Post Logging Cleanup

[ADIRONDACKWOODBURNER]

New Poster here!

I recently had 35 of my 50 acres logged of white pine and hemlock. All mixed hardwood was left standing since I am a firewood burner. Overall the logger did a nice job and I never expected my property to be as visuially appealing as it once was..It opened things up alot which I like, it was so dark wit hall the towering pines in there, the undergrowth of hardwood didnt receive alot of sunlight..
Anyways, to my question, I would like to ahve my skid trails cleaned up. The logger is my neighbor. Woudl it be impolite to ask this? Second question, I ahve been reading mixed reviews of leaving all of the slash laying on the ground rather than chipping etc? Wouldnt the chips mulch into the ground better that jsut leavign the branches? i.e. which is the fastest way for the slash to decompose so that  Iam not tripping all over it constantly

[bill m]

Unless you have your own chipper and lots of free time chipping the slash will be very expensive. As for cleaning up the skid trails what did it call for in the contract ( there was a contract wasn't there )?

[Jamie_C]

New Poster here!

I recently had 35 of my 50 acres logged of white pine and hemlock. All mixed hardwood was left standing since I am a firewood burner. Overall the logger did a nice job and I never expected my property to be as visuially appealing as it once was..It opened things up alot which I like, it was so dark wit hall the towering pines in there, the undergrowth of hardwood didnt receive alot of sunlight..
Anyways, to my question, I would like to ahve my skid trails cleaned up. The logger is my neighbor. Woudl it be impolite to ask this? Second question, I ahve been reading mixed reviews of leaving all of the slash laying on the ground rather than chipping etc? Wouldnt the chips mulch into the ground better that jsut leavign the branches? i.e. which is the fastest way for the slash to decompose so that  Iam not tripping all over it constantly

If you didn't have it specified in the harvesting contract then i wouldn't ask. Depending on what you mean by "cleaned up" you could be asking for a rather expensive job.

The slash should settle quite a bit after a full winter of snow, give it a couple of years and it will be pretty decent to walk through (depending on branch & top size).

[Ron Scott]

As stated above, yes, if the cleanup was stated in the harvest contract that exisiting travelways or existing skid trails must be kept open. If not, you might ask your neighbor and possibly pay something extra to open up the trails and remove the slash as wanted. It depends upon your relationship with your neighbor.

If the slash was looped and scattered and run over during the harvest operation, it should break down after a few seasons. It just depends upon how clean the cut was and if the pulpwood was also removed from the topwood along with the sawlogs.

All this should have been spelled out in the contract, however.

[thecfarm]

When I had my land log I told the guy did not want any brush in the trails.He used some of mine wood roads.He kept them clean.If the brush does bother you, you can cut it up into 2-3 feet long pieces so they will be on the ground and rot quicker.Probably in 5 years the smaller brush will be just about gone.A 2-3 inch limb will take more time to rot,but if it's on the ground you won't really see it.A branch in the air will lost a long time,especially a hemlock one.Yes,this will take some time,but chipping will take even longer. Welcome to the forum,by the way.

[ADIRONDACKWOODBURNER]

Thanks for all of the comments. No, I had no contract, maybe I should have but I didnt since he was my neighbor and he woould always ask if I thought everything was going ok. He did a fine job overall. He did say at one time that he would do some cleanup if I wanted. He has a decent sized Ford tractor and am curious to see if he would use that jsut to clean up the skid trails some. I dont expect him to bring the skidder back that is for sure not would I ask him to. I am going abck up today on the atv and I will look it over again. If  Ican simply clear the trails by hand then I will be ok. But overall, the closer to the ground that I can get the slash the better is this correct? Better than putting into individual piles right??

[Ron Wenrich]

The closer to the ground would mean that it would decompose faster.  The pine won't take long at all.  Piles might be OK if you want to provide some habitat for some critters.  It will take longer for the piles to break down.  Where I have seen tops piled, it was mainly to burn and to control beetle infestations.  You shouldn't have that problem, since I don't know of anyone burning in the northeast. 

I'd ask the neighbor to open up the roads.  If he has his skidder handy, that isn't much more than putting his blade down and pushing things aside.  You should have waterbars if the ground has much slope.  Also, think about planting some grass to add stability to your roads.  You don't want it to wash out.

[ADIRONDACKWOODBURNER]

Thanks for the comments. I will post some pics of the roads and other sections, interested in hearing peoples opinions.

[Phorester]

Keep in mind that a logging operation is not a landscaping operation, and the tops and limbs are generally left where they fall.  As other posters say, they will rot in time, and getting them closer to the ground by cutting them into smaller pieces (lopping) will help.  

Another thought, piling up a brush pile or 2 will help the wildlife populations too.  But they need to be big - 20 feet diameter, 10 feet tall minimum.  They may look unsightly, but a logging job is not landscaping.....  ;D  what appears messy to us is usually good wildlife habitat.

Not criticizing you after your logging is done, but for the benefit of others reading our posts, a timber sale, no matter how small, is a business venture and should be handled as such with a written contract spelling out everything from payment schedule to logging schedule to who will clean up the roads and skid trails at the end.  Even firewood sales need a contract.  As a State forester, people call me often asking for advice with their logging concerns.  First question from me is "What does your contract say?"  If there is a long pause, I know there was not one, and there is little recourse without one.  Former friendships between loggers and landowners have been lost when timber sales have been treated too casually.

