush or thinning saw end as well. What we recommend is to let the hardwood reach close to 18 feet, and up to 30 feet in height for pre-commercial thinning. Any shorter and you get too much suckering, any taller and it's hard to severe and get to the ground. Also, you run into problems with taller trees and skinny trunks with really tall hardwoods. With the sap flow starting in the spring, the tree tops can do the toe touch and ruin the quality of the stem.

Ok, to get on track. Now that you have a ball park figure on height, you need proper spacing as well to cut down on stem sprouting (epicormic branching). We like to leave trees 6 feet apart for trees 18-22 feet and 6.5-7 feet apart with trees taller than that, up to 30 feet in height. The crowns will fill in within 3 years if you follow this spacing and the stump suckering will be slowed. Stumps will sprout, but will be suppressed with tighter spacing.

When you come to a hardwood clump with your brush saw, select the tallest tree with the best form to leave. We leave up to 2 per stump if spacing is uniform. In more open patches leave 3 stems per clump. What we find is red maple sprouts more readily on old and young trees that got harvested. Old harvested sugar maple trees won't sucker much or none at all. Also, when cutting be aware that cutting from the right edge of the blade will give you less control and you may often find the saw being thrown to the side. This can result in injuring your leave trees because the blade gets deflected with quite a thrust some times. You will often find cutting in a clump can be difficult. This is also where the greatest risk of injury to leave trees in the clump occurs. Work on the left edge of the blade to save your trees and to reduce chances of body injury. The easiest method is to thin trees around the clump, space the trees as per usual. This opens up the work area, so when you start cutting them clumps, which are generally taller, they can be directed in between the spaces trees around the perimeter of the clump. This saves you from pulling your guts out when trying to bring the cut stems down.

Work with the hill also, from bottom to top and the cut stems will fall over your shoulder. Or if you work along the contour of the hill the cut stems can be directed down hill. Never work from the top to the bottom of the hill unless you cutting a work path to the back of your block.

With your fir or hemlock, they should be close to 10 feet before thinning and up to 25-27feet tall. Any taller and they get hard to cut and get down. The girth of fir can be twice as big as maple at 25 feet. You can go wider with softwood 6-8 feet spacing and be sure to cut the lowest live whorl off. Now with that 8 foot spacing we are talking of a site with > 75 % softwood. If your site is mixed like you have explained, space the trees as described for hardwood.

To judge your production. I know it's not a big deal on your own ground. But, give you a sense of accomplishment anyway....Take a role of flagging tape and a compass. Mark out a 1 acre chunk (85 paces along the wide side at 0 deg. and 55 paces on the short side at 270 deg., then 85 @180 deg and 55 @90 deg.). A good days work out in hardwood thinning is to cut half that area, some guys on my crew can cut a full acre. 6-7 tanks of gas is a good days work. I can cut close to 3 'points' in hardwood per day. A point is 1/10th of a ha (10 x 100 m). 3 points is 3/4 of an acre (1 acre= 0.4 ha, thus 4 points).

Contact your DNR and see if they have a thinning program with assistance money.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

SteveB

You said the area was cut 10 years ago, so we can guess the majority of regen is about that age.  As Swamp Donkey said, if you thin too much, too early you'll get branchy, low quality trees, and competiton popping back up in between your crop trees.  Basically, if you wait another 10 years, the maple will prune and thin itself a bit, and you'll have good quality stems to work with, but I think you'll loose 10 years of opportunity to focus growth on your crop trees.  Spacing is always key.  I would say don't space more than 6-7 feet apart if your stand is only 10 years old, and you can probably go as wide as 9-10 feet if you wait another 10 years (every forester's going to have their own .02$).

If your going to thin early, you need to make sure you control the stuff you cut so it doesnt' grow back too quick.

Fir, or any conifers are easy to thin, becuase they don't grow back from the stump after you cut them.  Hardwoods are a different story.  If you're thinning mechanically (brushsaw or chainsaw) the timing of the year, height of cut, and wounding vs. cleanly cutting will have impacts on the effectiveness of your treatments.

When hardwoods are dormant (any time when leaves are off), the majority of their energy is being stored in their roots, so cutting them off at this time of of the year is not as effective, they just sprout/sucker back up from those well established roots full of energy.  Wait until the active growing season when they put all of that energy into their above-ground parts and you'll have more luck killing or controling them.  Early on in the growing season is ideal from a tree physiology perspecitve.  On the other hand, early on in the growing season bark is much softer, so it's easier to accidentally damage your residual crop trees that you're trying to protect.

