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My brother and I are establishing a new loblolly pine plantation on some pasture land that we inherited from my Father.

We sprayed round-up a few weeks ago to knock back the Bahia grass.  Here is a pic of one of the fields:



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To successfully establish the plantation on an old pasture with a hard pan, we have to rip open the hard pan so that the tree roots can penetrate below the hard pan.  Here is a pic of the ripping shank with a leading colter:



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The ripping tooth penetrates to a depth of 20":



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A pic of the ripped furrow.  My expert contractor pointed out that the ripping shank fractures the hard pan two feet to either side of the furrow! 



(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14370/IMG_2023.JPG)

The ripping machine is a beaut of a tractor...A John Deere 6415 four-wheel drive.  It is doing a great job.  I thought that the soil was too hard from too little rain, but my expert contractor said not to worry ;D.  Here is the JD 6415:



(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14370/IMG_2029.JPG)

Here is a pic of my expert contractor (and sawyer extraordinare), the Forum's Customsawyer.

He is a man of many talents!  He will plant the trees after enough rain has fallen to help get the air out of the rip, probably in January if all goes well.



(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14370/IMG_2028%7E0.JPG)

Without the Forum, I would not have know that Jake was a re-forestation contractor.  Now he is a good friend!

Hey! That's a prettygood picture of Jake there, I must say though, it would be a lot better picture if Lorraine was standing there instead. ;)


This will be a great thread to keep track of over the coming years.  :)

Good story and great pictures. Those rippers have been a big improvement out here on the prairies over the moldboard plow. But most of them I see are pulled by those huge 4 wheel drive tractors with duals and well over 300 HP cause they pull darn hard, especially the first time they are used in a field.

Why are you converting the pasture to a pine plantation instead of cropland and how many acres?

WDH, I'm glad to see you took pity and gave Jake a little something to keep him off the street. ;D :D :D   Seriously, Jake has so many irons in the fire that he's gonna be in "THE MOTHER OF ALL PICKLES" if the fire goes out! :o

Since this is supposed to be a Forestry Education site, and this thread is probably gonna be a great tutorial on plantation establishment, I'll ask a rather pointed question.  Why Loblolly?  What are some of the criteria that you, as an expert Pine Plantation manager, look at when choosing one type of Pine over another?

The reason I ask that is that most everybody down this way is planting Longleaf, so maybe you could comment on that trend as well? :P :P

In north Missouri about the only pine we could grow was red, white, Austrian, and scotch.  None were native and although they grew they were not impressive.  Since moving to Arkansas we have been exposed to loblolly and southern yellow pine.  Planted some of each this spring and a few have already grown to 3 foot tall.  Seemed the loblolly grew slightly faster than the syp.  Don't know if this is normal as we had I would think, a perfect growing season with abundant rainfall.

Looking forward to your comments and thought process WDH...thanks for taking the time to compose what I am sure is going to be a great thread.

I can help answer your question, DanG: See the red clay on the ripping tooth in the picture above?  That is prime loblolly pine territory, and it will outperform any other species on that site.  In Georgia, part of the reason longleaf pine has become more popular in recent years is because it's easier to get government stipends from the Coservation Reserve Program (CRP) to plant longleaf than loblolly.  It's part of a growing movement to help restore the vast acreages of longleaf pines that were converted to cropland many years ago.  My very own grandfather planted longleaf pine on a site very similar to WDH's for that reason, and he had to replant it twice before he had adequate stocking due to excessive mortality.  Longleafs simply prefer sandy soils, while loblollies will grow so fast on a red clay pasture, you'll have to step back after you set them in the ground to keep from getting hit in the nose ;D.

You, DanG, are in longleaf territory, with soils more suitable for that species than are present in WDH's area, which helps explain why everybody down your way is planting longleaf pine.

Gary_C, I can't speak for WDH, but I can speak as a forester: the rate of deforestation in Georgia is pretty startling.  We are one of the most forested states in the nation, but we're losing forestland at an increasing clip due to agriculture and urbanization.  I'm glad to see that WDH will be putting some trees back on the land :).  Plus, I'm willing to bet that he know a lot more about trees than cotton ;).

Thanks Dodgy.  I pretty much had all those factors in mind when I asked the question.  I don't see how Loblollies could grow any faster up there than they do here.  They will knock yer hat off if ya ain't quick on yer feet! :o :D

Other than the County Extension Office, what is a good source for Loblolly and other pines?

Quote from: Dodgy Loner on November 03, 2008, 04:24:21 PM

Gary_C, I can't speak for WDH, but I can speak as a forester: the rate of deforestation in Georgia is pretty startling.  We are one of the most forested states in the nation, but we're losing forestland at an increasing clip due to agriculture and urbanization.  I'm glad to see that WDH will be putting some trees back on the land :).  Plus, I'm willing to bet that he know a lot more about trees than cotton ;).

Is cotton the only crop option?  Do they raise any soybeans in that area or even corn?

Pine seem to do very well on fields. We have a lot in red pine up here. Some fields that had white spruce naturals sometimes had red pine inter planted because they catch up to the spruce. The most successful pine on fields with tall weeds and grass were prepared by single furrow plow. By flopping that furrow over and planting on the hinge, it holds the weeds at bay for 3 years. We don't plant down in the scalp and not beyond the hinge the other direction as the roots would dry out. By 3 years the red pine is lots tall and sturdy. We found spraying alone released the worst bunch of weeds God created on some fields.  :D So, I prefer to delay the spray for at least a couple seasons in case a field needs a little dose to help the pine the 3rd and 4th year. Not too much problem with hard pan right around here. Problem is some fields are not meant for pine in these parts, some are too wet. So white spruce will take better. Be good to plant cedar in with it, 50/50 but can't get the seedlings at a good price. Cost quite a bit to get them going in the nursery I guess.

Going to be a nice looking spot WDH when those pine get going. Look forward to see the project unfold. ;D

Quote from: Radar67 on November 03, 2008, 04:41:00 PM
Other than the County Extension Office, what is a good source for Loblolly and other pines?

I know Weyerhaeuser has a very large pine nursery near Meridian, MS.  I believe the seedlings they sell will be more expensive than those you can get from the government, but they have also been selected for better genetics (in GA, the Georgia Forestry Commission, not the Extension Service, will sell pine seedlings).  WDH may know more since he works for Weyerhaeuser.

Quote from: Gary_C on November 03, 2008, 04:45:46 PM
Is cotton the only crop option?  Do they raise any soybeans in that area or even corn?

Oh, there's lots of other crops grown in that area, including wheat, soybeans, corn, and sorghum.  I think WDH would have to rent out the land or crop in on shares if he were to keep it in agriculture, but as a forester, he can do a good job looking after the trees himself.  I think I'll let him respond before I go about making any more assumptions about his decision ;)

Jeff, you are so right!  I will try to rectify the situation ;D.  Ms Lorraine is a sweetheart!  I apologize for the oversight :).  While Jake may be a handsome man to some, Ms Lorraine is a real beauty!  He says that she is his partner in the tree planting side of the project, so there will be some pics of the better half of this Reforestation company forthcoming!

Dang...we checked out the availability of longleaf cost-share assistance from the FSA.  They have established criteria that say the land must have been row cropped for 3 of the last 5 years.  This land was in hay, which does not qualify.  Like Dodgy points out, this is a sorry site for longleaf, even worse than on Dodgy's Granddaddy's land (some of the best Ag land in all of Houston County).  Even then, the longleaf project on the Tyson Farm required multiple re-plants.  The FSA requires a minimum stocking, and you have to keep re-planting until you achieve the minimum.  I was hesitant about longleaf on this site, but the lure of the cost share money plus the annual CRP payment (about $40/acre) was enticing.  Since we did not qualify, it was a moot point.  Plus, loblolly grows much faster and will yield income much sooner.  The focus on longleaf is a romantic attempt to restore the pre-colonial ecosystem that existed in the flatwoods of the South.  It is well intended, but in many cases, longleaf is being planted on sites that it was never adapted for.  Like this one.  Loblolly was the predominant native pine on these red clay sites in the old days anyway.  Tell that to the government do-gooders :).

Gary_C.  This land was cropped for many years, especially peanuts.  My Dad became unable to farm the land in his latter years, so hay was a fall back position.  Then, he became unable to bale the hay with advancing age, so he allowed others to cut the hay for a share.  The economic return from the share was about the same in annual $/ac the annual $/ac of a tree crop.  If I had the equipment, I could do better with hay.  If I had to invest in the hay equipment with such a small area (40 acres), that would reduce the economic return back to the tree level.  Being a forester, I decided that I was more suited to trees.  Plus, I have about 100 acres of other plantations ranging in age form 13 to 23 years.  It fit my business plan better.  Excellent question, though.

Quote from: Radar67 on November 03, 2008, 04:41:00 PM
Other than the County Extension Office, what is a good source for Loblolly and other pines?

Terry,

Weyerhaeuser has a tree nursery in Aiken, SC.  The trees are improved from controlled mass pollination of the best performing tree families.  They ship to a cooler in my area (the bagged trees have to kept in cold storage until they are planted).  There is also a state nursery about 30 miles away that provides seedlings for sale.  There are several other tree nurseries within 100 miles, some small and private and some ran by big outfits like Weyerhaeuser.  The seedling are available from a multiple of sources.  We will plant on a 12 x 6 spacing or a little over 600 trees per acre.  In total, including the pastures (48 acres), we plant 30,000 seedlings.  The seedling will cost about $1650 or about $35/acre.

I did not know I am such a handsome looking feller. Well I am glad to see that I didn't break anything when you took that pic. ;D
Just one small mistake in the size of the tractor, it is a 6415 and the loader is a 640. I think that WDH is living right as we got some of the subsoiling done on Saturday and then a small shower today. That little bit of rain will go along way toward getting the air pockets out for when we plant.
I was trying to explain to WDH about how good I am being able to work in his hard dirt and all but he let me know real quick that he thought it was the equipment and not me so I just shut up kept driving that tractor.
With the chemical that they put out there will be some control of the grass and weeds on in to the spring but if it is needed we can apply some other chemicals over the top of the loblolly and control it even longer in to the growing season. One of the great things about the loblolly is the different types and amonts of chemical that you can spray over it with out hurting it.
Yall keep your eye on this place as it will raise some eyebrows watching these things take off. I had one customer that I planted 30 acres for and he sold them at 3 years old for $60.00 each and they came in with a tree spade and dug them up. the shortest ones was just under 11' tall and there were some above 15'.  This customer had been putting lots of fert. and such on his field just befor we planted it so I am sure that helped.
Jeff you have to admit that is a great looking tractor even if you don't like the pic. of me. :D

WDH, are they bare root seedlings? Bare root red pine were really good performers and survival was high. We can't get them any longer since DNR does not sell to private owners any longer. All their seedlings go to crown land license holders for free.  ::)

Do you guys do any lift pruning of the trees once they are established?

Locally it really improves the return if the butt logs are 90% clear wood as opposed to letting them shed branches naturally and ending up with knotty sawlogs.

We mostly grow radiata pine, but the idea would be the same. Properly pruned sawlogs are worth about 5 times what low grade sawlogs are. But the pruning must be done in the first 3-7 years to keep the knots in a small central core.

Ian

SD...yes, bareroot.

Ianab...there is limited commercial pruning here, mainly done by Weyerhaeuser.  I have one plantation of mine that I pruned that is now 22 years old.  Pruning is done after the 1st thinning, generally around age 11 - 15 years of age.

I saw a good bit of pruning in NZ on my benchmarking trip in 2004.  Here is a pic of a pruned radiata pine plantation in the Nelson, NZ area like you described:



(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14370/110-1043_IMG.JPG)

Yeah, thats the sort of thing.

Those trees have probably just had their 3rd prune, you can see the lower branch stubs have healed over. I'm guessing your system would need to be different to suit the climate differences. It probably looks a bit extreme if you aren't used to the system, having 20ft of tree with 10 ft of green on top. But it's all about producing that valuable clear wood in relatively young plantation trees.

Ian

Pruning isn't practices here on a commercial sized operation. Irving and others have 1000's of acres of pine plantations and never prune a stick. They are so darn limby that I don't even know how you could debark them. Some land owners will prune pine. Many do more damage than good by running the chain saw up the bark. Some do a decent job but only on tiny acreages. I never see much more than 3 or 4 acres done near roads. Never see 50 or 100 acres done. In the west they used to have a pruning program for hemlock and probably lodge pole. Never would you prune spruce or fir because of rot, so here in the east we grow them tight. Most landowners need to do thinnings, but rarely follow up. One logger is going around chipping whole plantations that are no older than 15 years old. He's convinced the owners somehow they should be removed and never planted again.  ::) Either he's desperate to cut wood or the owners are starving to death. I think the owners are still pretty hungry.  ;)

When I worked for Weyerhaeuser, they only pruned once after the first thinning, to a height of 17-18'.  This made the bottom 16' log much clearer.  Labor is too expensive to prune more than once on a large scale, however.

Ianab, it looks like your radiata pine has a tendency to produce "whorls" of branches, rather than branches that alternate along the length of the trunk.  Pruning would probably be more common here if loblolly had that tendency, because concentrating the knots in one area of the stem makes boards much weaker.

Loblolly self-prunes really well, anyway.  I was doing a little "shopping" in my small patch of woods yesterday, looking for fence post material.  There are many naturally regenerated Loblollies out there that look like a Christmas tree on top of a flagpole.  Some are 4"dbh or less, and 40 feet to the branches.

Loblolly is a good self-pruner when grown in a dense stand like the one you describe.  However, many pine plantations are grown on a wide spacing to encourage rapid growth, which also encourages the trees to hold onto their branches longer.  The trees in your patch of woods will produce excellent timber, but would be growing too slowly if profit is the primary consideration.

