Plantation Layout

[KBforester]

Here is a question from a forester, to other foresters. Whats your preferred way to layout plantations? I've been practicing forestry for less than a decade, and in this region plantations have been left to wayside.

I'm not looking for specifics related to species selection, density, or herbaceous control.

Just the actual layout of strait, parallel rows and tree placement. I'd like it to be really neat and tidy. I've got plenty of ideas.... just wanted to know what folks out there have used in the real world, I've never done one before.

And it's afforestation, if that matters... old hay field.

Thanks!

[WDH]

Check out the first part of this thread.  Also, see Tom's comment on Reply #39.  "That's some mighty straight lines."

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,33920.0.html

This was also an old hay field.  Customsawyer (Jake) ripped the soil to break up any plow pan, and the trees were planted in the rip.  Jake got the ripped rows almost perfectly straight, so maybe he will chime in here and share his technique for such straight rows. 

[mesquite buckeye]

If the land will get sold before the trees reach maturity, The land value will probably be greater with what looks more like a natural forest, as in not straight lines.

Kind of tough when you are using a tree planting machine, though...

[KBforester]

If the land will get sold before the trees reach maturity, The land value will probably be greater with what looks more like a natural forest, as in not straight lines.

Kind of tough when you are using a tree planting machine, though...

I hope I don't live to see the day where I have to sell this land. I love it here. Hopefully my pay will keep up with my taxes.

You raise another good point though... I'll be planting by hand. Unless I can find someone with a planting machine. I've never seen one in these parts... especially since planting hardly ever happens anymore. We are talking a total of... about 7 acres.

Like WDH, I could use a ripper, but I'm going to be planting spruce, and the water table is going to be a bigger problem than hard pan. I'm afraid if I rip I might actually create a place for the water to collect and drown the seedlings. If you dig a hole 2ft deep here, it will fill with 1 foot of water in the middle of August, in about 5 mins. But hey, there are not rocks.

[Claybraker]

Is there a particular orientation that is better, north/south or east/west to take advantage of sunlight? I know that if there is significant road frontage, parallel to the road helps to discourage road hunters around here.

[WDH]

I went for the longest rows for simple efficiency.  As to the monotony of rows and the lack of a natural look, you can create that with the first thinning, at least here with SYP.  Here is a pic of a plantation planted on 10' rows and free thinned.  That means that no rows were removed in the thinning for access.  Leave trees were marked with flagging tape so that the fellerbuncher operator could see each leave tree from 360 degrees and cut the unmarked ones out.  This stand was planted in 1987.  Here is a pic of it after the 2nd thinning in 2010 where it is entering its 24th growing season.  Marking and free thinning takes more time and is more complicated, but it can work.  This pic was taken the day after the logger moved out.  It does take a very skilled logger to do this.



 

As to ripping and the water table, you could still use a tractor with a small single blade plow to score the rows without deep ripping.

[mesquite buckeye]

Good point, WDH. Also, by planting a mix of species you can enhance the natural look, as well as protect yourself somewhat from the next introduced disease/pest.

I planted 25 acres of trees on the Missouri farm in 1999 with in excess of 20 species, mostly in rows because we used a tree planter. The row thing bothered me, but I didn't see a way to get it done any other way. The year we planted we got a drought, and several have happened since then. We ended up between the deer and drought and who knows what else with maybe 1/4 of the original planting as our stand. The deaths weren't completely random, but sort of scattered/clumped. We also got infill of red cedar and other blow in seeds. Most of the rows are no longer obvious.

[Texas Ranger]

What every body said.  Planting the long way is easier and faster, if you can curve a little, would help the look.  You can probably find a single row light planter easy enough, with a farm tractor, may ad to your business.  Hand planting is time consuming, relative hard work, but you don't have to kill your self, a mix of species is fine, just make sure you plant what will get along, and probably in patches.

Every body has a plan, that would be mine.