For species like poplar that regenerate from root suckers, if you cut them off right near ground level you'll have about a 40% chance of killing the plant you cut, but you'll greatly increase the number of root suckers that are going to sprout up all around the sapling you cut.  If you cut higher up the stem of the poplar it will reduce the number of suckers that will sprout up , but you have to be careful to cut below the first live branch.  For poplar, cutting 1.5 to 2 feet above ground is ideal to reduce suckers, as log as you're below the crown.  These high cuts will be difficult with a brushsaw though, and a chainsaw may be better.  

Unlike poplar, for species like birch, maple, etc. that sprout from stumps, you'll probably want your cuts to be low, as this increases the chance of killing the sapling and preventing it from sprouting.

If you have the time, wounding the tree, rather than cutting it cleanly will also decrease the risk of suckering and sprouting.  If the saplings are small, you may be able to break them off, or cut them partway through and bend them over, this is much more labour intensive, but will give better results.  There are a bunch of girdling tools around that can be used to thin young trees by strangling their nutrient supply.  One way to make such a tool is to take two short lengths of chainsaw chain and attach handles to the ends.  You reach around the tree with the chain and work it back and forth to cut a groove in the bark all the way aournd the stem so that the sap can't flow.  For girdling with hand tools, you need stems that are big enough that they are stiff enough to be damaged without just bending away from you, but small enough so that it doesn't take all day to treat each one.

Like I said before, fir will be easy to control with cutting.  Although white birch and poplar grow back with a vengance after you cut them, and you should consider the stuff I already said, they need a lot of sun to grow, so if you've waited until the saplings are tall and don't thin too heavy the shade from your crop trees will help control these too.  Soft Maple will be most difficult to control, and if you have a lot of sugar maple you probably want to wait another 5 years for things to figure themselves out before you start cutting.

All of this season and height of cut stuff will help with the success of a manual treatment, but herbicides are really the easiest, cheapest to control most of your early competition/thinning challenges.  Herbicides are safe and very effective, but you have to use them properly.  The main limitation with herbicides is that you can't treat 5 stems from a clump and leave one (because they share roots that the chemical will move between).  You either treat a whole clump or not.  It can still be a very sucessful tool though.  A basal bark spray is probably your best herbicide application method for saplings.  "Hack and squirt" is another method for saplings, where you cut the tree and then apply herbidcide to the wound/cut  You might want to pair this with a manual cutting (without herbicide) of the clumps that have one future crop stem amongue them.


SwampDonkey

You won't have to worry about aspen suckering much in mixed growth thinning, even if pockets of it are thinned through, they don't sucker back much. They will be shaded and aspen will not sucker too well under shade. We cut all stumps 6 inches or lower. Leaving stems above that height on a woodlot owner's ground would have me crucified on the spot. I've never seen that done. I would stay away from the herbicide and it's not all that effective on hardwood suckering anyway and very costly when manual treating. Girdling is too costly on a site as big as 20 acres, keep an eye out for snow shoe hare. They love hardwood, or anything for that matter.  >:( I've found the time of year doesn't make much difference in suckering. Sometimes you notice a slight difference, but not always. The difference would be more noticeable out in the open, more light more intense regrowth. Tree height and spacing is going to have the greatest impact. Don't tackle this job with a chainsaw, or your going to age quicker than a flee by the end of the day. You'll give up before the first acre is done.  ;)
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Bill in U.P.

Now that I look at this plot a little closer I notice cherry scattered around. It measure between 2" to 5" at the base. Some looks to be promising for future sawlog use, while some is twisted and bushy. What advise do you guys have for these. They are scattered throughout the 20ac. plot in with the maple shoots. On some of the more promising ones(5" or so at the base and straight) would it be advisable to prune some of the lower branches not associated with the crown? thanks for all the previous advise also. Bill

Jeff

Hey Bill, what part of the U.P. are you in?
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

pasbuild

Bills about 20 miles east of me on M28
If it can't be nailed or glued then screw it

Corley5

That'd be pretty close to AuTrain  ???
Burnt Gunpowder is the Smell Of Freedom

pasbuild

Autrain is about turdy miles, ya gota back up 10 ;D
If it can't be nailed or glued then screw it

Corley5

What's ten miles in Da UP  eh eh   :) ;D
Burnt Gunpowder is the Smell Of Freedom

Furby


pasbuild

If it can't be nailed or glued then screw it

SwampDonkey

Bill, my 'guess' is that a lot of those suckered cherry were nice trees. I've seen some nice cherry grow in holes created by firewood cutters, even up here. I would space as per the hardwood and any culls, just cut out of the lot. I wouldn't prune the young cherry though, let the shade from the maples do that. Watch their health over time so that they don't get over crowded by the maples. Unfortunately moist of our cherry grow in pasture and old orchards and fence line, making them more open grown and prone to black knot cankers. I left a few in my old orchard, but they are all diseased and I can only hope for short sections of lumber, maybe the odd 8 footer. I didn't want to cut them down and burn them up, because once they are gone, that's it. I'm on the northern fringe of cherry.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

SteveB

Hello again,

Since looking over some of the posts on this thread I thought I'd add a few more ideas, and clarify some of the stuff I wrote earlier.

