One last look at my pines behind the house. They moved in today to clear cut. You can see where theyve started on the left. Sad to see them go but better to start over than just keep watching em die.
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How many acres? What's the plan,replant or?? Going to take some pictures of the equipment? Please ;D
50+ acres. Will replant as soon as we can get it sprayed and prepped. May be next winter though. We still have other sites that we have to plant first for the Longleaf Pine Initiative. I'll post some more pics when they all get here, right now its just the cutdown man getting started.
Nice looking forest, why are they dying.
Skidder
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Terry, they were never thinned properly is my guess. There is still a boatload of canker and pulpwood in there and it's still too thick so it started thinning itself. That is my unprofessional opinion :D Plus is it the old state forestry trees and they were very unpredictable. GFC has really good trees now.
Sounds about right. If a pine plantation like that is left with too many stems you start getting a lot of suppressed and sickly sticks in there that are never going to amount to anything. They are just taking up space, light, nutrients and water that should be going to the good crop trees.
You can see in the picture there are a few decent dominant trees that have grown properly, but it lot of skinny poles that are only ever going to make pulp, and would just fall over if they where thinned and released this late in the cycle.
It's often better to just take them all out and get whatever value is in there now, and replant with fresh trees that can be managed properly from the beginning. Sitting and watching them "self thin" for another 10 years probably wont add any value. ;) As you say, you can also plant with better quality seedlings which help as well.
Locally ALL the management is done in about the first 7 or 8 years. By that stage all the pruning and thinning is completed and the trees are at final spacings. Pretty intensive care in those early years. There is pretty much zero management after that, and it's just sit back and watch them grow for another 20 years.
Ian
A couple of pics
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(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/30024/IMG_20130911_185953_234.jpg)
Stands that age are prone to annosum root rot if you have a sandy topsoil. The root rot weakens the trees, and the bark beetles are drawn in, and they deliver the final blow. One sign of annosum root rot is thinning of the needles so that the tree looks like half the needles have fallen off.
Is there any money to be made on them after harvest and trucking?
Great pics GATreeGrower!
Quote from: terry f on September 12, 2013, 04:00:23 AM
Is there any money to be made on them after harvest and trucking?
Oh yes.
There has been more big wood and chip n saw come out than I thought, thanks to the loader/grader doing a good job
Questions,probably if I wait for a day or two the pictures will tell me the answers. Is some being chipped,hauled tree lenght,logs? I think you mentioned chips and logs?
The chip n saw specs for this mill are a 12" butt and 6" top. Theres also a "big wood" grade that goes to Beasley and I am marking large poles 13" at eye level and they haul those tree length. And of course pulpwood
The chip n saw specs???? Must be a slang? Not heard of that here. :)
Chip n saw down here is medium size pine trees basically. Some of it is chipped and made into pulp and some of it is sawn into small dimension lumber
WDH probably has a better definition than me :)
Sounds good to me. Thank you for all of the answers.
Small trees not big enough to go to a regular sawmill as sawlogs but still big enough to take a couple 2x 's are fed through a chip-n-saw (one pass through and done). Priced accordingly, but wood is worth more in solid lumber form than in a chip.
http://www.forest2market.com/blog/How-Big-Should-I-Let-My-Trees-Grow-Sawtimber-vs.-Chip-n-Saw
BT is right on. A Chip-N-Saw mill when it first came into being had two chipping heads that chipped two sides square, then two band saws (one on each side) that could take a side board off each side of the cant. These are called twin bands. The cant then went into a gang saw to be cut into dimension lumber (2x stock). So, the chip-n-saw mills could process small logs very fast, hence the name for the smaller sawlogs became "chip-n-saw" logs.