[SwampDonkey]

The greatest success we had in hay fields was to use a 2 furrow plow and plant at the hinge. Not in the depression or on top of the sod. This gives your trees about 3 years start before the grass thickens up again and fills in. Never had any need to spray. If you spray herbicide up here, you release the worst mess of weeds known to man. If you release bedstraw your trees are doomed. If your field is low herbs like strawberries then a tree planter does the trick. Keep in mind spruce does not grow like southern pine. It's gonna be 10 years to get a 7 or 8 foot spruce. Also let me remind you that spruce is a successful colonizer of old fields up here. So it's just natural for us to plant an old fields to spruce. We've been planting old fields here for 40 years. Mostly spruce, but a lot of red pine to. ;)
I've never heard anyone get any more for land with trees in straight rows. In fact $300-$450/acre is all anyone pays here for plantation, land and all. I'm not really sure it's much advantage. You going to take big machinery into the woods with trees 6 foot apart and expect to do any thinning that isn't going to require making a trail by either removing a whole row or cut corridors down through random placed trees. Looking at straight rows doesn't accomplish much except making parkland and some eye candy. ;) You have to work by trails or helicopters whether there are rows or randomness. ;D Personally I like randomness so one has to leave the car and walk the ground instead of the windshield view. ;)

Since you point out this will be hand planted.... I've planted lots of trees and they go in just as fast the long way as the short way. The efficiency comes in when bagging up at the cache. You want to figure on going down and get back to the cache with each bag up. Walking back to the cache without sinking trees in is unproductive foot work. I've also got a good eye for spacing, but if I feel they are a little wide in a spot I drop a tree or two extra in. I never worry about too many going in, a few extra is better than a few less. You know within reason, 100-200 an acre extra, don't hurt the trees, maybe the back. But if that was a problem you wouldn't be planting by hand. ;D Tree planting is ball park, not perfectionism.

But yes, you have to plant in rows to a great degree because it's just faster and with some degree of assurance the area is fully covered. But don't be afraid to poke an extra tree in if you feel it's a little wide. Spruce has to be close enough to self prune, they don't prune spruce like pines.  If it is too open and they are pruned they will just sucker up again anyway. Spruce is shade tolerant, pine isn't.

[mesquite buckeye]

Other interesting things from our plantings. We had 3 basic soils: 1. somewhat eroded but still quite fertile land on broad ridgetops. 2. Degraded, eroded land on the sides and tops of narrow ridges. 3. Severely  eroded and acidic clays on the tails of the ridges.

The plantings on all areas were sprayed around the trees with simazine about 4' across to reduce weed competition the first year only. The main effect was to make the trees more accessible to deer, who promptly ate all the red and white pine in the planting, as well as many of the oaks, etc. The first and second years the better soils had 6-9 ft tall weeds which stifled almost all tree growth, killing many. The intermediate soils were similar in height to the trees and hid most of them from the deer damage. The poorest soils were so bad that even weeds grew poorly or not at all, but initially some of the trees on these soils did better than the others. Later, as the trees on the better soils got over the weeds, they blew by these.

Getting past the deer damage stage has been very tough, with most of the trees getting to this height, which is about 7ft plus in 2011, which is 12 years after the planting. Aforestation can be tough and requires patience. We are now finally on our way to forest 14 years after we first planted.

Don't know if this is of any help, but hopefully somebody can recognize something here of use.

Good luck with your planting.

[KBforester]

Thanks everyone. I should point out too, that I don't mind experimenting a little bit. Its true that a plantation is an investment of money, but since I am a forester- knowledge is valuable, so I like the idea of trying a variety of things to see what works and what doesn't.

SD- Those are some good points. I thought about planting on a ridge... but I had never heard of it before, so I wasn't sure if it was a stupid idea. Good to hear it works! That's something to consider. Good point about the herbicide/ weeds too. White spruce is going to be my primary tree species... its naturally coming in in other places (like it typically does). I'd also like to plant a few other species for diversity. I'm hesitant to plant much red pine though. I've seen some 12 year old RP plantations gone totally wrong around here. We are right on the coast, and the wind is strong and hard all year round, and when a tree like red pine puts on nearly two feet of growth a year, that leader is very susceptible to snapping. I've seen this in an entire acre or two at a time, about 9 ft up. An adjacent spruce plantation did fine though. Red pine has a semi-tap root too, I'm not sure how that will go in the clay soils with low water table. As for pruning/self pruning its going to be an experiment. I'd like to plant some close, and some farther away. As you pointed out 6-7 ft in ten years is to be expected... I'm not in any rush to harvest these trees. Before I die would be great. I'm only 27. I might end up pruning areas that are more widely spaced if it makes sense to. Cost effective? Probably not. Fun? I think so. I like the idea of having them grow with plenty of space to develop wind firmness. I'm thinking like 8ft spacing in the wide areas, six where its tighter. link=topic=65746.msg982460#msg982460 date=1365377873]