With respect to cherry, you should watch the branches for any signs of black knot (Sh*@-on-a-stick), and make sure if any appears you prune those branches off as soon as possible.  Otherwise, ther's probably no need to prune, just try to do everything you can to keep them healthy and growing well, to avoid disease.   

Swamp donkey, cherry really likes to grow back from sprouts, so if you cut your bushy ones you probably won't loose them, they'll just sprout back again.  Because stump sprouting species grow from dormant buds at the base of the tree, generally the younger, and smaller the diameter (and thinner the bark), the more they'll sprout back.  If you want these types of species to grow back it's also much better to cut them in winter when they've stored their energy in roots.  Assuming more types of trees have seeded into your old orchard, if you started from scratch again a thicker crop of saplings would spring up after this cut and train the cherries to grow less bushy.  SInce cherry is relatively short lived you'd only have to live another 50-80 years to reap the benefits of your man-made disturbance ;D

Bill,
If you are thinning saplings that originated from stump sprouts there are a few things to keep in mind specific to this type of work.  Assuming you would prefer to grow hard maple over soft maple (and assuming you have some of both type present), you should pay attention to make sure you're selecting hard over soft whenever possible.  Hard maple will only sprout when it's really young, but soft maple will sprout quite a bit from parents 40years old and more, so you'll probably find that the clumps will be soft maple, and hopefully you'll have some good individual hard maple stems too.  This being said, don't select a hard maple with disease or sever defects over a healthy soft (there's also talk that soft maple may be one of the best species to withstand global warming   :-\).

When selecting the right stem(s) to retain from a 'stump clump' you want to make sure that you pick the most vigorous stems to retain (as in any type of thinning), and you want to make sure you minimize the chances of defects forming in the trees you select to keep as your future crop.  Soft maple is especially prone to infecton through branch scars, so pay extra attention to select them with well healed branch scars or clear boles.

  The following apply to stump sprouts:

i) The timing of a first thinning of stump sprouts is particularly important.  You want to wait just long enough so that some self thinning has already occured (making your work easier) and most importantly, you want to make sure that enough time has passed that you can distinguish which stems are most dominant and have most potential for the future.  If you wait too long, individual stems will start to grow together too much, make it hard to thin without damaging the crop trees you want to keep, and increase the size of wound left on your crop trees.  You're probably at about the ideal age right now if the area was cut hard 10 yrs ago.

ii)  Sprouts growing off of the parent stump at or below ground level are ideal, stems less than 2" from the ground are ok, and stems from high up or at the top of old stumps should be avoided (more chance for disease entry, weaker base more prone to snow and ice damage early on, etc).

iii)  "V" shaped connections between two or more stems, especially if you figure the heartwood is connected shouldn't be thinned individually.  It is better to either cut them both in favor of a better tree close by, or leave both if they are otherwise healthy.  If you cut one stem from this type of connection there is a greater chance the wound of the cut stem won't heal quickly and can act as an entry point for rot into yoru crop tree.  "U" shaped connectons around ground level without much connecting them are better, and a clear space between stems is best.  If you have to cut one stem of a connected pair, cut close to the stem of the crop tree (without damaging it), so that the wound heals quickly.  Definitley DON'T leave big stubs, they'll attract infection.


My previous advice about cuting poplars high, wounding (girdling, or partially breaking), or using herbicides to thin saplings is ONLY to be used on clumps and individual stems that you want to get rid of completely.  If one of the stems in a clump is your future crop tree, make sure the cuts to the other stems are clean so that surface area for infection heels as soon as possible. 

It sounds like your area was cut fairly hard, since you have cherry coming back (it doesn't like shade at all).  If that's the case, 95% of the time you will also have poplar.  Recent research has found that that cutting poplar high is best, and that's becoming a more popular operational practice here too.  The thinning contractors are finding when doing this high cutting it is very hard (uncomfortable, unproductive) to set up brushsaws this high, so chainsaws are preffered.  I'd agree, a brushsaw is better if all of your material to thin is low, and is uniformly small (like after clearcutting), but when thinning shelterwood, and doing stand improvement in selection cuts(and old highgrades), there's often too much large material for brushsaws (Sometimes a contractor will have both types of equipment on hand).   

