To prune or not to prune?

[ForestGump]

I'm new to this forum and to forestry in general, someday hoping to be a timber baron but in the meantime just enjoy walking in the woods. I have about 15 acres of fairly old hard maple / cherry and what's bugging me is that I'm seeing a lot sucker limbs starting in the lower portions of trees.  I am really tempted to go through with the pruning shears or even a polesaw and cut them off before they lower the quality of butt log I will end up with. So Im wondering, is this a good idea or a really bad one? Maybe a certain time of year or method pose lest risk to the tree?
Trees have been over-thinned (by prior owner) and its causing too much light to get down to the understory but with the amount of open space in the canopy I think these little branches will get pretty big before ever dying off and self-pruning. Towards the top of the picture are the kind of limbs I'm dealing with.


 

Any advice would be appreciated, thanks!

[beenthere]

Welcome to the Forestry Forum.

You will have a much better chance to maintain the quality of the wood if you prune them.
May leave a small "eye" in the wood, but won't leave a knot from a limb.

Good catch on the sucker limbs.

And good on the pic posting too.

[WmFritz]

Welcome to the Forestry Forum ForestGump.

[mesquite buckeye]

When the canopy recloses those branches will go away.

[enigmaT120]

Is there a time of year to prune when they will be less likely to grow back?

[beenthere]

The sooner after they appear, the better. IMO.  Easier to brush off then too.
For those still on the tree over winter, they start growing again early in the spring. What isn't there, can't grow. ;)

After the canopy closes, they will be less likely to grow back.

Stress on the trees will initiate the suckers too. A drought year or two seems sometimes to be a cause.

[ForestGump]

Ok, thanks for the feedback- I think I will spend an afternoon in late winter with the pruning shears and hopefully nip them all off during tail end of dormancy.
-Pete

[SwampDonkey]

Does look like sugar maple. Must have been a harvest done not long ago. Usually our sugar maple that are mature and dominant will not sucker on the bole and when cut at the stump don't stump sprout at all. Red maple on the other hand will sucker whenever given a chance. Pole sized sugar maple will sucker of course, yellow birch to.

Pruning is well worth it when you have quality to begin with, limbs are small diameter and the tree still has lots of growing to do. 

[curdog]

I can't tell from the picture,  but is that damage to the bark? It looks like there are some skinned spots that could be caused by logging.  If so the could be stressed and cause it to sucker sprout. I'm on my phone so it could just be hard for me to see the picture.

[ForestGump]

BTW, Swampdonkey- Im intrigued by your tag about pre-commercial thinning paying off- can you expound on what you mean by that?
Are you referring to preemptively cutting trees that will just be ruined and worthless when the 'loggerstorm hits?

[SwampDonkey]

The regrowth of natural regen after a clearcut, or a plantation, we thin with brush saws. They gain girth a lot quicker when thinned or cleaned and are much healthier trees because they are not suppressed for decades by high density (numbers/acre) or overtopping. Balsam fir left thick for example will just get rot in the stem and be left with a shell of sapwood and heart rot in the middle. It will indeed be junk. I thin up to 100 acres a year with a brush saw. My number one species is red spruce, some sights it can be sugar maple and yellow birch. But where we are, most of the time red spruce is pretty much everywhere mixed with a lot of fir. I've been in some 30 foot fir now for a week, except today I did have mostly hardwood on the front one a new work strip.

I've thinned about 60 acres on my own ground.

Most logging up here is by clearcut.

Just a swinger. ;D

[beenthere]

Most logging up here is by clearcut.

What??
Didn't catch that one...

[SwampDonkey]

Yeah, I did.  ;D