Yep, but they're gonna make great fence posts real shortly! ;D :D :D  I'll take the beetle kills first, then fill out my needs with live ones.  I plan on cutting some of them later this week, so I'll get a ring count and we'll see how they've performed

I have a pretty good example of contrasts on hand.  A bunch of seeds blew across the road a few years back, and I left some of the trees so the horses would have some shade.  Those trees are only about 7 years old, and are pushing 6"dbh, but I need to prune them.  I'm planning to remove a few of them too, so we should get a good comparison.

Some applied research is in order here Dr. Dang!  I await the results of your study ;D.

I'll get right on it! ;D :D  It should be interesting since I'm pretty sure all the seeds came from the same big tree.  The babes in the woods are 3-4 inches dbh and 60-70 feet tall, and the open grown ones are 5-7 inches and 20-25 feet tall.  The ring count should tell the tale, eh?

Your project is makin' me think I otter start a tree nursery. ;D ;)  The North side of my place borders on a nice Loblolly stand for about 1000 feet.  Every year, little pines come up along that strip about 50' wide, thicker'n hair on a dog's back.  I bet if I harrowed it up good and laid down a layer of pine straw, I could sell a half-million trees a year!

4" and 70 feet, they'll make great pole vault sticks.  :D

Dang don't like them to get much bigger than his waist line. Now if you was to go over to Tom's place or mine for that matter we grow them a little bigger. ;D

Perhaps with all that 'stimulus' that Obama is talking about creating ( also known as borrowing in some countries), maybe we can hire some 'Re-Forestation Experts to go onto private land and plant trees.  There are millions of acres of unused, fallow pasture land that is laying idle.  The government ought to do more to get that land producing something, if nothing else, a better view.

Lets start a petition!

What is Pitch x Lobolly Pine (Pinus rigida x Pinus taeda)?  Is it worth giving them a try in northwest Arkansas?  Gotta get my order in soon for bare root seedlins.  My expectations are not to fund my retirement...just leave this pile of rocks in better condition than when I found it.

I am not familiar with the Pitch/Loblolly cross.  Do people plant shortleaf in that area of Arkansas?

Where can I get me one of them there fancy rippin' shanks?  ;D

Quote from: WDH on November 20, 2008, 07:29:40 PM
Do people plant shortleaf in that area of Arkansas?

There planted here but I don't know if for production or not.  I know little about pine.

Brian, I've never seen a commercially made single.  There easy to make...the hard part is finding a coulter...watch the farm sales.  I made one for use in a tree planter and two more nearly exact copies of customsawyer for the same use...and also to root prune in crop fields.

Larry, not sure what that cross is, but, in my early days in southern Missouri, it was all short leaf.  That is, what was left after the '30's ,  much of it has been replanted and coming on strong.

That there fancy ripping shank was made in my shop after I got done busting the store bought ones all to bits. ;D
You have to have a backwoods degree to come up with that thing.

Quote from: customsawyer on November 22, 2008, 05:22:25 AM
That there fancy ripping shank was made in my shop after I got done busting the store bought ones all to bits. ;D
You have to have a backwoods degree to come up with that thing.

I think I could sell those things like hotcakes if you ever went into producing them. How much did it cost you to put together?

Quote from: customsawyer on November 22, 2008, 05:22:25 AM
That there fancy ripping shank was made in my shop after I got done busting the store bought ones all to bits. ;D
You have to have a backwoods degree to come up with that thing.

In some instances out there, there have never been truer words spoken.  ;)

I can say with experience that it works good ;D. 

Customsawyer said that parts of that pasture was harder than carbide woodpecker lips :).

Hurray!

The little trees are in the ground!



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Customsawyer's crew did a fine job.  I got the trees from the state nursery.  They cost $52 per thousand or about a nickel per tree. 

I had 1500 trees left over.  Anyone want to come to Perry, GA and get some loblolly pine seedlings?

So how many $52 dollar bills did you spend? ;D

That's some mighty straight lines.

Danny, I look forward to seeing the life of this stand through pictures. Looks real nice.

Don

Great Project Danny :)
Can't wait to keep up with their progress. ;)

Quote from: metalspinner on January 29, 2009, 08:33:39 PM
So how many $52 dollar bills did you spend? ;D

31 of them for the trees.  Then there was the clearing cost on the non-pasture parts of the property, the cost to spray round-up on the pasture area, the cost to subsoil, the cost of the trees, and the cost to plant the trees.  This spring, there may be a cost to apply a grass control herbicide.  When all the costs are tallied, I will report on the $/acre cost if anyone is interested.   It will be fun to watch them grow. 

One really big issue is the tendency in the last few years to get severe drought conditions in late spring/early summer in Georgia.  If it happens again this year like it did the last two years, there will be significant mortality.  We planted over 600 trees per acre, but I need 450 to make it through the first year to have the kind of stand that I need. 

I wonder if Customsawyer also does rain dances ;D.

What is your row spacing and spacing in the row?

I don't know what row spacing they are now recommending here in the north, but the last pine job I did the rows were about 5 to 6 feet. I think the forester was saying they do not plant that close anymore.

It might have to do with soil, but my last trees were planted with the reccomendation of 10 foot rows with 6 foot tree spacings with the idea of a thinning to 10 foot tree spacings.  The Ultimate thinning would take out every third row and leave 15-20 foot tree spacings.

A typical regime for loblolly is 12 foot rows with trees every 6 feet in the row.  This spacing results in 605 trees/ac.  I also have a plantation, like Toms, that is 10 foot rows with trees every 6 feet.

They can only grow so dense, so you reach a point of diminishing returns after about 750 trees/ac.  The Industry has been pushing the stocking down over the years; many now are around 500 to 600 trees per acre. 

Here in western NC, in order to be eligible for cost share money from the state loblolly plantations cannot be planted closer than 10 foot rows with 8 foot spacing within rows.  We still do some 10X6 spacing on good sites in SC where there is a commitment to more intensive management, but have moved to the wider spacing for the most part.  Still prefer 5th row thinnings and removing suppressed, diseased, damaged and poor form trees from residual rows, typically targeting about 1/3 of the volume for removal on a first thinning. 

I think this stand I cut was 40+ years old and not doing well. If I remember right it may have been planted at 5 x 5 on some contour strips on a farm in SE Minnesota. Here is the best before picture I could get as it was pretty thick and dark in there.



(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11467/N-Pine-before.jpg)

I think most of the red pine was 25-30 ft tall. Here is the after picture where I was taking out two rows. I later came back and thinned two rows on each side. The forester wanted at least 10 foot between trees.



(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11467/N-Pine-after.jpg)

In spite of the crowded conditions, it was not self pruning well. But if you think this was bad, you should have seen the scotch pine section. I had to give up on that scotch pine and he was going to get a chipper in to clean it all up.

It is absolutely mind-boggling that those trees did not self prune any more than that. 

That was a very interesting job and I hope you get as much enjoyment out of your plantation as that landowner got out of that farm. The owner was a transplant surgeon from the Mayo Clinic and worked mostly in pediatrics. That farm was clearly his refuge and he dearly loved that place. He told me up front he was not doing this thinning for the money and he did not cash my check for almost a year after I did the job. He also had a stand of the best Red Oak I've seen. Some day I will go back by there and get some new pictures.

Good job WDH, I've enjoyed this thread immensely.  It always interests me how they do nearly the same in different parts of the nation.

Gary - My experience with red pine tells me that your stand was more like 25 years old.  The SE part of MN can grow some pretty good red pine, for all we know that may be an excellent pine site, but like you said, it looks like they planted them too thick. 

Clark

Now that I look at your pictures more it may have been closer to 20 years if it was a good site, that would help explain the lack of self pruning. 

Yeah Gary up here we space trees 6 to 7 feet apart to get 1875 to 2500 per ha (760-1000 per acre). It cost $160 per acre on my lot to reforest after assistance from the silviculture program. The actual cost approaches $600/acre for planting, trees, scarifying, and aerial herbicide application.

Interesting thread Danny. Even though we have no softwoods to speak of in my area I sure enjoy reading about how it's done.

Looking good, Danny!  I hope we'll have a wetter spring this year than the last three years have been, so you don't have to replant.

The planting conditions were almost perfect, foggy, overcast, even a little drizzly at times.  So, the little lobs are getting off to a fine start. 

These pastures were pretty much worn out without a great deal of residual fertilizer from past practices.  Even so, the little lobs should do well if we decent spring and summer rain.

I burned part of the property last week and I have about 50 more acres to burn.  I have been pretty busy trying to get the property in shape.

Gary_C, there is no place that I would rather be than on my property. 

Looking good, Danny.  8)

I think a lot of us feel much the same about our properties.  It is a real treat to be able to spend time in the woods, looking at what is there and dreaming about what will be.

Found my camera, so I thought I'd toss in a couple pix of my young crop for comparison.

The loblolly went in March of 2005, so they're coming up on 4 years in the ground. They're running about 2 to 2 1/2 inch caliper and around 12 feet tall.



(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/12284/plantation.jpg)



They ran out of shortleaf that year, so they were planted the following March. One years difference between the loblollys on the left and the shortleaf on the right.



(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/12284/2trees.jpg)

Says alot about genetics, doesn't it. The shortleaf are all under 4 feet. Spacing is all 8 X 10 and planting done as a turnkey operation by the state for $65 an acre. This is what started me on the road to becoming a forester.

Yeah, but them shortleaf will make stronger wood. A pine is not a pine is not a pine. ;D :D

Quote from: SwampDonkey on February 06, 2009, 05:26:19 PM
Yeah, but them shortleaf will make stronger wood.

If you don't mind waiting 75 years :). 

Riles, that is a fine looking loblolly plantation.  Good rabbit and quail habitat too ;D.

What's the hurray? ;D

Most trees that I have met don't seem to be in a hurry ;D.

The shortleaf back up to the house, so they've been on an 80 year rotation from the start. (I figure I'll be dead in 40, so it doesn't really matter).

The neighbor introduced quail a couple years ago and we saw them as late as last summer, but the coyotes are hitting everything hard around here lately. The rabbits in particular are taking a pounding, and even the deer are AWOL.

We probably have 40,000 - 50,000 acres of plantations here on this district, 75% lob and 25% shortleaf.  The lob will outgrow anything close to it - too far north for longleaf so I don't consider that one viable.  The only thing against lob, well two; it is non-native here and the ice can take a heavy toll.  Lob will recover though and really do well.  If I was doing it for my own profit I'd plant lob.  And did in the mid-70's, have had one thinning already.  In the south strength in timber is not really a big factor, it's going to pulp and small logs first thinning, then onto SYP standards in thinning # 2 and final removals.  Our lob has a 35 year rotation with USFS, but we do go to 40 years if the stands can handle it.... Personally owned stands go for around 50 years to get some bigger logs (20"+).

Kinda like aspen up here, more so for large tooth. There is a stand that was cut here on the farm in 1994 and in 2007 the diameters were already 8 inches. In 50 years, they'll be huge. I have an older aspen in the back yard (trembling) and it is almost 8", but 20 years old. Quite a difference in growth, both good sites. It's not open grown because it has spruce on all sides. I have a 28 year old hybrid in the back yard that is 16 inches now.


Edit Note: I checked that hybrid with a tape and it's almost 20 inches.

Well WDH are you thinking about spraying them trees yet or did your pre treatment give you some spring control?

My brother and I are in the throes of rigging up a sprayer to do it ourselves.  We plan to spray 4 ounces of Arsenal and 2 ounces of Oust per gallon at a rate of 10 gallons per acre.  We hope to do the spraying in a week or so.

Jake, on the 50 acres, I have not found a single dead tree yet.  While the grass is getting boisterous, the little trees look very good.  You did a fine, a very fine job, and it shows!  Thank you for a job well done  8).

Pics to follow after the spraying...

I would lean more toward 6 oz of arsenal and 2 oz of oust per acre with 10 gal of water. ;)

Machine Planting Red Pine. Planting a cutover area of cleared Scotch pine with the more productive red pine. Schirmer planting 4/09

A days supply of watered 2-0 red pine stock is hauled out to the planting site.



(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10002/148/2-0_red_pine%7E0.JPG)

Trees are machine planted with a Whitfield wildland planting machine pulled by a LA 1601 Kubota Rubber tired tractor



(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10002/148/schirmer_planting.JPG)

Ron,

That is a nicely site-prepped cutover area.

I band sprayed my new little trees and they are doing good.  I will take a pic and update this thread.

We used to get 3 year old bare root pine from DNR, they were very nice trees. Came in 500 count bundles. The went mostly on old fields. We can only get 2 year old multipot grown ones now. They are very small and mostly for cutover sites which are herbicide, they are fine for old run out fields with very short herbs like strawberry and paint brush.

Yes, the chipping crew does a good job of clearing the scotch pine and preparing the sites for machine planting. Stumps are sheared low and the grapple skidder tree lengthing over the areas smooth them out well for the rubber tired tractor. We thought that we would need to have a crawler with a "V" blade pull the tree planter, but the rubber tired Kubota handles it well.

We are cutting and clearing more areas for planting again next spring, but now the Cogen plant has cut the chips to only 5 loads a week. Due to tough access and distance my contractor can't make ends meet with that cut in quota so we are on hold untill the chip market picks up again. Maybe not until fall or winter again.

Sure can't plan or get things done in a timely manner with markets being so unpredicatable from day to day.

Red Pine Machine Planting. The Kubota tractor makes its way through the Scotch Pine clearcut area with the planting machine. Schirmer red pine planting; 4/09.



(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10002/schirmer_planting1.JPG)

As the trees are being machine planted, the contractor's grandson follows behind to inspect and insure that all trees planted meet our planting standard. Any improperly planted trees are then replanted by hand.



(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10002/schirmer_planting2.JPG)

Clearing Area For Planting. The unproductive Scotch pine is sheared and the trees are tree length skidded to the chipper at the landing. Schirmer planting area site preparation 6/09.



(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10002/schirmer_planting1%7E0.JPG)

The tree length skidding has cleaned the area for the machine planting of red pine in the spring. Care is used to retain the top soil in place as much as possible.