But if he wants to be a good neighbor himself, I expect he wouldn't mind at least clearing out your roads.  Won't know until you ask.......

[Brian Beauchamp]

Asking him to clean things up a bit here and there is not unreasonable, especially getting the trails the way you want them to look. Anything beyond the trails may be a bit much though depending on how much time that cleanup would entail. Since you did not have a written contract, keep your expectations low in order to keep things amicable between the two of you.

[ADIRONDACKWOODBURNER]

Nope, I totally agree with everything posted on here. I tell folks that logging isnt like picking flowers, you use big equipment and are dropping big trees and pulling them out..
I would never aks him to clean up anything but the previoosuly established skid trails which we had a handshake agreement would be done..Hard to tell though what is underneith when it snows!

[WDH]

If you are interested in propagating hardwood, then the slash provides a good nursery for the young hardwood seedlings to get established and be protected from rabbits, deer, etc. (which like to eat the tops off the young succulent seedlings).  If the skid trails are wide, then the slash could be a regeneration benefit.  You might select a few key trails for clean-up that you need for propery access and leave the others alone if you want hardwood regeneration.  Given what you harvested, white pine and hemlock, there will be a residual seed bank there, and more disturbance in clearing the skid trails will give them an edge in re-establishment, especially since the pines like exposed mineral soil to regenerate.

[Pilot1]

Man, there are so many things here that bug me, but since I haven't seen the site and I have only worked in the west, I can't give informed advice.  But here are some things to think about.

It seems to me you are converting your stand to hardwoods growing over hemlock.  Is that what you want?  Our hemlocks are shade tolerant and will come up under the hardwoods, our pines won't--they need sunlight.  And the hardwoods are established.  where there is shade, you'll get shade tolerant trees; where there is sun you may get a mix or maybe just intolerants.  Or maybe not much, depending on the duff depth.  Of course you could plane, but plant shade tolerant trees where there is shade.

Skidders:  We don't see them much here anymore.  So, what's your soil like?  Does it have much clay?  Walk over your soil where the skidder has gone vs. where it didn't go.  Take a narrow bladed shovel and dig in and tip the handle back.  When you look at the soil you turn up, do you see little clods shaped like flying saucers or roughly round?  Flying saucer shaped clods are round clods that have been compacted, squished.  If the soil has much clay, air and water won't infiltrate very well and productivity has been reduced as well as increasing the chance of root diseases and erosion.  Some species can't grow well in compacted soil.  Skidders exert about 15 psi, dozers about 8 and the machine of choice in Oregon is an excavator with grapples, which exert about 2-3 psi and operates on a bed of slash.  They are also the cheapest machine unless the skid is over 1,000 feet.

Also, where the ground is bare and exposed to the rain, take a look and see if you see little pebbles standing on the surface.  If so, you have sheet erosion, where the accumulated effect of raindrops impacting the soil has dislodged very fine particles and washed them away.

If the skid trails are compacted or steep, you definitely need water bars.  Compacted soil doesn't let water infiltrate and it has to go somewhere, so it runs across the surface and the steeper the slope, or the more water (from a longer run, accumulating more water) the more likely you'll get erosion.  Water bars divert the water to the side where it will infiltrate into undisturbed soil.

Another option if you really want to clear out the skid trails might be to have your neighbor with his tractor go over the bare skid trails with a cultivator or disk to break up the compaction after he clears off the brush.  Gotta be careful, as on a sloped portion you may just create a gully.  And the cultivator will tend to hang up on roots, but a disk may not dig in unless the soil is broken up first with a cultivator.  You want the soil to be nice a fluffy so the water will filter in.  And the act of clearing with a tractor or skidder will just increase the compaction if there is any.  So look at what you have and consider the impacts.

How much damage did your hardwoods get from felling and skidding the softwoods?  Did you lose many large limbs, creating entry points for decay?

Always, always, always, before you log, ask yourself what kind of stand do you want?  And will the proposed logging achieve what you want, both now and over time?  In our area, if we took out the softwoods and left hardwoods, all we would have for a very long time would be hardwoods, with maybe a few hemlocks, barring a fire or some other big disturbance.

Again, I don't know your stand or your site, or even how logging is done in your area (maybe skidders is all anyone uses?) and my comments could be all off base.  Take them or leave them; use your judgment.

Lastly, I apologize for coming across a little harsh.  In our area we are still having public relation problems from people unnecessarily making a mess of things.  6 miles down the road from me there was a beautiful stand of Douglas-fir that was clearcut in the late fall and early winter--the wet season here-- and they made a real mess of things.  That was in about 1993.  They are still trying to get trees to grow and it's right beside a semi-major road so lots of people see it.  There was nothing wrong with the fact that they clearcut it; that was silviculturally appropriate; it was the actual logging job that was the problem--skidders on wet ground that traveled everywhere, followed by piling slash with a dozer.  They did everything wrong.  Trees I planted on my property at about the same time are 25-35 feet tall.