/quote] Looking at straight rows doesn't accomplish much except making parkland and some eye candy. ;)

Exactly! I don't expect to sell the land, and I'm only planting in rows because I like rows. I'd like to break it up into small blocks to keep track of my little experiments too, like spacing and pruning. 

buckeye- Technically I have two soil types. They both have the same site index however. One is clay, the other is clay with a little sand :laugh:. I'm prpared to use herbicide if necessary. Maybe not with white spruce since it can tolerate weeds better than other species. Deer shouldn't be a problem with the spruce... not that we have many deer anyways. I haven't seen a deer in my field for two years now. Though I'm sure if I planted something delicious they will come!

[beenthere]

Rows are great for the early maintenance either needed or desired, as moving equipment through the plantation is so much more convenient. Be it mowing, or spraying, or just sight seeing (trying to find those small seedlings when the grass comes up faster)... the rows have their advantage. IMO ;)

[mesquite buckeye]

You can have some of our deer if you need more. We have extra.

[SwampDonkey]

We don't do either one here on reforestation. Imagine if you had to try to mow on a clear cut. Spraying a hay field is often very weedy afterward and not encouraged. Proper site prep is the way to start out. Brushing is done with a clearing saw since it has to be cut away from the stems, not just in corridors, needs 100 % coverage. Spraying over top would be useless by the time the spruce are hardened off. The weeds would be matured and seeds ripe by then for release. Never see it done on hay fields. Growing Christmas trees is different, the spacing of work corridors and the layout is more meticulous.

[rocksnstumps]

Not a forester but here's my experience with planting about 4 acres of old cow pasture with white spruce back in 2007 and some more in 2008. My soil is sandy loam and on a low ridge so your mmv.

I starting with marking rough rows with flags about every 50-75 yds and sprayed generic roundup two weeks before planting with a backpack sprayer and walked from flag to flag. Planted by hand and used 8 ft between rows and told the other fella planting to keep about 6 ft apart.  It was a little windy during spraying so the "rows" were not straight by any means and some areas had to dodge the ever present rocks. By planting day had a very wavy line to follow but easily could see where grass was dying off. Hand planted with dibble bar and followed the wavy lines so not really a consistent 8 ft.

By summer and the next year had some broadleaf weeds starting to crop up, especially mullien and thistle. We had a very dry stretch mid summer, going over 6 weeks without rain and lost a bunch of trees that did not make it after that first winter ( I assume stressed and than winter did 'em in). I replanted maybe an acre worth the next year along property lines, filling in where trees were kaput. It was very easy to see where the old rows where even if I didn't see much for trees above the grass/weeds. I had 5 ft+ tall thistle stems and other crap while the grass between rows was much shorter. I got motivated to reduce some weeds in the rows of trees along my fences and took a bucket to cover trees while spraying around hundreds with roundup.  Five years later there is a definite difference in tree height for the areas that I knocked back the weeds that second summer.

By years 3 and 4 the grass started creeping back in the rows and the thistle and junk lost out to the grasses. It's now pretty much back to grass and trees.

If you have any deer by you white spruce is supposed to be low on their list, but seemed like there always was a time very late winter or early spring that they liked to nip the leaders. Got a lot of multi-stemmed trees now that I have been slowing trying to prune some back to just a central leader.

They really started to get going after about 4 years and even with the extreme dry we had last year, still got 14-16" of growth on the bigger ones. After six growing seasons, a few are over 6 ft (assume they missed the early deer pruning) but most are about waist high. Here's a pic from our snowless January in 2012 where they show up well against all the brown stuff. Most of these put on another foot during the summer of 2012.

  

[curdog]

On our open field planting (loblolly and some white pine) we machine plant on 8x12 spacing following the contours to prevent erosion from the furrow created by the planter. But that may not apply since you said you have a real high water level, so I'm assuming its flat. But during the planting we spray oust and accord. The accord takes care of the vegetation that is greened up and the oust is a preemergent to keep things in check for the first year. I'd recommend whatever spacing you go for make sure its wide enough to mow between for a year or two. Keeping the weeds and grass knocked back definitely helps the trees. And going back and spot spraying herbicide goes a long way. I looked at one tract that a lot of follow up done and the trees were twice as large as other tracts planted in the same year. (These were in a extended yard setting and got mowed between every time the lawn guy mowed the grass, and herbicide was reapplied every time one blade of grass got within 3 feet of the tree).

