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Colorado pines, use? beetle problem

Started by Brad_bb, January 22, 2008, 12:51:42 PM

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Gary_C

Quote from: tughill on November 23, 2009, 08:44:47 AM
Am I understanding correctly that most of this timber is on public (forest service, or BLM?) land? 

Unfortunately a high percentage of the forested land in the western states is owned by the feds and even though the USFS and BLM knows how to manage the land, they are hog tied by the courts and a meddling congress into a no-management prescription. Since most of the rest of the land is held by small private landowners and a few large ownerships like Ted Turner and some other wealthy individuals, there is little land available for sale. So with all the high fliers and holywood types looking for a forest retreat, that makes for some very high prices for even the poor land.
Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.

spencerhenry

the bark beetle problem as been discussed at great length in other threads. it is being worked on both on private land and public land, by big contractors, and small contractors. $35 per tree is good money as long as it is not back yards.
there is one big problem, limited demand for the wood. stud mills buy it, pellet mills buy it, and small operators like me mill a few loads a year. but we are talking about such an incredibly large amount of wood in a state where one of the few production mills is 5 hours away or more. there is alot of high quality timber, and alot of junk that has no other use than fuel. the logs are sorted and sold accordingly.
there is alot of federal and state and private money going into this, but it is all after the fact, the trees are already dead. this is a clean up job only.
colder winters will NOT kill the beetles off. the biologists say that it takes weeks of far below zero average temperature to kill them. we might get some 25 below zero nights, but a day that doesnt get above zero is rare. the temps need to kill the bugs DONT HAPPEN WHERE THE TREES GROW. and in alot of areas where the beetles are, the snow level can be several feet deep, under the snow a few feet, the temp never gets that cold.

edwardj_

I am up in northern Alberta, Canada..  we have an area designated as a "Natural Area."  That means no cutting of trees of any kind.  The pine bugs have killed (was told by a forestry rep in the area) 90%+ of the pine trees there.  I have asked to get permission to go in and take out some of the bug killed trees and have been turned down.  They have cut and burned a lot of trees from small clumps in the past 2 years.  All too little too late.  What I dont understand is why the govt wont let citizens go in and pull out the bug killed trees?  I know that is most of the trees but there are still unnafected areas that may be saved.  Not all of it is large enough to mill but some of it is and others can be used as posts and firewood.  I think someone needs to pull their head out of their ass (pardon my french?) and let us help. 

chucker

  SOMETIMES A SITUATION LIKE THIS JUST CALLS FOR MOTHER NATURE TO HAVE HER OWN WAY!! she might just open up and drop a match in the middle of the site and be done with it?? then we will hear all kinds of (no punn ment) wood a, cood a or shood a great statements coming from our forest minded facets of government with a better plan ............just remember the great choices that were set for yellow stone, or a few other places that should of been cleaned up, or loged over, or should of been ????????????????
respect nature ! and she will produce for you !!  jonsered 625 670  2159 2171/28"  efco 147 husky 390xp/28" .375... 455r/auto tune 18" .58 gauge

BaldBob

Back in the 70's we had a MPB infestation that wiped out most of the Lodgepole pine and a significant amount of the younger Ponderosa (6-18"DBH)  in the Blue Mountains of NE Oregon.  We were able to control it somewhat using the green chain method that Pappy described, but eventually the populations of beetles built up so much on adjacent unmanaged USFS stands that we were overwhelmed.  We found that Young Ponderosa stands could be basically "beetle proofed" through judicious thinning prior to infestation.  However, that wasn't especially effective for Lodgepole, which doesn't have the ability to "pitch out" the beetles (no matter how free of stress the Lpp trees are) like PP does.

For a while, early in the salvage effort, we had a strong market for much of the blued pine as paneling which we labeled "Blue Mountain Rustic".  However, it didn't take long for that look to become somewhat trite and the market soon shriveled up.

Infestations such as the the one in CO & WY as well as those in Alberta and BC (the latter two make CO & WY's look like a drop in the bucket) are not at all unique to the current climate era. Beetle infestations like the current one have probably been around almost as long as Lpp has been around.  As someone previously alluded to, once there are large expanses of even aged Lpp all 60+ years old and over 8-9"Dbh its not a question of IF there will be a major MPB outbreak sometime in the next 10-40, years its a question of WHEN. How do you think all those large expanses of even aged stands of Lpp got established? There is ample evidence that most of those areas succumbed to a previous MPB outbreak or were killed by the wildfires that often follow such outbreaks. Remember that Lpp is fire adapted, relatively short lived, shade intolerant. and generally needs mineral soil to regenerate.