(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10002/schirmer_planting2%7E0.JPG)

Those darn Scots pine stems on the skidder look just as crooked as they grow up here. I think the weevils or some other insect give them a real going over to. Good riddance. :D

I band sprayed the tree rows with herbicide to manage the grass competition.



(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14370/IMG_2250.JPG)

It was a wet spring, but this blistering heat now will test them.

Yes, the very poor formed Scotch pine has been taking up a lot of growing space and the only market for it is in wood chips. The chip harvest has stopped for awhile now due to a cut price and quotas by the cogen plant. We hope to get as much area chipped as we can and get it back into production with the higher valued red pine.

We've had good spring rains so hopefully the spring plantings will "take off" with good survival. The areas look real good at present.

I planted some white pine last year around the house. Most were in the back yard seperating my 35 acre field and yard. I had 2 rows until today! My friends are cutting hay and his cutter on the tractor wiped out one row of around 20 trees. :D. He is a retired forester to beat all. I just laughed about it and gave him a hard time. Looks like i will be planting again. I think this time i will plant  oak that grows fairly fast. I lost alot i planted. To bad thorn trees dont make good border trees. They are taking over areas that havent been brush hogged. I was meaning to mow a good line so he could see the trees but didnt get the chance.

Too bad on the years growth lose. New plantings should be well marked and signed where there is potential for them to be damaged as such. Also makes it easier to collect replacement costs. ;)

WHD,
while you are toward the upper end of the LL range, you can certainly plant them in Perry. i know you have already put lobs in the ground, and while they come out like gangbusters, they are not as marketable as saw timber. LL is the most desirable for saw. Lobs do get to the first thinning sooner, but there is little real value to that, as pulp prices are in the dumps. besides the superior value of LL at the mill, it also generates top dollar in straw production.
just something to think about if you have more plantation land you are putting into trees.

Thanks nmurph.  I considered longleaf, but they do not do so well on this red clay compacted old pastureland.  I would love to have some as they are really grand trees.  Loblolly will do better on this site over the life of the investment.  For poles, the best product in terms of stumpage return, longleaf is unparalled like you point out.

I think I am starting to see green in there. ;D

$-)     $-)     $-)     $-)     $-)


Got dollar signs in his eyes. ;)

The trees have doubled in size it seems since the last pic.  I will update with a new pic.  Jake, the trees are looking excellent! 

OK, some updated pictures:



(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14370/IMG_2278.JPG)

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14370/IMG_2275.JPG)

The weed control is wearing off and the grass is closing in a little!  This summer as been much better for rain here, fortunately.  Some of the trees are approaching 2' in height.   Survival was excellent, well over 95%.  It pays to use a quality contractor  ;D.

I wish I had fields that nice!!!!

Stonebroke

Some old dirt farmer is gonna curse him out or roll in his grave for converting that field. :D One local guy said to dad once, "If I had known that Charlie was going to plant those darn Christmas trees on my farm I would never have sold it to him." :D :D He hadn't farmed in my lifetime, he drove school bus for at least 30 years and worked in a metal fabrication shop between driving bus in mornings and afternoon. He didn't live to be very old, smoked heavy. I remember he sure liked his C-Band dish a lot. ;D

Hey, I am a farmer too, it is just that I farm trees ;D.  Row crop farmers have a shorter outlook.  Us tree farmers have a longer outlook :D.

Some of us too long, with no return on investment.  ;D :D :D

I plan to thin this plantation in 10 more years. 

I'm still waiting for a picture of the good lookin tree planter partner.  ;D

How big will the trees be in ten years?

Stonebroke

Norm,

As it turned out, the better half of the reforestation company did not participate in the tree planting  :-\.   Apparently I was deliberately mislead :D.

Stonebroke,

At age 11 - 12, the trees will be approaching 40 feet tall and will be about 7" in diameter on average (some smaller, some larger).  I have some that I will be thinning this fall that are in their 12th year.  I will start a thread on the thinning and post some pics. 

Only tree we have up here that would grow like that is large tooth aspen. 8-9" in 12 years on well drained soil.  8)

Yea but I didn't plant them. :D
It sure is looking good out there WDH.

Bump:
Danny, I was wondering how your Pine Plantation is doing.  Any problems from all the rain?

The plantation is thriving.  There was better than 95% survival due to doing the right things right, including using an experience professional to do the site prep and oversee the planting.  However, there is another very important ingredient, and that has been more than ample rainfall.  This spring, the rains were perfect in quantity and in interval.  It never dried out like it normally does in summer.  The fall rains were well above average and steady.  It is even raining now!

This land is good quality land that is well drained.  The soil has handled the rain well, and the root systems got a chance to establish themselves without the impact of normal summer drought.  It is being said that this fall has seen the highest amount of rain in this area since historical data has been kept.  That has worked perfectly for the little trees.
I will post a undated pic to show them in their first dormant season.

That is great to hear. 8)

I heard a news report about the record rainfall you guys have received.  Quite a difference a year makes when we were all concerned about a drought not so long ago.  We have had a good year in regards to rain also.  Much more than we had in 2008. :)

It is totally crazy  :).

It rained steady here from June until first of August, then early October was wet. I know, I was working in it. :D

wow, that's some nice work there!

How much of a difference does the burning/herbicide application make on the growth of the trees? (in terms of getting rid of competing grasses)  I planted a couple acres of red pine here two years ago, and they have been struggling (I think) to overtop the grass/weeds.  I had planned on bushhogging the rows, to try and cut the competition down a little bit, but I didn't get around to it in the spring before the weeds came up and at that point couldn't tell where the trees were, and didn't want to bushhog the trees.

These were bare root seedlings, only a couple inches tall.  They are now probably 12" tall on average.  Obviously my growing season is a lot shorter than in Georgia, so I'm not sure what sort of growth to expect.  Anyone have any estimates?

WDH- I'm curious what the procedure for planting is, after the tractor with the ripper has been through.  Are the seedlings planted by hand without any tools?  We generally use a sort of crowbar with a flat end, like a chisel, about 2 inches wide.  This is with no soil prep though.  I would like to build a subsoiler, and this is one more thing I could use it for!

Thanks for posting, please keep us updated.  Anyone in the northern climates have any tree plantation experiences to share?

Well in reply to all of this.
First WDH I would like to add that it is great to work with a land owner that understands what it takes to establish a good pine stand. There are many that think you can just go out there and plant the trees with out any prep work and get results just the same.
Second the other half of the reforestation part of the company would not allow my nose up from the grind stone of the saw mill. ;D
Third the difference that you get from proper site prep will more than pay for itself in just a few years here in the south might take a bit longer up north but you will get the return on your investment just the same I would think.

They were probably container stock weren't they tughill. We get them that size in 45's. When we used to get DNR bare root red pine they were 12-14 inches tall and took well to old fields. Planted hundred of acres of them back in the 80's to early nineties. 20 year old plantations of bare root red pine are now 35 feet or there abouts. Red pine container take well to field, just takes 3 years to see them show up much. The deer are hard on them, ripping off the new spring candles. I've seen whole plantations ruined. If the top wasn't broke the tree was pulled out by the varmints. They are a challenge to grow in the nurseries I think to get the root collar diameter required. They germinate well, just need to get them to size up on the stem. A two year old container seedling is quite small. I've seen the bud on the top a larger diameter than the stem at the bottom when they swell in the early part of the season.  :D

What customsawyer said speaks volumes as well as the tending required to get them off to a good beginning. That includes any plantation cleaning with a brush saw as well. I've seen birch and aspen take over a field pretty quick over a ten year period and no trouble to over top them red pine trees.

Tughill,

Customsawyer's crew planted the trees with a tree planing machine.  It is pulled by a tractor, and an operator in the tree planter feeds the trees into slots on a rotating wheel that places the trees in the furrow at the correct spacing.  There is a big colter in front of the wheel that slices open the planting furrow and two packing wheels behind the planter close up the furrow and packs the soil around the tree.

Maybe Customsawyer has a pic.

Herbicide to control competing grass and weeds will do wonders for first year survival and growth.  They like the site prepared ground as much or better than the seedlings  ;D.

Thanks, WDH, Swampdonkey and Customsawyer!  I have seen tree planting machines, pretty neat stuff.  I might put in some more red pine in the spring, and I will definitely try to improve my site prep.  You guys are such a great knowledge resource!  Now if I can just get a subsoiler fabbed up....

interesting thread.

it was good that you were able to subsoil in dry conditions as it helps to shatter and fracture that hardpan.

It is good that I got the plantation established last year because the ground is so wet right now from all the rain that it would be impossible to plant.

something the BTO here needs to learn. he will pull his subsoiler thru the ground during the wettest time of the year, often using two tractors to keep moving. hes adding compaction and smearing the clay subsoil, decreasing drainage and creating a brick wall that roots will not penetrate. his crops are starting to show the adverse effects of sub soil compaction.

i wonder if it would be further benificial to rip the ground between the rows on your plantation. are pine roots not fiberous and outward spreading? loosening the soil where the roots want to party wouldnt hurt.

great preperation. are you spraying for weeds directly over the trees? theres herbicide that will not hurt your pines? i have about 20 acres of land that i would like to plant to red pine, about 6 different spots, bordering woods and fields effectivley squaring the ag fields up, and building a bufffer between woods and fields. you said you had some scrub to extinguish before working, do you have any pics of that? what kind of brush? did you just brush hog it or did you remove the roots?

thanks for the thread!

RP,

I suspect that the deep tree roots are able to flourish below the plow plan due to the subsoiling, and the finer roots spread out above the plow pan, so I am not sure if subsoiling between the rows would be effective.  However, that would make for a great research project as I have never seen a study on that.

Yes, I sprayed a 4 foot band directly over the top of the trees to control the grass and weeds until the little trees got a foot hold.  The spray was a mix of arsenal and oust.  I sprayed later than I would have liked, but I as re-rigging some old spray equipment, that frustratingly took longer to get working right than I imagined it would.  I used my 45 HP tractor with a 300 gallon spray tank.  There was a short boom with two nozzles that sprayed an overlapping pattern from each side of the furrow. 

To do the hedge row and other brush clearing along the edge of the fields, and in an old hog pen, I hired a bulldozer and operator to push up the material and pile it for burning (although I never had the right conditions to burn the piles before planting, so now the piles serve as wildlife cover for the birds, rabbits, and other critters).

Quote from: WDH on December 24, 2009, 07:51:02 AM
RP,

I suspect that the deep tree roots are able to flourish below the plow plan due to the subsoiling, and the finer roots spread out above the plow pan, so I am not sure if subsoiling between the rows would be effective.  However, that would make for a great research project as I have never seen a study on that.

Yes, I sprayed a 4 foot band directly over the top of the trees to control the grass and weeds until the little trees got a foot hold.  The spray was a mix of arsenal and oust.  I sprayed later than I would have liked, but I as re-rigging some old spray equipment, that frustratingly took longer to get working right than I imagined it would.  I used my 45 HP tractor with a 300 gallon spray tank.  There was a short boom with two nozzles that sprayed an overlapping pattern from each side of the furrow. 

To do the hedge row and other brush clearing along the edge of the fields, and in an old hog pen, I hired a bulldozer and operator to push up the material and pile it for burning (although I never had the right conditions to burn the piles before planting, so now the piles serve as wildlife cover for the birds, rabbits, and other critters).

there you go, you have a test plot growing right in front of you, i like to grow test plots but i have the disadvantage of  having to implement them annually. i see soil and trees has been discussed here quite throughly, a member may have read or done plots.

how much herbicide did you put down per acre and what was the mix? just something to add to my notes. you cleaned hedgerows right out of the field?

I have just spent about two hours trying to upload some pics. and have run out of patience so will try some other time.

Quote from: customsawyer on December 24, 2009, 09:43:38 AM
I have just spent about two hours trying to upload some pics. and have run out of patience so will try some other time.

thanks for trying. once you get it down pat you wont be able to stop though. Merry Christmas

Quote from: customsawyer on December 24, 2009, 09:43:38 AM
I have just spent about two hours trying to upload some pics. and have run out of patience so will try some other time.

I didn't hear my phone ringin'. ::) ???

RP,

I believe it was 5 ounces of arsenal per acre and 1 ounce of oust per acre delivered in 13 gallons of water per acre.  You have to calibrate the sprayer for the output in gallons of liquid per acre and add the appropriate amount of chemical based on the delivery rate.  Since you are only spraying a 4 foot band instead of the entire area, you have to figure the amount of band acres sprayed to figure out how much chemical you have to buy.  For example, if you have 100 acres total and the trees are planted on 12 foot row centers and if you are spraying a 4 foot band, then you are spraying 1/3 of the area (12 divided by 4) or 33 acres.  Therefore, if you are applying the rate of 5 ounces of arsenal per acre, you would need 165 ounces of arsenal (33 times 5). 

There were several long lines of hedgerows on the property lines that over the years had encroached out into the fields (maybe 25 feet or so).  These were cleaned back to the property line except for a few large line trees.  There was about 6 acres of old hog pens that had grown back in heavy brush and small trees that also needed to be cleared in order to be made productive.

Here is a pic of the better half and the tree planter.



(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11861/DSC00900a.jpg)



(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11861/DSC00903a.jpg)

Better and prettier too.  8)

Good on the pics. Do you toss some red dye her direction ever so often, or is that white-wash on the red shirt?  ;D

That ridin the tree planter reminds me of work.

The seedlings are dipped in a clay slurry as they call it which means they take dry clay from the chalk mines which is about like dry cement and make a wet mud with it. If the trees start to get a little bit dry the clay will cake on and keep the trees from drying out.
Been thinking about trying to get on dirty jobs with that one.
These open fields are pretty easy on the person in the tree planter but when you get into the bedded land and have to put duals on the tractor which means you hit twice as many stumps it gets a lot harder on them. The toughest part is that the companies that do the bedding will put the tallest stumps in the bed itself which will cover it with dirt so that the treeplanter and the person in it hits all of them. Makes for a rough ride.

Quote from: beenthere on December 28, 2009, 02:44:51 PM
Good on the pics.