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(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/30024/briar_patch.jpg)
Got to play in the briar patch today looking for poles. There aren't many. But 11 chipnsaw loads today and 3 pulp makes me a happy tree farmer.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/30024/IMG_20130912_144400_904.jpg)
Some more pictures
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/30024/IMG_20130914_104907_045.jpg)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/30024/IMG_20130914_105637_951.jpg)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/30024/IMG_20130914_104844_505.jpg)
Quote from: GATreeGrower on September 11, 2013, 11:03:26 AM
50+ acres. Will replant as soon as we can get it sprayed and prepped. May be next winter though. We still have other sites that we have to plant first for the Longleaf Pine Initiative. I'll post some more pics when they all get here, right now its just the cutdown man getting started.
I'm curious about the Longleaf Pine Initiative and your experience with it. Part of our forest is 14 acres of natural regen (I think the technical term is dog hair) 23 year old loblolly. We failed to do a pre-commercial thinning 20 years ago, so it's prime beetle bait. It's merchantable as pulp, and our pulp market is good, but it's of absolutely no use to wildlife, and I don't see it ever increasing much in value. I'm thinking seriously about cutting it all and starting over.
My experience with LPI and other tree programs is basically, get a waiver so that you can go ahead and do the work and get it checked. Funding has been short the past few years so you don't really have a chance of getting approved if you haven't done some of the work already. Read the contract very carefully and follow the specs and you should be able to get funded.
With your regenerated stand, I'd cut it while pulpwood is up and start over. Longleaf would be a great option for wildlife. Just make sure you do some heavy site prep with chemicals or the weeds will eat them up.
Quote from: GATreeGrower on September 14, 2013, 02:36:59 PM
With your regenerated stand, I'd cut it while pulpwood is up and start over. Longleaf would be a great option for wildlife. Just make sure you do some heavy site prep with chemicals or the weeds will eat them up.
Very true, but also be ready to light a fire just about every year to maintain it...longleaf loves fire :)
There is also some truth about cutting while pulp is up - I have talked to several people around here who are clearcutting thick younger stands because of the pulp value being so high.
Quote from: VT_Forestry on September 24, 2013, 08:10:22 AM
There is also some truth about cutting while pulp is up - I have talked to several people around here who are clearcutting thick younger stands because of the pulp value being so high.
Funny how markets work. Here in eastern Canada our softwood pulp market is terrible. After trucking we are lucky to get $50/cord roadside. Doesn't leave much stumpage for the landowner.
Clear cut
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When are you going to plant the wheat? :D
That is an ultra-clean logging job that will make site prep a snap. I assume that you will be re-planting pine?
Can't beat having a good logger. We'll put it back in loblolly soon as we can.
All done,I take it? Post some pictures and post about the planting.
Anybody old enough to remember these? :)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/30024/tarb.jpg)
Very few stumps don't look like this one
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When its time to burn, the dozer will push everything 100 ft back from the branch all the way around and I'll fire the windrows and the piles.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/30024/piles.jpg)
They're all done and overall this is probably the best job he's done for us. I've worked with this crew a few times marking. All younguns like me :D but they know what they're doing. Loader man is only 20 but he graded out what was supposed to be a 38% chipnsaw stand into 67% chipnsaw and sold off the tops too. I marked 3 loads of poles and we got well over a dozen loads of ST. I am pretty satisfied.
You obviously know what your are doing, and it shows.
Mr. Danny, I never thought I'd love a job like I love this one.
In the last picture in reply #24, what is the thing between the butts and the loader? A delimber gate?
After another look it appears to be part of the sawbuck frame?
I suspect that it is a cut-off saw for bucking logs to length.
It's both. :)
I took a few videos of this guy grading the wood because you can't get much better. Will post soon. But it's past my bedtime :)
What is the barrel looking thing in post 33? It looks a little like something you could put on the leading end of a log to keep it from digging in, but that's probably not it.
An old turpentine barrel they found in the woods
Dozer pushed and piled everything this week. Will let it sit for a while then burn it down
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/30024/dozer.jpg)
They did a very clean job. I like that look, as I know you do, too. :)
Quote from: clww on October 13, 2013, 03:41:23 PM
They did a very clean job. I like that look, as I know you do, too. :)
Yessir. Sure makes everything easier when re-establishing the new forest.