JBS 181

Go to google earth and look at some of this area. You will soon see the vast amounts of dead timber. Yes, all that brown or rust color in those forested areas is dead

woodtroll

With all the mismanaged resources, and dried up markets (CO. most of WY.) I would like to complement the Black Hills NF for an aggressive undertaking. They are harvesting as fast as possible. Thinning PP stands to health vigorous levels. It should reduce the bug problem. That being said they still have wilderness areas that they can not touch, but the bug can and is.
Lesson learned do not let industry die out. They will be needed.
Use this stuff for fuel? Who wants to spend $ on a short time fuel sources. Spend hundreds of thousands on a cogen plant and in a few years have no mature  or remaining dead trees to feed it.

Gary_C

Quote from: woodtroll on November 25, 2009, 06:20:32 PM
With all the mismanaged resources, and dried up markets

Lesson learned do not let industry die out. They will be needed.

Has this country learned a lesson? Or will we muddle through this and then say "see, we don't need them anymore" and just continue with the mismanaged resources.  ???
Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.

chucker

  LOGGING!!  the back bone to wiping your azzz with the chance for a splinter... try it with grass paper?  ;D
respect nature ! and she will produce for you !!  jonsered 625 670  2159 2171/28"  efco 147 husky 390xp/28" .375... 455r/auto tune 18" .58 gauge

Jasperfield

I was in Ft Collins this past August and helped cut a timber frame exclusively from beetle killed Lodgepole Pine.

It is perfect for timber framing. Strong, straight, easy to work, and not necessarily soft.

I worked on these timbers for a week and didn't notice any blue stain.

North central Colorado is a long, long way out there.

edwardj_

Up here in Northern Alberta all the trees that I have cut from pine bugs have the blue stain, unless they got the bugs this year.  My Lodgepole pine didnt have the stain as I know they got bugged this summer.  The ones that had holes from last year had a small ring of it.  The trees I have cut that died last year or before have about a 2 inch layer of it on trees 14"+ DBH.

stumphugger

Folks are trying to blame a warming climate for the infestation.  Like others have said, LP is a short lived tree.  It is mature at about 60 to 80 years.  The natural cycle is for beetles to hit the mature trees, kill them, and then a fire rips through which releases seed from the LP cones, and the cycle is repeated.

That is all well and good unless you happen to live in the area burning.  The fires will go until it rains or snows and you'll be dealing with smoke for a while.    LP decays fast so the snags start coming down in a couple of years.  This creates that hard to walk through layer on the ground and it'll burn again if the conditions are right.

During the late 80s, we clearcut quite a bit of it.  .  An environmentalist got a group together to lobby successfully to save "the old growth Lodgepole Pine."  They saved it from being logged.  A few years later, it burned up.  Such is the nature of lodgepole. 

Google the Triad Fire. 

Dakota

Here is the solution to the beetle kill problem on my land.







Dave Rinker

Jasperfield

Wow! It looks like they've eaten the roof off and about half of the house.

Kansas

When I was building my house, I wanted a nice lighter color wood with some character to use for the ceiling. I looked at the blue stain pine out of  Colorado, even had some samples sent. It was nice looking stuff. I thought it was reasonably priced.  Some of those places advertised some pretty good sized beams too, both in length and size. In the end, I had a chance to get a bunch of box elder locally, and used that.
I think there would be a good market for the blue stain pine.

mad murdock

It is a shame that there is so much beetle kill throughout the western parts of US and canada.  Does not need to be.  I work for an aerial application company, who has been involved with testing for the last 9 years, experimenting with different methods of applying a beetle pheromone, to disrupt the beetles in their natural mating cycle.  The experiments met with great success, in the many test plots that we applied the material.  We applied to blocks in California, Oregon, Washington, and Montana.  Results showed a drastic drop in beetle activity.  the problem is that the enviro's, and the beaurocrats who infest the process of managing the vast areas affected, cannot make up their minds to expand the treatment to larger areas, and get the program out of the testing stages, by the time they do, it will be too late, the beetle infestations will have died out because they will have run out of food to keep going, or the forests will have all burned up.  Either way the people get screwed.
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stumphugger

I am not sure if this is true anymore, but blue stain used to be considered a defect in the log.  The logger/timber owner was docked for it.  It was ironic because when milled, blue stain made the boards more valuable for use as paneling. 

mtngun

Quote from: coppercat on January 13, 2010, 09:25:20 PM
Quote from: submarinesailor on January 22, 2008, 05:17:41 PM
I was wondering about what held this beetle in check before now.  Was it cold weather?   Would a normal winter, colder than the last 5, knock them back a little?  Yes, I know it's been cold.  But, on the average I think this winter has been slighter warmer than the 30 year average.