[SwampDonkey]

Not feasible in forestry settings and not done. It's different when it's the back yard. Try and do it on 1500 acres. Even 100 acres will break ya. ;) Don't compare it to Christmas trees on 8 year rotations.

[curdog]

I'll agree that on a large scale it's not feasible to mow and may not be necessary. We have so many invasive species that pop up in our field planting that usually mowing or follow up herbicide work is needed. Especially cow pastures in bottoms around streams or rivers. Did I mention how much I hate privet:)
But since the op owns the land and its seven acres in size it would feasible at least in my area.

[SwampDonkey]

We also have competition, but mostly native plants like alder, willow, hawthorn, aspen, fir, and maple. If deciduous species get a hold of a softwood plantation it will over top them and whip the leaders as well as suppress. We often have to use brush saws to do a cleaning. We don't get much for vines, and almost never seem to invade a plantation. I wouldn't hold anyone back if they wanted to mow, but how effective is it unless it's just herbs and grass mowing. When woody stems take over the trees need cleaning all the way around them, not just in rows you can drive between in one direction. The trouble for most of us is money. Spray is extremely expensive and I can not go out and buy it off the shelf. I need an applicators license as do farmers here. Those little bottles of round-up with diluted chemical in one litre bottles gets mighty expensive at $15 a pop that covers hardly any ground. We are fortunate in one way, we have a silviculture program that funds spraying as a site prep tool or a release tool. However, it's a one time subsidy. If it fails, your on your own dime from then on. That is a disincentive for most, when they have to buy it, and especially so when we have to buy diluted consumer quantities unless we're licensed.

[Claybraker]

Licensing isn't a huge barrier around here, but the only herbicides I can't buy without it are higher concentrations of Picloram. Tordon RTU is available without a license. Quite honestly, I'm not sure I want to use Picloram. Everything else, concentrated glyphosate, imazapyr, triclopyr, metsulferon, are all readily obtainable. Don't even need to drive to the store, I can order online and have it delivered. A 2 1/2 gallon jug of Chopper goes a long way when dealing with my arch enemy, the evil sweetgum. If you want to grow 10 sweetgum, cut one down and wait a year. Same with privet, mimosa, etc.

[KBforester]

Anyone with thoughts and opinions on Escort® XP Herbicide (Metsulfuron Methy)?

[Claybraker]

From what I've read, it's usually used in a tank mix. I'll be trying it out this year on some saw palmetto, but I don't know how big a problem that is in your location. It's supposed to be deadly on blackberry, but the quail seem to like blackberry, I like quail, so I won't be using it in a widespread fashion.

[SwampDonkey]

I'm not against herbicides in weed control. However in my personal situation on my land I do not have any trees that I consider a weed. I do not include shrubs as trees. I have areas of my land that a tamarack is better than a willow bush, and I have planted tamarack. A cedar is better than a cattail and balsam poplar is better than sedges. So in those areas I chose to use a brush saw if needed to clean around a commercial tree. The broadcast spray would wipe out trees in areas where planted trees would not survive as well as wetland tree species. Most of the time brushing those areas simply means cutting willow or thinning out some thick spaced trees. However, most of my land is plantation and not a field. If I have a maple or ash here and there, it is a welcomed site as I would rather have a mixed species plantation anyway.  Some planted rows were a little wide, so I have a corridor of hardwood many times between planted rows and am very grateful my land regenerates so well even if it's not all spruce trees. Now to thin out the darn moose some more. They take about 2 moose a season from the area, but not near enough. I can see or hear moose just about every stroll I take out there.

[beenthere]

So Sd, are you doing your fair share with the moose?  How many can you take each year?

[SwampDonkey]

Moose is good meat especially raised on these farms. However, I have not hunted in years myself and never for big game. But if anyone hunts, they don't need my permission to enter and take a moose from my ground. We have a draw here for licenses and one can put in every 5 years. But these critters are getting too thick for me.  Deer are one thing, which are few and far between, but these moose are a nuisance. :