I feel that he did an exceptional job on the pics  ;D.

Why do you bed new pine plantations?

Stonebroke

The bedding will be done in cut over land that is low land and it will help to bring the tree up.

Stonebroke,

On our company land, everything is bedded in order to provide a deep rip to break up any hardpan and to cultivate the soil.  In the past, it was used primarily for wet land so that the planting bed (which is several feet high) would allow the trees to stay out of the water.  However, research has shown that bedding drier land with the right equipment provides cultivation and bare mineral soil around the tree to reduce early competition.  Now, we are applying a liquid fertilizer in the planting bed using a 3-in-1 machine where the ripping, bedding, and fertilizer application all take place in one machine pass.  This is for commercial plantation establishment for loblolly pine and may not be a good practice for northern hardwood, although if you plant hardwood, good site prep is as important or more so as with pine.

I don't know anyone that has a northern hardwoods plantation. They just grow , if the deer let them.

Stonebroke

For container stock, we have found a 2 furrow plow on fields works with great success. No tall weeds growing dense enough to smother the trees for at least 3 years. By then the trees are free to grow. You have the flopped sod to one side and the scalp on the other. If planted properly with quality trees, hardly a dead tree. Most trees are hand planted up here. Space the furrows 6 feet or so, using a  spring tensioned and hinged bar with a draped chain to space between furrows. The spring is forward of the hinge on this bar that protrudes perpendicular to the tractor frame. This is for turning on row ends up next to bushes and saplings that allows the bar to swing in toward the frame without breaking it off. Once the turn is complete the bar has swung back out by the spring. Used a lot by farmers with old equipment to space each pass of a sower or potato planter without having to look behind all the time.

Hey SD!  I think I understand the row markers you are talking about, but are they mounted between the wheels, in front of the front axle, or behind the rear wheels?

WDH or C-sawyer...what the heck is 'bedding'? 

Thanks, great thread....actually as far as northern hardwood plantations....I have one...planted about 400 sugar maples 3 years ago, some survived, some not so...If only I knew then what I know now, hahaha.

I planted 3 thousand yellow birch on the woodlot. The moose ain't them all within a week. I planted 1200 or so behind the house and the moose come into them to, but they did well and are 4-8 feet tall. I lost a few, but probably 80 % survived. Some had seeds last year, since there was a pollen source from a fence row birch nearby. Can't plant hardwood up here in weedy places, the voles and mice and stuff eat them over winter when traveling through the grass and weed straw under the snow.

Quote from: tughill on December 29, 2009, 04:49:39 PM
Hey SD!  I think I understand the row markers you are talking about, but are they mounted between the wheels, in front of the front axle, or behind the rear wheels?

On the front end. Can't get a picture, dad sold off the farm 9 years ago. I seem to remember dad had a steel frame on the front so he could add weight on a IH 706. It was rigged up on the side of that.

Tughill,

A planting bed is created by pulling a large bedding plow behind a D-6 or larger bulldozer.  The plow fractures the subsoil to a depth of 20+ inches and throws up a raised bed that is about 4 feet wide and 2 1/2 feet tall.  My company beds on a 20' row spacing, but 14' row spacing is more common in the forest industry.  On my work computer I have a pic of a 3 year old bedded plantation, so I will post a pic for you.

WDH will you please hurry as a pic is worth a thousand words and I type slow. ;D

OK, here are a couple of pics.  The trees are exactly one year old.



(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14370/IMG_2371.JPG)

Some of the larger trees are 3 feet tall.



(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14370/IMG_2372.JPG)

They are very happy trees  :D.

I'll say, would take 4 years to get a 3 foot red pine here.  Nice field of trees. ;D ;)

I see the trees smiling also.  They are getting what they need.  What spacing is that?

12 foot rows, 6 feet between trees which is 605 trees/acre.  A lot the forest industry has gone to 14 foot rows to save on site prep and planting cost.  A 14 x 6 spacing is 518 trees/acre.

Yeah we can't do that here, too wide. The spruce and fir would be cow shades for 40 years. ;)

Some of mine is planted 12' rows, with 10' spacing for about 360 trees per acre.  The theory being that the first thinning will be at 18 years and should all be chip 'n saw.  We'll see.

Those seem like pretty wide spacings for initial planting- it was my understanding that planting closer (8-10' rows, 6' between trees) led to straighter trunks and more self-pruning; then thinning at two intervals opened things up as the trees sprouted straight up.  Maybe depends on the species?

Lj

It depends on what you are growing as far as the target product.  The close spacing grows more smaller trees that remain pulpwood class trees for a longer period.  A wider spacing produces larger trees earlier that grow into small sawlogs faster.  Since the value of sawlogs is much higher than pulpwood, I want the trees to grow larger faster.  It is an economic decision.  If you plant the closer spacing, the acre will only support so many trees, so there is more mortality as the trees compete with each other.  It costs more to plant more trees and there is no real gain in the end product.  12 foot spacing grows trees that reach first thinning age sooner than 10 foot spacing.  Thinning earlier promotes faster growth that jump starts the trees to grow to sawlog size faster.  My Company has years of research that shows this effect. 

It works for pine, which is full well what this thread is about. But it doesn't work for spruce, fir and tolerant hardwood. You end up with bushy trees for species that need to be self pruned as it grows and needs to be thinned a couple or 3 times along the way to remove pulp and some studwood (softwood) and firewood (hardwood) over an 80 + year time horizon. You can't go in and prune fir and spruce like you can pine, they don't heal up fast enough and you get rot. We can't burn in these fir-spruce stands either, it would go up like a torch, too tight a spacing. Balsam fir will likely have to be cut out of the stand before the spruce ends the rotation, problem is many sites have too much fir to do that, so everything is taken. Exception would be plantation, and I've seen many of those that have become 80 % fir.  ::)  Balsam fir, a glorified weed. :D

It is a good thing them trees are doing well so they can stay above the water. ;D

I suspect that the ripped furrow gives the water a way to drain deeper than it would otherwise given the plow pan (restricted layer) that is present in most fields, and assuredly so in this field.

I am trying to decide whether to spray for grass again this spring or to let them go as is.  On my Company's land, there is only one grass control spray, but then again, we don't plant many old hay fields either.  My brother is in the Ag chemical business, so we might look at a broadcast spray with a crop duster.  Or, I may not do anything at all.

Could/would you also fertilize if you sprayed?

The trees look really good for 1 year, and the color is a healthy green.  Many of the young plantations that you see at this time of the year have a yellowish cast to them.  Given the cost of fertilizer, I am not leaning to fertilize them this year given their current condition.

Fertilizer from what I've found out was only cost effective later on in the tree development, near the end of the rotation. The effects were only expressed for up to 3 years. Spacing, as in pre-commercial thinning, had effects expressed for 25 years at various densities. Available nitrogen from fertilizer doesn't stick around long for trees to get maximum benefit. In heavy rains, the nitrate component was quickly lost.

Fertilization after the first thinning, about age 12 in this case, would provide the best response.  That is a ways off, so hopefully I will be around to wrestle with that decision.

WDH I was thinking you might post a pic of those little babies before it turns green and we can't see them. ;D

Yes!! Inquiring minds want to know. :)

Don

Alright Danny here is another plea for a pic of my little babies.

Your babies are happy this spring.  The tallest are a little over 5 feet, but the average is more like 4 feet tall.  Some trees have new growth this year approaching 2 feet already.

Ever who site prepped and planted this stand must have known what they were doing!  That would be you, Jake  8).



(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14370/IMG_2482.JPG)

Looks good Danny. Thanks for the pic.

Don

Boy, You southerners can really grow pine trees. Up here in the frozen north that is probably a decade's worth of growth. Looks great.

Stonebroke

It would probably be close to 7 years at least for 5 foot pine. They (red pine) were always interplanted on pasture where white spruce where already established so they would catch up eventually to the spruce. Tamarack will grow almost 3 feet a year even in wet.

Glad you got that pic up there I thought I was going to have to drive over and take a look myself. You might have liked that as I could have brought those white oak logs to ya. ;D
They are looking very good must be that good dirt.

It would be hard to carry more than a couple of those white oak logs on the motorcycle  :D.

Here are two pics shot from about the same place.  The first pic is at the end of the the first growing season.  This pic was taken in January 2010.  


(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14370/IMG_2372.JPG)

Here is the same area 5 months later in May 2010. 



(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14370/IMG_2478.JPG)

It's almost getting hard to see the forest for the trees ;) ;D

Danny I could bring them on one of them sleds like the Indians used where the two poles cross over the back of the horse. (I am having a brain cramp and can not think of the name of it.)  ;D

Travois I think? Spelling maybe off a tad

A travois of white oak logs?  The pavement might wear down the poles  :D.

We could put wheels on the bottom.

And apply for a patent  :D.

An update for those following this thread:

The little trees really took off and put on some major growth this year since the last pic back in May.  We are now at the end of the second growing season.



(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14370/IMG_2716.JPG)

This tree in the next pic must have been planted on a dead fish!  
It is at least 9 feet tall.  I wish that they were all like this one  :).


(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14370/IMG_2718.JPG)

Note the tip moth damage in the last pic (tips of the branches are brown).  They are a real pest and seriously hurt growth as the caterpillers mine into and kill the new shoot growth.

How old is that tall, well pruned tree in the background?

Quote from: WDH on December 07, 2010, 09:12:17 AMNote the tip moth damage.......the caterpillers mine into and kill the new shoot growth.

I wondered what did that.  :-\

I talked with my forester yesterday about my Oaks.  I'm gonna have to take some pictures of this year's growth on mine.  It surely is exciting to watch the growth from year to year.

Thanks for sharing yours WDH.

Well, I am 56 and 9/10 years old, and that well pruned tree with no branches is older than me since it has been there since I was able to sneak down the road from the house.  Funny though, it has not grown much at all in all that time  :).

WDH, the pines look great!  After two years, between the rows look really clean. How did you maintain that?

Wow, the Lil' trees really did take off. :)
The Plantation is looking good. 8)

Yes, your little forest is progressing along nicely.

Keeping an eye on their progress is interesting.  But, bugs. Always a bug for something. Although, we don't seem to have bug or disease troubles in our red pine plantations up here so much. We do have ice and wildlife issues at times.

James,

In the Fall before planting, I sprayed the pasture with Round-up.  Then, in late May after planting, I sprayed a band over the trees with a herbicide mix formulated for grass and weed control.  It did the job rather nicely.

Speaking of bugs, the little trees have a tip moth infestation, which is very common and 100% likely to happen with trees of this age.  A moth lays an egg on the tip of the shoots, and the larvae hatch and bore down the center pith of the shoot, killing the tip of the shoot back about 6 inches or so.  Retards the growth, but the trees overcome it.  It is not economically feasible to treat tip moth.  You just have to live with them until the trees reach about 20 feet in height, and then they don't bother them anymore. 

I need to take a pic and update this thread.

Always a bug for something.  ::)

I had a spruce that got hit by weevil, it has recovered and you can't see where the infestation was with a passing glance.


Last couple of nights have had a visiting porcupine, tracks in the snow. I see a couple yard pine got chewed a couple weeks back, but they were "cull" trees that need cut anyway. ;)

I've had them chew the buts of spruce in my plantation though. >:(

I was by there just before Christmas and it was nice to see the progress they have made.

We need an updated view its been 2 years since . got any new pics?

OK, here is an update.  We had a very bad year for consistent rain.  At my property, from April 1st until June 11, there was no measurable rain.  That really hurt the early part of the growing season I am sure.  The trees are now between 7 and 10 feet tall after three growing seasons.  Check reply #157 for the two year pic.  Even with the poor season, they grew a lot.



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Nice!! :)

As usual, your holdings are immaculate. ;D

Don

I don't think the grass or briars could even begin the keep up with those pine. ;D

Thanks Don!

SD, you are right.  This race is over  ;D.  In 5 more years, it will be nothing but pine straw between the trees and the rows as the canopy closes.

My babies are growing up fine. I guess it is time to let you adopt them. ;D

Send me the papers  ;D. 

They have taken off this year with some nice shoots!

Jeff (The Boss) came by today on his way back from Florida to Michigan, and we got to spend a little time looking at trees!  Here is a pic of Jeff in the pine plantation that is the subject of this thread. 



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You can gain some perspective having him in the picture.  They are almost as tall as he is  ;).  The tree next to Jeff in the pic is about 12 feet tall.  Not bad for three growing seasons heading into the fourth.

Looks like a park, fantastic growth. 

Amazing how this forum has brought folks together. 

Thanks Jeff for FF, and thanks for sharing your visit WDH. 8)

I was very honored to have Jeff as a guest.

Looks like all the fishing down in Fl didn't hurt him none either. ;D

Nice trees.  :)

The trees are looking good.  Jeff looks happy too  8)

I wish hardwoods like oak and maple grew so fast.

I can't believe that growth rate :o  I planted some red and white pine at the same time as WDH planted his, and it is mostly around 4-5' tall and that was with ideal growing years.  I will try to get a picture today.

Nick

Nice! Great growth.

Eastern spruce would take at least 12 years to reach that height.  ;D

I don't see Jeff's snake chaps. ;D Those little trees are doing fine.

He wore em in the woods.  These ain't woods yet, but they are getting there.

Burlkraft has the snake and Jeff Photo. Hes such a sandbagger though, I'll probably never have to see it posted. :)

read through this thread last night. You guys did a fantastic job, and it was very informative. The trees are looking great.

This is just a really well done job! Can't wait to get more updates as they come in. And man those trees grow quick :o

This wasn't on Danny's place but it is a couple of pics of the better half in the tree planter.



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The white stuff that is all over her is a clay slurry that some nurseries dip the roots in to keep them from drying out. This is the reason for the rain suit. ;)

i just thought she had something red on her shoulders.

bump.

WDH...how did the trees do this season?  picture update?

Thanks.

OK, here is an update.  It was a very dry year again, but the little trees came through it pretty well.  Here are two pics taken today.  They have now been thru four growing seasons.  Now they will really start growing!