Was wondering out loud.

Bruce

There doesn't seem to be a consensus, but lots of theories.

Smokey the Bear, global warming, decline in bird populations, human caused fires, drought, grazing, non-indigenous plants (like cheatgrass).   Take your pick.     

Bobus2003

Here in the Hills there blaming the Drought, allowing the beeetles to get in and with the drought couldn't push enough sap out of the Ponderosa Pine to push out the beetles.. That and the drought had them stressed already so they were easy targets.. There logging like crazy in many parts of the hills now.. Some places leaving only a dozen or so per acre standing.. In the Norbeck Wilderness area (roughly 35000 Acres) we now have 100% Mortality rates.. The USFS's theory of no management is good managment is failing big time now.. They have now brought it a Crew from Montana to Heli Log it since we cant take Timbco's & Skidder's in there.. Much of the Bug wood here is goin to the Mills (Saying its sound wood) I myself am cutting lots of Firewood and House Logs out of it..

pappy19

In New Mexico the bark beetle has about wiped out the Pinon Pine. No use as a forest product but the natives eat and sell the Pinon Pine nut. Prices have gone through the roof for pinon pine nuts. They could have been saved by doing the green chain cutting cycle, but the enviro's wouldn't allow any cutting. Now they have alot of firewood until the big fire comes.
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woodtroll

Cold weather has little affect. Drought combined with IMO (the main reason) over stocking. Trees can only grow so thick, they stress out each other. The weak die off the reminder continue growing. Add a bug that hits when the trees are stressed then you have big problems.

I do not believe they are logging in the Norbeck. They just can't, it's wilderness. Custer State Park, next door, is paying to heli log.
Just wait, it is hitting the trees around Rushmore and the park has no plans to deal with this situation.
Again hats of to the Black Hills NF for doing what they can harvesting full throttle and to industry in the area for utilizing the product.

SwampDonkey

The term over stocking is foreign to us Canadian foresters. We had it drilled into us that it was over dense, can't have more than 100 % stocking. Density will be defined pretty much by the site, what it will support. ;D When you survey for stocking it's considered 100 % when all your stocking plots contain at least one commercial tree in the defined plot size. ;)
"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)))

woodtroll

I figure stocking is the amount of growing material that can be sustained on a given sight. These arid stands, it makes a big difference.

SwampDonkey

I know the Society of American Forester define stocking as overstocked and understocked, but it represents the upper and lower limits of site occupancy expressed as a percent. I know in stocking charts you'll see 110 %. The stocking chart was derived by tree-area ratio and crown competition factor. Basically, growing space of a tree of said diameter someone figured was in the optimum range for that species. What we look at in my area is somewhat similar, but the plot size of the samples represents the optimum growing space of a fir or spruce. If I hit a fir or spruce in that plot I sample at random, it's a stocked plot and if I get 8 out of ten, the site is said to be 80 % stocked. I can't grasp the concept of being more than 100 % stocked at all. A site will only grow so many trees, just like a bowl can only hold 100 % of it's volume in water. The overflow can't occupy it and the bowl can't be more than 100 %. :D
"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)))

Bobus2003

Quote from: woodtroll on January 14, 2010, 11:26:04 AM
Cold weather has little affect. Drought combined with IMO (the main reason) over stocking. Trees can only grow so thick, they stress out each other. The weak die off the reminder continue growing. Add a bug that hits when the trees are stressed then you have big problems.

I do not believe they are logging in the Norbeck. They just can't, it's wilderness. Custer State Park, next door, is paying to heli log.
Just wait, it is hitting the trees around Rushmore and the park has no plans to deal with this situation.
Again hats of to the Black Hills NF for doing what they can harvesting full throttle and to industry in the area for utilizing the product.

Here is the Article from the Rapid City Journal about the Bugs and the plans to deal with them in Norbeck

http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/news/article_0139f0ec-df69-11de-8bf6-001cc4c03286.html

As for Mt Rushmore..There trying to come up with plans for that now too.. Since they have such high mortality rate in norbeck next door

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