Obviously, if you're using herbicides you CAN'T treat SOME stems of a stump sprout, it's all or nothing because the chemical will move from one stem to another through the shared roots.  If you have a lot of single stems or entire clumps to treat, a basal bark herbicide application is typically significantly cheaper than paying for brushsaw work.  Tryclopere (sp?) based products like "release" are most often used for basal bark applicatons, and it's quite a bit more effective for soft maple than glyphosate based herbicides (vision, roundup, etc.).  There is always public apprehension about herbicides, but if you look at the science behind the stuff, and how to use it properly, it's a good alternative.  For example, two stroke exhaust(from brushsaws) is nasty stuff that's known to cause cancer, but there's no real conclusive evidnece that there's any risk from modern herbicides registered for forestry use (guess it's human nature to fear the unknown and while overlooking the obvious risks we take every day).  That being said, I would guess that in Bill's case a brushsaw thinning would be best, but you should always consider all available tools/methods and use the best one (or combination) for the specific job. 

From a pure tree growth perspective, especially on high quality sites if you can minimize the amount of regrowth of the stuff you cut, you can significantly increase the growth rate of your crop trees (perfectly tended young hardwoods on good sites can grow more than twice as fast).  Even though the trees you thin out never regain any dominance in the stand, the more they grow back the more slowly your crop trees will grow.  This is  a big benefit of herbicides.  Similairly, brushsaw thinning during the active growing season, and especially right after leaf-out, is the prefered time to for most companies to have their thinning done. 

SwampDonkey

Quote from: SteveB on January 02, 2007, 10:52:23 PM
Swamp donkey, cherry really likes to grow back from sprouts, so if you cut your bushy ones you probably won't loose them, they'll just sprout back again.  Because stump sprouting species grow from dormant buds at the base of the tree, generally the younger, and smaller the diameter (and thinner the bark), the more they'll sprout back.  If you want these types of species to grow back it's also much better to cut them in winter when they've stored their energy in roots.  Assuming more types of trees have seeded into your old orchard, if you started from scratch again a thicker crop of saplings would spring up after this cut and train the cherries to grow less bushy.  Since cherry is relatively short lived you'd only have to live another 50-80 years to reap the benefits of your man-made disturbance ;D

Steve, I didn't mention it but I sprayed all regrowth in August with Round-up. I also didn't notice a lot of stump suckering on the cut black cherry. The trees I cut were rough barked and mature. However the pin cherry was another story, but the herbicide got most of those. I am hoping for more seeding of black cherry, they seem to be a good sized tree in 30 years. I had one 54 cm tree than grew nearly an inch per year according to stump rings. When that black knot gets a hold of them they sure do look ugly. I don't seem to see it in pin cherry though and I have cut some for a friend that he had milled. There was some nice pin cherry along the road that the road grew pushed and tore up last summer. Shame. If they were on my ground I would of salvaged them.

Bill,
Concerning the quality of your red maple, I hope you have no moose. I left some nice red maple from suckered stumps. I mean they looked perfect, and guess what a moose does when he finds them?  ::) >:( >:(
I had a few tamarack I planted on my old road because the good top soil was scraped off and tamarack will grow almost anywhere where there is moisture. Well...they were up to 8 feet high and mister moose was in an ugly mood and stripped bark and tore off tops of most every one this fall.  Seen a few black spruce ripped up too. ::)
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

SwampDonkey

Steve made some more good points about crop tree selection and quality. I've seen first hand what can happen to stems that where left fro crop trees and emerged high on the stuff. Then end up horizontal most often.


I'm only speculating about the maple and global warming issue, but generally red maple are on wetter sites and if temperatures increase they need more water to keep from burning up. This may be their advantage. I suspect the same for ash and yellow birch. As I said, pure speculation.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

SteveB

Red maple are definitely a favorite of the moose.  I guess there's good and bad to everything.  When moose populations are high they can do a good job of releasing white pine in shelterwoods.  Saves lots of brushsaw or spray work.  If I were a silvicultural contractor I think I'd be a more avid moose hunter ;D.   

SD, your logic about soft maple and global warming makes sense.  Part of the reasoning is that soft maple has an advantage over others in that it can grow on such a wide range of sites, so if the site itself changes it may be the only original species on the site that can handle the new conditions (most other hardwoods are more site specific specialists).  Red oak is another one that they figure might be a better bet in areas that they predict will get drier (good drought resistance from that big tap root, etc.).  Around here they figure we might want to think about planting wallnut, even though we're north of it's present range.  Then there's also questions of the genetics of planting stock.  Should we be using stock from a seed zone south of our current one?  Will more mobile and shorter lived organisms like bugs and diseases be able to expand their range as climates warm, faster than trees can evolve/adapt and expand their range(like beetle in BC)?  Can we stop the beetle before it spreads from lodgepole into jackpine and right across the continent to the east coast?  This global warming thing's tricky!

SwampDonkey

We have a pine beetle already on the east coast, it's just not up here in the Maritimes or New England yet.

The moose also do a good number on removing the bark and the tops of young pine (eastern/red) as well. I planted 3000 whites on my lot and the moose destroy any they find.  ::)

"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

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