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I've been following this thread from the beginning and am excited to see the trees doing so well. Have you had to replant any? soon you won't be able to call them the "little" trees anymore... ;)

4 years up here might get you 3 feet. ;D Planted some spruce and red pine 12 years ago in dad's yard, they are probably that tall now. Nice looking trees.  :)

I should take a picture of a 20 year old red pine in the open and ones in the shade. Planted same day out of the same multi-pot tray. ;D

Initial survival was over 95%.  A few have been lost since, but the stocking is almost perfect.  Good prep, good trees, good planting, good grass control, and good rainfall in the first year were the keys to success.  You are right, they are not little anymore.  They will be ready for thinning in 7 more years.

I am looking forward to thining pictures all ready. ;D
How will the thinning take place and how much? I suppose the trees have to be a certain size too? As in height and spread-limbs too?

Just like this.

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,39179.msg564549.html#msg564549

I came back on to this post and clicked on to your link WDH. I had to get another cup of coffee.  :D Still reading and learning. Thank you. These 2 threads should be mandatory reading for any of those that says cutting wood is bad. Seem like there is one of those that posted a few days ago.

Are you going to lease it for pine straw?

No.  Loblolly straw is not preferred.  Longleaf straw is preferred, with Slash pine second in needle length and quality.  Plus, research has shown that taking straw from a stand reduces the soil fertility as many of the nutrients that are recycled in a stand are in the needles and fine twigs that fall to the forest floor and decompose.  I could add fertilizer back, but I don't want the straw guys on my property. 

How will you pay the taxes until thinning?  Hunting lease?

If you find you some folks, say "not from around here", they will buy the loblolly straw  :)  Keep an eye on em and don't let them burn the sticks and it's a nice return.  Their trash piles can always be scattered if you wish to do that.  Nothing in the contract says you can't scatter the piles

No, I don't lease the property.  My son-in-law hunts it and that suits me.  To grow timber, you pay out $ for the trees and to plant them, then pay taxes every year, then get some $ from intermediate thinnings, then at some point, you do a final harvest and start over.  If you take into account the cost of the land, you will not get rich.  To me, it is more lifestyle value than pure investment.

I am sure that there is a lot of loblolly straw sold.  You have to keep an eye on the straw guys for sure if you want to get paid for all the straw that they take.  There are also problems with people stealing straw from absentee landowners. 

It's just a matter of site index and observation, I guess.  If you aren't an absentee landowner they don't get much by you.  The hunters do a very good job of looking out for us as well.

Danny...How are your little loblollies doing?

They are doing fine.  I need to take a pic and update this thread. 

Thanks Danny...I'm anxious to see how they're doing.

Update.  We have crown closure.  The plantation is in its 7th growing season. 



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Wow those are like 20 year old red pine here.  8)

Get the pruners and climbing gear.  ;D

Nice. When do you have to do a thinning? Pre commercial thinning?

First commercial thinning at age 11 or 12.  Optimal thinning timing is based on height for SYP plantations.  Most people wait too long.  They are ready for thinning when the dominants reach 40' in height. 

Pines are looking great!

Quote from: WDH on August 15, 2015, 09:39:40 AM
First commercial thinning at age 11 or 12.  Optimal thinning timing is based on height for SYP plantations.  Most people wait too long.  They are ready for thinning when the dominants reach 40' in height. 

What diameter have the dominants at 12years? By commercial thinning you mean fire wood or can you already sell saw logs at that age?

Thinned for pulpwood to make baby diapers.  Diameters will be 7 to 10".

Here is a pic of the interior of the stand.  You can see that with the crown closure, there is pretty much nothing under the trees but pine straw.  You can get a sense of the diameters in the 7th growing season, they are in the 6" range.



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I can also see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel  ;D. 

Do you get any premium for "clear" logs? That's logs that have been lift pruned, removing all those suppressed lower branches.  Waste of time if you aren't going to be paid any more, but if there is a market for clear pine, the logs go from $75 ton for unpruned, to maybe $250 for properly pruned.

Just guessing, but it's probably like up here, no premium for logs at all. They have a spec sheet, if your wood meets the specs that's all you get. I'm sure if they have a special market they sort at the mill. I know I've seen hardwood pulp mills sort out veneer. I've also seen softwood pulp mills grind up clear logs to.

No.  There is no premium for clear wood.  Just like SD said.  I have one stand that is pruned to 18', but will not command any extra value.  Stumpage values for sawlogs here have been suppressed for a good while.  Pine sawtimber, tree-length to a 8" top diameter bring from $25 - $30/ton on the stump, much less than what you are seeing, Ian. 

Sure wish my hardwoods grew at that rate!  But, then again, I don't need to thin so much...

When dad was farming, it was impossible to cover the whole woods acreage in a lifetime where the farm crops take most attention. You mostly worked what ever was close to fields. I have a small acreage now, 70 acres, I'm intimate with every stand and have walked every square inch with a saw thinning, a planting dibble filling in trees, and now pruners to get clear logs for myself not someone else.  I protect sugar maples, white ash, butternut and white spruce trees like they are sacred. I have a pile of fir and that's what I prune, I have a chance to live and use them as they grow fast. I have a lot of planted black spruce, they grow slow in girth, it will be 150 years before they are a good log tree so they have lots of time to self prune. A lot of those black spruce won't make it because I have a lot of hardwood around them, which I'd rather grow. But if there is a junk low quality hardwood, it's nice to have a nice spruce beside, cut the junk down.  At least with a spruce, if a moose snaps the top off, 4 feet up, you won't know it happened 10 years later. A hardwood or a pine is ruined for quality. ;D  8)

Thanks for the update. Those trees look really healthy. will they maintain that growth rate until they're ready for harvest? what will be your target size? Do you plan on trimming out the dead growth? Is there a market for pine straw in your area?

Peak growth rate is between ages about 8 - 18.  The growth rate will slow some until the 1st thinning, then it will turn into high gear with less competition, more light, and rooting volume for each crop tree.  After they get into their 20's, the growth will slow some, but still be very good.  Target size is about 14" DBH and final harvest age will be about 30.  There is a market for pine straw, but removing the straw also removes nutrients from the system, so there is a trade-off between making $ from straw and soil nutrient depletion. 

How come the deer don't eat all your pines like they do mine? :( :( :( :snowball:

There is way too much other tasty stuff to munch on here in the deep South with fertile soil and a long growing season.  It is a matter of choice, for the deer that is. 

They choose to rip out my little trees by the roots if they can find them.

They are not too keen on yellow pine needles. 

He needs a herd of moose, that'll slow them down some in vertical growth. Moose here destroy pine. And they could be 15 feet tall pine, but once an old bruiser gets an itch on his brow, he's going a rub'n. :D

They do seem to prefer white pine. They killed all of those. They think red pine is cabbage too. Ate or ripped out all of those. I was able to get some of my ponderosa pine, lodgepole pine and SW white pine to live by piling red cedar branch trash around them. Only now are those trees starting to look happy and out of reach of the deer.

They messed up my hardwoods going on 17 years now, at least on the ones they worked on. When the Sericea lespedeza moved in that was the best thing that happened. Deer hate wading through it and up go the trees that have been sitting at 1-4 feet tall for 15 years.  ;D

Better than kudzu. ;D 8) 8) 8) :snowball:

You can keep your meese. :snowball:

My babies are looking fine.

They sure are.  Full crown closure in the plantation after age 7.  There will be a thinning in about 4 more years. 

Hello, I have just joined this forum and your thread came up when I searched White Spruce. You seem to know what you are talking about and I am hoping you can help me. I own a 1/2 section of forest in Sask. Bought it 35 or so years ago and it has just been sitting there. I had always wanted to just use some of the trees to build a cabin and enjoy the land as it is (and hopefully that is what we will do some day). My son wants to get some kind of revenue from it. We did look into having a company come in and log it but that was not really what I wanted even though they tried to convince me it was a good thing for the forest; it is at least 50-80yrs old. The problem is, we know nothing about forestry. On the property is White Spruce, Black Spruce, Ash and Tamarack and a meadow or two.
Which trees would you use to build a cabin? Which ones would work for a treehouse (for the trunks? and the floor/wall/roof?). Would you recommend harvesting some for some other profit? Have considered firewood as it would take less equipment and the land is 1-2 miles from a lake resort. We have no equipment but will buy some stuff - just don't know what we are doing or what we need. What would you folks do with it if it was yours?

You need to develop a management plan.  First step is to carefully think thru your objectives.  This will determine what steps you need to make.  Once you think thru and determine what the objectives are for the property, then there are other steps to take. 

So, first off, think thru and write down your objectives.  There is no right or wrong answer.  It is what you want to do with the property in your lifetime, and might also include what you want to see happen in future generations. 

Spruce is traditional log cabin material here in New Brunswick. My grandfather had a number of camps on private land and crown timber and as well. They were spruce camps. They are still used today by others and were constructed in the 50's. He retired from guiding in the 70's and sold off his camps.

I would come up with a plan like WDH has suggested to set a target.

After you have established your objectives for the property, seek out the services of a professional forester serving your area to develop and help you implement the plan.

Great thread, and love the updates.
I am managing the farm I grew up on in south Alabama, absentee, I live about two hours away. Planted about 15 acres of loblolly in 2010, and just got approved this week for 8 acres of longleaf in a costshare program... so I am reading up and learning.

I will create a thread and log what I am doing, but I did want to say your thread here is great.

Welcome to the Forestry Forum, JSanders.  Adding your location to your profile will help us to remember.   :)

@magicman, will do, thank you for the reminder.

I live in Birmingham. My place is about 35 miles south of Montgomery.

Thank-you to those who replied to my plea for help. I think the biggest problem for us is that we are 5.5 hours away from the property. We have come up with a number of plans and keep waffling back and forth between them. I had originally just wanted this property for trees to build a cabin on other land I own closer to where I live. Then my son wanted to have a company come in and log it but I did not want to have that done. We thought about also building a cabin up on the land (even though we rarely go there - thought it might entice us to do so). We have considered logging it ourselves but my son is not really interested in doing that (he is more of a "city" boy). We have talked about building a golf course, a resort, growing other trees on it as well, we have discussed so many things but cannot come up with a plan that we both want to do and that is where we are, so it may just sit for another 40 years. Of course, we may not have to worry about it if the fires get it first :(
My son had also suggested contacting a professional forestry person but I did not really want to do that, however, after your advice here, I will likely go ahead with that. I also was contacted by the owner/operator of a fire log company close to me (from this Forum, thank-you!!) and hope to meet with him to talk more about what he thinks would work. I sincerely thank all of you for all and any advice :)
Kelly

Update.  Here is the plantation after the 8th growing season.  Full crown closure.  Nothing but pine straw. 



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dbh getting there on both species!!!!! ;D

Wow! Those pines look fantastic!   8)

WDH, when will you thin those trees?

Danny's my hero!

That pine sure grows fast.  That would be 30 years height growth for a white spruce.  ;D

With 1" growth rings, How good can the lumber be?

Quote from: Peter Drouin on November 10, 2016, 09:32:08 PM
With 1" growth rings, How good can the lumber be?

Main issue is "Juvenile Wood". That's the wood that the tree lays down in the first few years of growth, in the core of the log. If a tree grows slowly, then that section of wood is quite small. The middle couple of inches of the log. You expect it to be a bit unstable in any log. With a fast growing log, that section of unstable wood is much larger.

But you are selling the logs to be sawn into construction lumber. They don't pay a premium for more stable, slower growing or even pruned to remove branches / knots. Size of the log determines how many 4x2s it makes, and that determines the value. More and bigger the logs you can grow in the shortest time, the more you get paid.

Locally the Pine can hit 1" wide growth rings (2" dia each year) and might be grown out to 36" or so in 25 -30 years. Once you get away from the juvenile wood, the wide growth rings aren't really an issue. I could show you some perfectly well behaved and completely clear 1" pine, with 1 growth ring across the end of the board. It is what it is.

I think there is a mixed reaction when looking at softwoods and diffuse porous hardwoods based on growth rates when looking at density differences. Some authors say age is more a factor.  But is denser wood more stable? Not always it seems. Uniformity is more important there and is influenced by silviculture treatments. Faster grown softwoods have shorter fiber length than slower grown. Long fibers of slow grown black or red spruce is desired for pulp. Hardwoods increase fiber length with growth rate increases. Pruning it seems suppresses the tendency for spiral grain when done as early as possible. Thinning to fairly open spacing when young or planting as such produces a large juvenile core and increases reaction wood. Spacing at a later age does not effect the juvenile core. When pruning the trees should be 8" before doing so according to literature, too much pruning also stunts growth. Finally, breeding and collection of seed from trees with desired traits improves wood quality. I saw one report recently that with fast grown and pruned clear SYP, there is a tendency to saw 1 x SYP lumber because of a price premium for that thickness. It doesn't have the strength as other structural lumber as 2 x material and the price isn't as good.

The vast majority of pine sawtimber harvested in the deep South are from plantations.  So, that is the market.  As long as the juvenile core is contained in a wide board like a 2x10, the board will behave. 

Fish, will thin at about age 12 or 13 most likely. 

TR, confine your comments to the trees  :D. 

WDH, I did not know how it was down there with the plantation thing.
Up here big wide rings fall apart, Hard or sofl wood,

Here I have seen Red Pine in rows like corn. I think that pine doesn't grow that fast.

I was told back in the day they were for ATT poles. Other than that we have a mix wood up here planted everywhere by God. :D :D ;D

Even growth rings make good stable boards. 

About time you updated this.  ;D

This is the kind of forestry I have only seen in textbooks.  You have level, pretty fertile land and plenty of rain. It is easy to be envious.  On the other hand it is more like planting trees as a crop with mechanized equipment.

In the West, we plant trees by hand except under unusual circumstance. Most guys can do around 600 seedlings in a day or an acre. I have run planting crews of 30 men for a month at a time in the mountains. A very interesting kind of little society develops when people work and live together. We always looked forward to Fridays when we would head to an RV park for showers and then head for Flagstaff to the salad bar and dinner out. Then there was often some girl chasing.  In a month we could plant 1,000 acres, sometimes more.  For difficult ground we would use an auger on a chainsaw engine. 