These trash piles are gonna be burning for a while, if any members want to stop by and roast weenies and marshmallows :D
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/30024/piles%7E0.jpg)
And an entirely different view in the back yard now. Left a few good pines just because.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/30024/sunset_trees.jpg)
We could have a cook-out!
(Note to self: Be sure and invite Julio, the master chef. That man can cook. ;D).
GATreeGrower, Bring your equipment to the Billarosa. I need a thinning bad! ;)
Quote from: WDH on October 14, 2013, 10:08:09 PM
We could have a cook-out!
(Note to self: Be sure and invite Julio, the master chef. That man can cook. ;D).
Maybe I'll throw a fish fry, there is a bream pond here that needs some thinning :)
Quote from: Raider Bill on October 15, 2013, 09:25:01 AM
GATreeGrower, Bring your equipment to the Billarosa. I need a thinning bad! ;)
Raider Bill, I'll get my paint guns loaded up :D
Quote from: GATreeGrower on October 15, 2013, 11:40:08 AMRaider Bill, I'll get my paint guns loaded up :D
Where's this at? My farm is on the Bacon/Appling line... along the shores of the Big Satilla creek. We have some land we just put in the Gopher Tortise habitat restoration program, but we haven't gotten paid bc of some of the SI that still needs to be done.
I love LL. Why are you going back with lob?
Quote from: nmurph on October 15, 2013, 12:25:30 PM
Quote from: GATreeGrower on October 15, 2013, 11:40:08 AM
Quote from: Raider Bill on October 15, 2013, 09:25:01 AM
GATreeGrower, Bring your equipment to the Billarosa. I need a thinning bad! ;)
Raider Bill, I'll get my paint guns loaded up :D
Where's this at? My farm is on the Bacon/Appling line... along the shores of the Big Satilla creek. We have some land we just put in the Gopher Tortise habitat restoration program, but we haven't gotten paid bc of some of the SI that still needs to be done.
I love LL. Why are you going back with lob?
Near Tellico Plains, Tenn.
I've got to get it thinned soon.
Sorry, I was asking GaTree...we're very close to each other.
LOL I figured that out right after I hit send just too lazy to delete. ;D
My dad is from Tellico Plains. I was up there this summer seeing family.
murph, whereabout?
I like longleaf too, they are a pretty tree with many benefits to wildlife. But the rotation time doesn't do us many favors. There is some money to be made in the straw though.
This site is an old clay hill that was mined way back when they were building roads. The flats and bottomlands will grow good slash and we'll probably put some slash there but the LL likes a sand bed.
Longleaf does well on some sites and not as well on others. The mystic of "The Ancient Longleaf Forest" being pushed by the Government Agencies is causing longleaf to be planted on sites where it does not do nearly as well as loblolly. On some of the sites, survival is very poor. You can't fool Mother Nature. That said, it is still a great tree..
Quote from: GATreeGrower on October 15, 2013, 03:41:12 PM
I like longleaf too, they are a pretty tree with many benefits to wildlife. But the rotation time doesn't do us many favors. There is some money to be made in the straw though.
This site is an old clay hill that was mined way back when they were building roads. The flats and bottomlands will grow good slash and we'll probably put some slash there but the LL likes a sand bed.
LL's return is very good if you are looking long term for saw and pole timber, and that matrix shifts even more towards LL if you factor in the money from straw. We have 8YO LL that is producing 350-400 bales/ac/yr
We put in 13 acres of LL in the back of this site as part of the LPI in February. Should have put them somewhere else but didn't have anywhere else to set. Some are doing very well, like this one, some still look like little grass sprigs and are having a hard time getting established. It's weird, I've seen volunteer LL growing thick as the hair on a dogs back on my uncle's place. It's nothing but red clay.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/30024/longleaf.jpg)
Lit em up today, really wish the wind would lay down. Half inch of rain this morning and brief shower this afternoon so we ought to be alright
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