Yes, most of the machine planting here is on private woodlots and that is due to Christmas tree farming on fields and government incentives to plant and also to develop equipment or tractor implements. Our public land and mill land here is all hand planted. Not much of our ground is very hilly, if it is steep high ground it probably isn't cut either if it's too rocky.

Most all of the planted trees here were passed out by our Division of Forestry over the years. Back when I was a kid they were really pushing White Pine. When you went to a lumber yard that is what you got, or what it was called anyhow. No internet, no technical advice about forestry. We now have a bunch of trees that are too open grown to be anything but knots or too thick because they were planted to close together and never thinned. Threads like this one are really educational and should be required reading for anybody thinking about planting a seedling.

Y'all need to keep in mind that Danny is living right. First of all we was taking land that had been growing hay (fertilized) or hog farm (fertilized). We also had a educated customer (Danny) who knew the value of all of the steps in the process. He also got some of the very best seedlings. One of the most important things is that he got perfect rain behind each step of the establishment of this plantation. You have to have all of the sun, moon and stars line up perfectly to get some of these results. Or you can just go by Danny and all is well .  ;)

Yes.  The land was prepared right.  The right trees were planted right.  The weed/grass control was right.  The weather was right. 

How did you get the weather just right? ;D

He's that guy.

When you eat grits,strange things happens.

Another view.  Note the powerline for perspective.



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Very little light at the end of the tunnel.



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I posted in some other thread about how I don't see much of that in this area. The paper company,IP at the time,planted some up on top of the hill,only a few acres,maybe 10?
They sure do look good.

Several acres here of red pine plantations on private land, not a lot on public land. Sometimes along the road side where the spruce would not take, it will catch up with the rest that survived. But the only use for it up here is poles, so it has to be growing for a long time in these parts to make a pole.  ;D

Quote from: customsawyer on November 24, 2016, 06:56:20 AM
He's that guy.

No, but I think he knows HIM...

Herb

I didn't mean Him. I meant that he always seems to be in the right place at the right time kind of guy. You know the one that pulls up to a parking lot that is full just as a car is leaving from the parking spot that is closest to the door.

Just like farming, as dad would say, there is a lot of luck involved.  ;D  :)  And ya got no moose to rip them pine up. :D

Luck, schmuck. 

So it is luck?  I guess that I must get lucky a lot  :D. 

Folks that are continually lucky need to be watched.  :P  Could it be that they may contribute to their luck?  smiley_headscratch

Luckier than me, the moose, the weevil and the blister rust did my white pine in pretty much. Planted 3500 white pine, might have 10 straight ones left, and dwindling every year. They are at random to and not rows.
:D

Quote from: Magicman on November 29, 2016, 08:41:43 AM
Folks that are continually lucky need to be watched.  :P  Could it be that they may contribute to their luck?  smiley_headscratch

Now, that is a novel concept for some  :). 

The plantation had a visitor.  The trees are in their ninth growing season.  If you stack the visitor up on himself 5 or 6 times, you can see that the trees are between 30 and 40 feet tall.  When the stand height averages 40+ feet, they will be thinned, which will be in the next 3 years or so. 

This visitor is not lucky, he uses Magic, not luck  :D. 



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Quote from: WDH on November 10, 2016, 10:02:24 AM
Update.  Here is the plantation after the 8th growing season.  Full crown closure.  Nothing but pine straw. 



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In my opinion this is why much of the US can't get good prices for dimensional lumber logs, the fast southern plantation pine is so much easier to cut and process.  You can see miles and miles like this from Southern VA through the Carolinas, thru Georgia, N Florida and across to Alabama, Mississippi, and LA.  Even East TX.  If you are a logger it does not get much easier than this, cut and load and sell. 

Looks great and shows everyone what we're up against. 

Quote from: nativewolf on June 30, 2017, 03:54:33 PM
If you are a logger it does not get much easier than this, cut and load and sell. 

Looks great and shows everyone what we're up against.

It's not that easy being a logger down here. It's very capital intensive. Sometimes it's too wet to be in the woods, and sometimes you have equipment breakdowns.  Last summer I saw a grapple skidder operator with the windows open on his cab because his a/c wasn't working properly. The horror. The horror.

Quote from: nativewolf on June 30, 2017, 03:54:33 PM

In my opinion this is why much of the US can't get good prices for dimensional lumber logs, the fast southern plantation pine is so much easier to cut and process.  You can see miles and miles like this from Southern VA through the Carolinas, thru Georgia, N Florida and across to Alabama, Mississippi, and LA.  Even East TX. 

I don't know about being easy. But like the north here, it is not a scarce commodity (wood), so logs can be bought cheap. Not only that, but establishment and tending are subsidized by governments of many countries. And if not, you can not compete against the government purse. ;)

You might consider your planting in a circle starting in the middle of the field and gradually make larger and larger circles. This makes for a much nicer looking plantation than one that looks like a row of corn.

Not so much about how it looks but more as to the efficiency of the whole process.  It is in essence farming trees.  The trees are a crop, just like in agriculture.  Only with trees, it is called silviculture. 

Quote from: WDH on July 01, 2017, 07:49:17 PM
Not so much about how it looks but more as to the efficiency of the whole process.  It is in essence farming trees.  The trees are a crop, just like in agriculture.  Only with trees, it is called silviculture.

And the overall cost/harvest unit has to be about as low as it can go.  Processor will just go through that stuff, loading is all the same, hardly have to think, no worrying about crotch or anything.  No rocks, maybe some water issues once in a while.  Mostly though, wham bam and it's done. 

In western Oregon Doug fir is planted and 30 - 50 years later clear cut and planted again. You can look at a mountain side and see areas that have been recently clear cut and other areas that will be ready to cut soon. You can also see on the same hillside areas at every stage in between. The process is pretty much the same but because of the steep terrain the trees are not planted in rows.

It is very much different in Oregon than in the south and yet at the same time very much the same. Is the competition to make a buck tough, you bet it is. And that my friend is what makes this country a great place to live. If you are having trouble making a living in a certain area doing a certain thing, either go somewhere else or change carriers.  I spent a little over 20 years in the lumber industry chasing jobs from California to Washington State during a pretty severe recession, couldn't keep my family fed so I became a nurse. 

My point is, if someone is making a living in an area in one way that won't work where you live, be happy for them and figure out something that works for you.

QuoteIn western Oregon Doug fir is planted and 30 - 50 years later clear cut and planted again. You can look at a mountain side and see areas that have been recently clear cut and other areas that will be ready to cut soon. You can also see on the same hillside areas at every stage in between. The process is pretty much the same but because of the steep terrain the trees are not planted in rows.

Same here in NZ, although most is Pine on a 25-30 year rotation. Some Douglas Fir in the colder areas on a longer rotation more like 45 years. Because good farm land is expensive, and profitable to farm, forest land tends to be the stuff that's marginal for farming. Steeper hill land, marginal soils or colder areas.

This pic is the sort of harvest Darrel is talking about, taken on our Sth Island tour over New Year. The bouys in the foreground are from a shellfish farm.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10460/DSCF1466.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1498974360)

Now this is on an Island in the Marlborough Sounds at the top of the South Island. If you look close you can see a yellow dot on the ridge line, one of the big excavators involved in the harvest. Not exactly a boring flat place to work. Now this is an island, no road access. So all the logs need to hauled down to the beach, loaded onto a barge and towed to Picton or Nelson where they can be milled or loaded onto a ship for export. They could end up in Japan, China, Korea, India etc.

So somehow you have to get a pine log from the top of an island hilltop in NZ, to China, and have everyone involved make a profit, including the private landowner.

Economies of scale matter too. One pine log isn't worth much.
But gather enough to load this...
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10460/IMG_0577~0.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1498975328)
And you get some market attention. That's a Korean log ship waiting in Wellington harbour to load logs. Picture taken on the same ferry trip.

Then next day in Picton we drive past the log yard where the logs are collected to be loaded onto the bulk carrier.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10460/DSCF1508.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1498975736)

Of course it's a competitive market, and not a get rich quick gold mine. Like MM says, it's "farming" trees, in much the same way you would farm corn. None of the this is subsidised or involves State owned land to trees. It's commercial ventures where someone has to buy the land, plant and manage (farm) the trees, then arrange the harvest (or find a consultant to manage that part). Then replant for the next harvest.

Some of it is Ian, and the New Zealand website says:

"To help get there (15,000 ha of plantations), MPI is providing grants of $1,300 per hectare for growers to plant new small to medium-sized forests (5 hectares to 300 hectares). Up to $19.5 million is available until 2020."

And just before this was grants for 12,000 ha.   ;)

OK there may be some small scale grants to encourage marginal and erosion prone land into forestry. But those 15,000 hectares compare to 1.8 Million hectares already in plantation forest. Those grants are more about getting marginal farm land that's erosion prone into trees so it doesn't slump into the sea. Lots of land in NZ was cleared of forest, for grazing, in the early 1900s, and in hind sight, it shouldn't have been. Without the trees, it just slips away into the valleys and makes a huge mess. With plantation tress it can be "farmed", even with clear cuts, as the old tree stumps and roots hold it together until a new crop can be established.

Timber exports are now close to 4 Billion$ per year, so 20 million is relatively small change.

So the industry in general doesn't rely on Govt subsidies.

Yes, it seems so, that it must be old farm land, as the land can not be recent forest land according to their criteria.

Freehold land here (Mill ground) is not subsidized, but small woodlots and crown lands are. But there isn't a lot of small woodlot acreage here that is plantations, far more is thinning of natural growth and the vast majority of private woodlots has nothing but harvesting and never thinned. There are several woodlots around me that never have silviculture done or subsidies.

Some of what I'm going to talk about here is fact and some of it is what I heard my dad and his friends saying about the facts. What they said is most likely partially true.

When I was a kid, Japanese ships very much like the one in Ian's photo would come into Humboldt Bay, Eureka California, and load up the logs, Redwood, Douglas fir, and some incense cedar.  I liked to watch, but I knew that it was leaving fewer logs for my dad's mill and driving log prices up.

Another fact, bark slabs and edgings would wash up on beaches up and down the Pacific Coast. The part I heard the men talking about and may or may not be fact is this.  They had a complete sawmill on board those ships and by time the ship got to its destination there was nothing but lumber on board.  The bark slabs and edgings just got thrown overboard.

No idea there. But this day in age there is no waste from a sound saw log on commercial operations. There is lumber, hog fuel, pellets, and pulp. In my youth sawdust and bark and maybe trimmings went up in smoke in a big cone shaped burner. Then total utilization came along. ;D

The burners were called TeePee burners.  That was before the EPA  :). 

Those Teepee burners were the cause of a couple Mill fires.

Just for giggles I went through and read this whole thread. It was a great read and explains why I feel so old.

Jake, I can remember , as a kid, going hunting with my Uncle in the North Florida flatwoods. We passed a timber stand that was being clearcut ( chip n saw ). He said, "I remember when those trees were planted." My thought was, "Wow, he's old!.". Later, in the same area, I realized that I had watched the same occurrence.... twice!  That thought hit me over ten years ago!!!!!!!!! :o

I remember much of our area in citrus groves.  Now, much of that same land has apartments, shopping centers and subdivisions but there are substantial live oaks (many over 36" dbh) and other trees growing.  Some land owners planted slash pines to keep their land taxed as agricultural use.  The pines are good sized now too. 

Back when I was a boy and dinosaurs roamed the Earth and it smelled of molten sulfur...

Took my wife up on a mountain top in northern California's coast range.  When I was a kid, you could see the Pacific Ocean about 50 miles to the west, got up there and couldn't see nothin but trees, Douglas firs, mixed with black oak, madrone, and some tan bark oak. 

Great thread everybody. I just read the whole thing and found it to be one of the best threads not only on FF, but the internet. Now I need to get outside and thin my mini-plantation.

Thank you.

I have another 12 acres that will be planted in the next month with the very best genetics.  These trees that will be planted are loblolly MCP Elite from Arborgen.  The MCP stands for mass controlled pollinated.  The best mother tree and the best father tree from the seed orchard are selected from field trial test plantings.  The female cones on the mother tree are covered with brown paper bags, like the kraft paper bags you used to get at the grocery store, only the small size.  The are secured over the female cones before the cones are ready for pollination.  The pollen is collected from the father tree, and this pollen is injected into each of the bagged female cones to assure that no other pollen in the air can pollinate the female cone, assuring that the father is the selected parent.  Then, after the cones mature and the seed ripens, it is collected, planted in the nursery bed, then made available for planting. 

Here is the product catalogue for the trees.  You can see what is available.  I went with the MCP Elite.  The field performance of these trees has been very impressive. 

http://supertreeseedlings.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/2017-2018-SuperTree-Seedlnigs-eCatalog.pdf

It will be interesting to compare the growth from this new about-to-be-created 12 acre plantation to the growth and development of the plantation established in this thread in 2009.  The 2009 trees were good, but they were not supertrees. 

It's so good to see you working hard at getting it just right.
Danny, you are a Renaissance Man. From genetics, sawmills, histology and silviculture, to kilns and fine woodworking.
Greek Proverb: "A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they will never sit in."
If you get that same guy with a sub-soiler to give you a hand, you'll be enjoying some shade while you're still young.
Hats off to you!

Quote from: Darrel on January 01, 2018, 07:36:42 PM
Took my wife up on a mountain top in northern California's coast range.  When I was a kid, you could see the Pacific Ocean about 50 miles to the west, got up there and couldn't see nothin but trees, Douglas firs, mixed with black oak, madrone, and some tan bark oak.

Great!  Good to hear that the regrowth is happening.  In about 10 years or so the PNW is going to have a huge amount of timber coming online.  Now pulp wont' exist really as a market but there should be a great supply of dimensional lumber.

I can remember when these trees were planted.  .  . Very Nice Job

OK, here we go again.  Another pine plantation being established.  The cool thing about this one is that I planted this old field in 1987.  The trees were thinned in 2000 and in 2010.  The stand was controlled burned multiple times.  Unfortunately, at age 30, root rot was killing too many of the trees and I had to clearcut it.  Now, in the ashes of the old plantation, a new one is born.

Here is a pic in Early 2016 with the original plantation entering its 30th year of growth.  This pic is just after a controlled burn. 

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14370/IMG_1330.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1453983604)

After harvesting, the debris was piled.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14370/IMG_1684~0.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1517279828)

A few months later, the debris piles were burned.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14370/IMG_1782~0.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1517279862)

Over the spring and summer, grass, weeds, and hardwood had grown up on the site.  The site was sprayed in August 2017 with herbicide to kill the weedy and woody competition by a crew using backpack sprayers with a modified wand to get a strong spray.  A dye is added to he herbicide mix so that the applicators can see where they have sprayed.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14370/IMG_2033.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1517280084)

In November 2017, the site was ripped to a depth of 20" to break up any hardpan in the soil.    Today the site was planted with 7000 bare root loblolly pine seedling with the very best genetics available.  These are called supertrees grown by Arborgen.  It took a crew of 16 hand planters just one hour to plant the 12 acre site. The trees were planted on a 6 foot x 12 foot spacing.  12 feet between rows and 6 feet along the row.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14370/IMG_2219.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1517280179)

The tool used to plant the trees is called a hoedad.  The trees are planted to the side of the rip to keep the seedlings from being covered over with soil from rain/washing and to avoid any air pockets deep down in the rip itself.  The roots will grow down into the rip to get below any hardpan created by past agricultural plowing (also called a plow pan) before the original plantation was established on this old field. 

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14370/IMG_2228.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1517280276)

The neat thing to me is that this site was originally an old field, then planted by me in 1987, then harvested in 2016, and now replanted in 2017.  So, I have seen one entire rotation on this site and have started a second one.  Maybe I can hang on to see this new stand thinned before my time expires  :).

Good stuff

That's a real clean looking tract, and the site prep will definitely pay off. But I hope your tree planters don't head north to the foothills of nc, they're going to be spoiled by the clean flat ground... ;D

I spend a lot of time thinking about tree spacing,  and I like hear different peoples thoughts on spacing,  what is the benefit of the 6x12 spacing for future harvest. I'm planting cutovers on a 10x10 or 8x10, and open fields on 8x12. We have a little slope that affects thinning in areas,  so I widen things a little to account for this,  but I'm always after new ideas for the best quality planting for folks..

Very similar to how it's done in NZ with Radiata pine, although most forestry sites aren't as flat as that.  :D Pine trees are grown on ground that not much use for anything else. We also have the advantage the pine canopy generally closes over enough to suppress and weeds, so no need for the controlled burn stage.

Looks like a well planned operation and many hands make light work (old saying). I can certainly appreciate the process since I have been a silviculture guy for 30 years. And I like that the debris piles are disposed of. They would otherwise become porky havens up here that love softwood bark of any native species up here. ;D

We plant spruce and pine at 5 to 6 foot spacing up here. Our softwood hold limbs a long time if they are too open. My plantations are now 20 years old and just now pruning up enough to see for quite a distance. They are 1000-1200 trees to the acre including the natural regen species. Balsam fir grows twice as fast as spruce in diameter and very shade tolerant. I have quite a good catch of fir on about 40 % of my ground, where it is well drained. I do some pruning, but it gives me no extra dollars from any local mill. They are too used to getting a lot of things for next to nothing. :D

Very nice stand in the first foto!!

Very intensive work there, tree planting crews can do amazing work.  Question for you, did you consider mulching instead of pile and burning?  Piling and burning moves so much of the nutrient base off site into the atmosphere that we are recommending forest mulching instead of the traditional post harvest pile/burn.  Not that we're not advocates of burning, we'll burn a site to only a savannah if you let us (because lots of clients like the look and great for hunting). 

I'll say that man it is nice to have a working pulp market close by. 

Ian, when the stand gets opened up with the first thinning, I have it thinned heavier than most Foresters.  I believe that most Foresters do not take out enough trees at first thinning.  A more aggressive thinning results in faster growth and larger diameter crop trees.  The extra light on the forest floor gives rise to more grass, weeds, forbs, and hardwood sprouts.  This becomes great forage and food for the birds and animals.  Repeated burning keeps the hardwood sprouts in check and lets the nutritous weeds/forbes have a chance.  Otherwise, around here, it would become a two level stand.  Pine overstory and dense sweetgum understory with poor food production for the wildlife.  The wildlife value is important to us too.

Curdog, the 6x12 spacing is 605 trees per acre.  I could have gone less, but that stocking is a hedge against mortality if we get spring and summer drought in the first year which happens here sometimes.  Since loblolly competes for dominance and will not stagnate, even it all the trees survive, the stand still stays healthy and will not stagnate.  The trees planted in the beginning of this thread in 2009 were planted at the same spacing, and you can see from the last pics, that the stand is still vigorous after the first nine years.  I actually intended to plant 500 trees per acre this time, but I underestimated the plantable acres so I had extra trees, so I decided to plant at 605 per acre.  With the 12 foot spacing between rows, when the first thinning takes place and a row is cut for access in the thinning, this width allows plenty of room for the fellerbuncher and skidders to operate with out damage to the residual stems.

Native, the piles were from debris at the loading deck.  I actually did contract for a mulcher to mulch the other slash and debris on the site, that is one reason the site looks so clean.  This is not normally done here in production forestry because of cost, but I did it because this stand is right in front of my house, and we want it to look nice, so I spent more $ on the preparation in order to get the aesthetics which was more important to us than the extra $150/acre that it cost to mulch  :).  There is a vibrant pulp market here.  Georgia harvests more timber than any other state and also has the most pulp production of any other state.  This is prime tree growing country.  On my last harvest, I received $12/ton for the pine pulpwood. 

Teak, I babied the original stand for 30 years.  Thinned in 2000 and 2010, pruned in 2000 to 18' (by me), and fetrtilized with ammonium nitrate and DAP in the summer of 2000.  Controlled burned 5 times after the first thinning.  I have not gone to this level of management and expense on my other plantations as the aesthetic value for them is not important to us. 

Question for ya, would you say this stand was still profitable for you with the added care?  Did the proceeds cover the expenses, taxes and your time at say min wage?    Not trying to prove any points, just wondering if the market prices have kept pace with the other rising prices of land use.

Quote from: mike_belben on January 30, 2018, 07:58:34 AM
Question for ya, would you say this stand was still profitable for you with the added care?  Did the proceeds cover the expenses, taxes and your time at say min wage?    Not trying to prove any points, just wondering if the market prices have kept pace with the other rising prices of land use.

Ditto to Mike's question... Can small-scale TSI and management actually realize measurable value beyond aesthetics? I think you've done a beautiful and thorough job with your woods. I just hope that financial incentives can encourage proper timber management on smaller stands elsewhere.

Economics for WDH are going to be different than almost everyone in the US outside of that Pulp mill best that has survived down there.  I did quite a bit of work with RMS years ago and that timber belt that extends from GA into SC and down into AL is to be envied.  $12/ton for pulp, pretty cool.

I am a bit surprised that you are not seeing the CTL machine harvesting and that the landing sites had such large slash piles. 

Glad to see you mulched and glad to see you burning so much.  We have a property that we burn every other year.  Great aesthetics. 

Can not agree with you enough re thinning and planting density.  Fewer trees per acre is more profitable and better optionality as the diameter increase presents merchandizing options that height growth does not offer.  Models made that clear 30 years ago but the foresters still over plant and under thin.  Not sure why...

Read this thread from the start ..... very impressive with tons of education. One thing to drive by a plantation, and watch it grow, but another to see it unfold, and the planning and labor that was involved, with the results.  Thanks for sharing.   

I'll throw in one more take.  I'm about 500 miles northeast of WDH in Southern Virginia.  I'm on the northern and western fringe of the native range of loblolly but it has been naturalized and planted extensively throughout Central Virginia.  Plus, we have one more dog that must be considered........ice.

On the investment side, we are very good at silviculture and growing trees.  We are very good at modeling growth.  We are absolutely horrible at projecting prices 25 years in the future.  Nobody saw the crash of 2008 coming.  If we did, we would have clearcut the world.  Back around 2000, I was selling woods run pine logs (28 year old plantation wood - 10" butt to a 6" top tree length) around $42.00 / ton on the stump.  We could pull some grade out of older stands with stumpage around $72.00 per ton.  The pole market was strong with stumpage in the upper $70s.  Plylogs were netting about $60.00 / ton on the stump.  In today's market, I have a hard time giving a small log away.  Most of them are ending up in the pulp sort and going to the OSB market.  They have tightened up on the spec on the woods run log sort to either a 7 or 8 inch top depending on market.  That wood is bringing $19 - $21 / ton on the stump.  The last tract of plylogs I moved netted $21.50.  Our pulp mill at Covington, VA was owned by Westvaco.  It is now owned by WestRock.  Our pulpmill at Hopewell, VA was owned by Stone Container.  It is now owned by WestRock.  Our pulpmill at West Point, VA was owned by Chesapeake.  It is now owned by WestRock.  Our pulpmill at Roanoke Rapids, NC was owned by Champion.  As of yesterday, it was announced that it is being bought by WestRock.  See a pattern here?  The pulpmill in Ashland, VA owned by Bear Island Paper (newsprint) has been shutdown.  On the bright side, the pellet market (mostly Enviva) is pretty strong, but with this consolidation I'll be dealing with WestRock and International Paper on the fiber side......pretty disheartening.......but back to silviculture.

I am in the camp that we plant too many trees.  Historically, we planted 622 per acre.  We dropped that about 10 years ago to 545 per acre.  My pay grade (and title) has made it to the point that I make a few decisions these days.  I planted some high end genetics last year at 400 per acre including some containerized stock.  I believe that is where we need to be. It used to be that you planted them thick so that they would prune.  You were worried about survival.  Genetics and herbicides fixed that.  We can grow trees today with no limbs (well small ones anyway).  Crowns are very compact.  Herbicides do an excellent job of controlling competition and we are routinely fertilizing stands.  Our first year survival rates hover around 96%.  Throw in a few wildlings and stocking is not an issue.  However, the last year has thrown us a curveball.  For years, we have pushed stands to put on diameter and volume.  Now, one of my primary customers, an LVL plant, has gone to stress grading veneers.  They pulled three loads off of one of my contracts and ran them through their grading process.  The 9, 10, 11, and 12" diameter trees met their grading criteria.  The 13, 14, 15, and 16" class did not.  Do to rapid growth, they didn't have the strength characteristics that they wanted.  That could present a bit of an issue for me.  Long term, genetics will address that issue.  The question is; what do I do with the plantations that are maturing now? 

As for thinning, we are normally making a first entry around age 14.  I'll thin to a basal area of 80-85 square feet leaving 220 - 240 stems per acre.  We are leaving this level of stocking due to potential ice damage.  More trees provide better lateral support for their neighbors.  They stand up to ice loading better.  I would fare to guess that WDH is thinning to 60 square feet of basal area with stocking down around 150 - 160 trees per acre.  Am I anywhere close?  I'll make a second entry around age 19-20 taking the stand back to 80 square feet of basal area leaving 140 or so trees per acre.  We will carry it to rotation (25 to 28 years old depending on market).  The stand would be fertilized following each of the two thinnings and evaluated for understory control if needed.

As for pricing, we couldn't survive on nothing but $12.00 / ton pulpwood.  Our economist are still projecting recovery in our sawtimber markets.  Investment models (and returns) are based on producing higher value products.   I look forward to the day.  Klausner Lumber has a new mill still idle in Enfield, NC.  I was completed a couple of years ago, but has yet to run any production.  I believe it was $120 million dollar investment projected to saw 360 Million feet per year.  Anybody want to buy a mill?  We could use it.

Wudman   

Great thread.  Thanks for sharing guys.

Locally we plant densely, then thin hard. The seedlings are relatively cheap, so a dense initial stocking helps keep the weeds down and encourages the trees to grow taller. Once the lift pruning is done and the canopy has closed in again they go in and thin to waste to the final stocking. The denser initial stocking gives more choice of good trees in the thinning process. Keep the best, drop the rest.

Low pulp prices and difficult access mean it's not economic to harvest the thinnings, and they are left to rot. Most valuable is the clear pruned saw logs, with lower grade saw and pulp logs from further up the trees, and the whole plantation is clear cut once mature. 25-30 years.

Here is our current market in my area.

https://www.cvwpa.ca/products

This is some good info, I agree about the less dense stands and the benefits of site prep. But most of the landowners I work with are not going to spend the money on site prep. So I'm trying to balance a spacing that is wide enough for increased growth and tight enough to choke out Virginia pine, that plagues so many of our cutovers. I'd rather have sweetgum instead of Virginia pine,  at least i could release it with herbicide if needed. Ive been planting on a 10x10,  for 435 tpa , but I like the idea of adjusting to a wider row for easier equipment access and tightening the space between trees,  to keep  roughly the same tpa....

Most of my survival counts give me 90-95% survival after the first growing season , and even during years with bad drought we had low survival only on tracts that were logged in wet weather and there was a lot of soil compaction issues. The tracts without compaction pulled though,  but compaction and drought plus kinda large seedlings was too much to overcome that year.

I fight with Virginia Pine throughout my operating area.  In my opinion, if you are not going to control it on the front end, I wouldn't bother planting a tract.  My preference is a drip torch.  As you said, you can control the hardwood at a later time. 

I am going to do some early season chemical pine control trials this year.  I plan to look at Krenite, Accord / Detail, and Garlon XRT.  The product will be applied just after the pines break dormancy, but before hardwood leaf out.  We will apply by skidder at 50 Gallons per acre total mix.  The shielding effect from hardwood after leaf out, prevents coverage of the wilding pine.  I have a doghair tract that will put it to the test.

To compare some numbers, a glyphosate / imazypyr site prep tank mix will cost in the neighborhood of $60.00 per applied acre.  A pre-commercial thinning costs me more than twice that.  Looking at it from an investment standpoint, chemical site prep is the most cost effective (but wild pine is tough to control).  I know your pain on trying to sell the right thing to a landowner.

As for thinning, I normally have my operators run at a 45 degree angle to rows.  I don't like those wide take out rows when you run with the rows.  That's just my personal preference, and there are some other benefits to wide row spacing.

Wudman 

Even as a non-forester this is an interesting thread to me.  Danny, do you have any idea why the root rot was so pervasive?  Is there a benefit to using the hoedad or dibble bar over a mechanical tree planter? 

My neighbor just cut 110 acres pretty hard.  I wish she would sell it to me at a reasonable cost so that I could manage it.  Some of the best longleaf I've seen came out of there.

One of these days I will have to post some pics of my vast loblolly plantation.  It consists of at least 20 trees.  I planted them mainly to get samples off of.  We have a lot more slash and longleaf than loblolly. I planted them several years ago (I don't really remember when) and some have dbh of 8" or more and some are only dbh 2". 

WDH can weigh in on the root rot that was affecting his particular stand but I suspect that it was "pine decline" caused by the Leptographium fungus.  This is a blue stain fungus that is vectored into the roots by the Hylastes beetle and other root feeding beetles.  Of course, the most damaging of the Leptographium fungi were introduced into this country from Europe.  Pine decline typically manifest itself in stands over 30 years of age.  Stands grown on abandoned agricultural land (hardpan - which was sub-soiled to ameliorate in this case), sandy to sandy loam sites, and lower amounts of organic matter tend to accelerate pine decline.  Other factors such as stress from thinning (equipment), drought, prescribed burning, and soil compaction worsen the impacts.  In other words, the silivicultural treatments that we use to grow timber, can put additional stress on susceptible trees.

I now carry a grubbing hoe as a diagnostic tool.  On trees suspected of having pine decline, dig up an underground root and look for black streaks through the tissue (it is a blue stain fungus in the underground roots.)  This fungus eventually impacts the trees ability to translocate resources......resulting in decline and eventual death.  With all of the introduced pathogens in this country (oak wilt, thousand canker disease, Dutch elm disease, Emerald ash borer, Sirex wood wasp, Asian Longhorn Beetle, etc), in another rotation we may be looking at nothing but sweetgum.

Wudman   

Wud, my first thinning target is 50 to 60 square feet of BA.  About 150 trees/acre.  This stand was thinned at age 12 to 165 trees/acre or a bit over 60 square feet in the fall of 2009.  More info to be found here:  http://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,39179.0.html

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14370/IMG_2297.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1253020579)

Here is what it looks like 8 years later.  It is slated for a second thinning this Spring.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14370/IMG_1668.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1479557525)

Kyle, the root rot weakens the trees so that the pine beetles sense that they are weak and then the beetles attack and kill some of the trees.  The rot is found in this area with sandy topsoils and clayey subsoils.  I believe that this seed source that this plantation was planted from is genetically disposed to the root rot and trees from this nursery (grown in Perry, FL) have a much higher incidence of the rot than other seed sources planted on the same soils in the same area.  Here is a pic of the 12 acre plantation that was clearcut and that I just replanted.  You can see some of the dead pines that the logger left for me to saw up on my sawmill for blue pine lumber. 

Reading Wudman's last post, Wud, you are exactly spot on about the pine decline.  Your description is a dead ringer for this situation.  You hit that nail on the head (old saying).  The University of Georgia came and did a study on this site before clearcutting last summer.  They took many increment cores and soil and root samples.  I have not seen any results yet of what they found, but Wudman, I know that you will be interested in what they found.  I will pass along this information. 

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14370/IMG_1624.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1477135235)

I did not want to clearcut this stand that I had babied for so long, but the mortality was becoming excessive.  Here is some info about the history of the 12 acre stand that I just planted after growing a crop of loblolly pine over a 30 year rotation.  As to economics, I made a profit on the sale of this timber considering the cost of initial planting, fertilizer, and my management time outside of the time spent pruning which was a choice I made simply for aesthetics.  The logger left me about three loads, 75 tons, of dead pine to saw in blue pine which I sawed into blue pine and sold.  The final harvest was a total of 37 loads or 92.5 tons per acre on 11 timbered acres.  There is 1 acre in a utility easement and firebreaks.  The stand had been thinned twice, once in 2000 and again in 2010.  Adding the harvest volume from the two thinnings, the 11 net timbered acres yielded 1680 tons over the 30 year rotation or 153 tons/acre.  That is just shy of 6 loads per acre produced over the life of the stand.  Total income from all timber sales including thinnings was $32,000.  Total income from all timber sales on the 11 timbered acres over the 30 year life of the stand was $2900/acre or $97/acre per year. 

The most recent clearcut timber sale brought $26/ton for cut-to-length sawlogs, and $12/ton for pulpwood.  Any recently dead or dying trees that already had any blue stain went to pulpwood even if the trees were sawtimber size.  The sawmills will not take dead or blued logs.

Here is a short video of the harvest:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWj3rbcdPEE

WDH: Nice growing!  In that first picture it seems like the pine has dead branches, the lower ones. Do those Trees selfprune?

In teak when they are real close the selfprune to a certain level. It's still alot of work tho prune the rest of the still alive branches

The first and second pics are before and after, so you can see that loblolly does self prune pretty good. 

WDH, We are seeing a lot of "pine decline" in our operations down in Alabama.  I have identified a few stands in South Carolina.  It has been identified in one of our seed orchards in Alabama.......that gets your attention.  Seventy years of genetics are in jeopardy.  I would appreciate any information when you get your results back.  Thanks.

Jeff 

Thanks for sharing the numbers.  Those are often the most important, and hardest to get.

Hmmm, plant monocultures and then ....well sure there are going to be issues.  Some posters here won't know this but the SE of the US has millions and millions of super productive monoculture pine plantations.  They can stretch for miles, the use of herbicide is new and maybe deadly, maybe we are going too good a job of controlling competition and trees, grown like corn, in these super intensive plantations may be impacted by the same processes that impact corn or soybean etc.  Long term decline.  It might be necessary to fallow sites, or switch to hardwood stands for 40 years, etc. 

The only pine root rots that I am familiar with are annosum and sand pine root disease.  The annosum is evidently transmitted by wind to fresh cut stumps and is spread to other trees through root grafts and through injuries to the trees.  I was not aware of foreign rots that were causing damage.  Some of the foresters I have met suggest planting longleaf and claim they have better resistance to many diseases that loblolly and slash are susceptible to, but recently I have seen dead or dying trees from all three species.  I have attributed the mortality to the stress from last spring's drought and then Irma.

On another note, Dr.Ed Barnard, a forest pathologist (retired now) used to present at Florida's FFA Forestry Camp.  He would bring samples of bugs and rot and really could introduce the concepts to the students and FFA advisors alike in a way that kept everyone rapt.  I bet if some of you look at the pictures and write ups in a lot of your books you may see his name.  At the conclusion of the presentation he would stick around and shoot the breeze about forest disorders.  He often compared trees to people and stated that the trees are usually weakened or stressed and then are finished off by one or more diseases or types of insects.  For example, years ago several large loblolly pines in my pasture were struck by lightening.  They were all in a group and still alive but started getting black turpentine beetles at the bottom, Ips a little higher up, then pine sawflies ate some of the needles and finally the ambrosia beetles bored into them.  The five of them eventually died (they provided good samples during the two-three year process). I learned a lot over the years from those conversations with Dr. Barnard-as I am sure I could learn a lot from conversations with many here.

Danny, I hope your new "super trees" thrive and provide you with years of enjoyment while you manage them and watch them grow. 

The monoculture vs diversity in forests grown for profit is a topic for debate - if y'all decide to open that can of worms, I will certainly tune in.  Maybe someone can get to the root of the problem.

Progress has costs.

Ian was surprised at the low prices of the sawlogs here.  He needs to remember that the average NZ Radiata pine sawlog is quite a bit larger than the average Loblolly Pine sawlog.  In fact the mills are so specific that they only want wood within a 6 inch variation or so. 14-20 inches or something like that. 

Frankly I am surprised at the sawlog prices you are seeing, I think for that price I could ship sawlogs from here to China/Japan/Taiwan/Korea or wherever you are shipping them and make money, just need to buy a whole boat load.

I think this is the third or forth time I have gone back and read this thread. The older I get the more I enjoy it.
I haven't been in the reforestation side of things since 2011. Sold all my planting equipment and such. Now this year I'm spraying and planting 60 acres of my own. Well I hired the spraying done with a helicopter. Had to do some drum chopping on it due to the amount of natural pines on it. Will run a fire through it if I can ever get it to dry out some. The ironic part is I will also hire the planting done since I don't have the equipment set up to go out in the rough areas any more. Absolutely crazy how much life has changed since this thread was started. Danny, keep up the good work my friend.

Custom
Was that type of work profitable?
I don't see anything like this happening in my area.
I wonder why ?

Up here there are some tight margins on planting public lands. It seems the rates slid over the years much as it has for thinning. I know some companies have a tough time to attract plantation contractors and it is becoming the same with thinning. They seem to think at mills that they deserve all the raises. :D

Yes it was profitable. Just had to rely on a lot more hired help and as things slowed down for a couple of years, due to industry changes, I learned I was better off being smaller. Then I started the gig of sawing for the big mill in Hazelhurst and the rest is history.

Glad to hear about a happy ending. 

Danny, how did the stand make out with the hurricane?

No damage to this plantation.  The damage was in the 21 and 30 year old plantations that had just been thinned this summer. 


(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14370/IMG_2569.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1543320176)
 

Well, the plantation has a 10 year birthday this month.  In about 3 more years, it will have its first commercial thinning.  Here is a pic.  Note the hat on the bole of one of the stems for reference.


(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14370/IMG_2635.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1548001004)
 


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@wdh and @Wudman (http://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?action=profile;u=624) any more updates on the pine decline mentioned earlier in thread?  With the price of hardwood pulp in the SE I am guessing you'd be better off not controlling the gum, poplar, etc.  $68/ton is what the loggers are getting right now.  Wow..wish we had that pricing up in N VA.  I might not get rich but it would make pulp profitable.

The results of the pine decline study by the University of Georgia have not been published yet, so I do not know the whole story.  However, in a brief text discussion with the Researcher, she indicated that they did not find evidence of annosum root rot.  At this point, I am not sure of what caused this pine decline. 

Looking good, you'll soon be making money. :)

I have a lot of nice fir that size, but it's 35-40 years old. ;D

Where was that 68/ton at again @nativewolf (http://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?action=profile;u=24089) ?  Alabama ? Do you know what mill?   Id bet that makes pulp pay close to pallet or maybe even a bit more.  

I wonder if those are long tons or short tons.  Scrap yards with lots of competition will often play that game where they quote a better price on the phone then the bill does add up until they tell you a "ton" is 2240. 

That would be fraud. We have a federal weights and measures authority here that would put the squeeze on such a scam. Same goes for firewood scammers.

tonne is metric 2200 lbs
ton is imperial 2000 lbs

Quote from: mike_belben on January 21, 2019, 05:26:41 AM
Where was that 68/ton at again @nativewolf (http://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?action=profile;u=24089) ?  Alabama ? Do you know what mill?   Id bet that makes pulp pay close to pallet or maybe even a bit more.  

I wonder if those are long tons or short tons.  Scrap yards with lots of competition will often play that game where they quote a better price on the phone then the bill does add up until they tell you a "ton" is 2240.

With a high pulp price how long till you see it come crashing back down or no market at all?

Quote from: mike_belben on January 21, 2019, 05:26:41 AM
Where was that 68/ton at again @nativewolf (http://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?action=profile;u=24089) ?  Alabama ? Do you know what mill?   Id bet that makes pulp pay close to pallet or maybe even a bit more.  

I wonder if those are long tons or short tons.  Scrap yards with lots of competition will often play that game where they quote a better price on the phone then the bill does add up until they tell you a "ton" is 2240.

I know it was in central Alabama, we were 30 mins from Montgomery.  Hardwood.  Pine was $32/ton.  The guys were very ...hard guys.  All ex green berets, delta force, marines.  Not sloppy guys getting worked over by mills. 
And yes, much better than tie prices.  In fact better pricing than #2 sawlogs for things like poplar and hickory.  Lay it down with a feller buncher and get it loaded.  It would make lots of crappy cut over forest profitable and allow them to be replanted with good hardwoods.  

Remember this?  I had to clearcut this 30 year old plantation in October 2016 due to pine decline. 


(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14370/IMG_1624.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1477135235)
 

Here is what has transpired since:

Site was allowed to grow up in the Spring and Summer of 2017.  In late August, the site was sprayed to control the hardwood and herbaceous weeds and grass.  In late October 2017 the site was ripped 20" deep.  On January 29, 2018, the site was planted in MCP Elite seedlings from Arbogen. 

Here is the site being sprayed:


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Here is the site being hand planted.  Planting was done on a 6x12 spacing which yielded a bit more than 600 trees/acre.  I intended to only plant 500 trees/acre but I over-estimated the acreage a little so I had extra trees and went ahead and had them planted. 


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It only took these 15 tree planters one hour to plant the 12 acres. 

Here is the stand today one year after planting.


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Some of the trees are already 3 feet tall.  I originally planted this old field in 1987.  Grew a crop, harvested it, and now the cycle begins again :).

That's an interesting approach.  I'd be curious to see the numbers and how they worked out in the first harvest.  In alabama, and I guess GA too, hardwood pulp is bringing $68/ton due to the rain.  At that price I think you'd be better off spraying the pine and thinning the hardwood :).   Too bad that price won't last, could be back to 30 before you can spit.  

Nativewolf.  The history:

12 acre old field purchased in 1986 for $1000/acre (11 net plantable acres and 1 acre in power easement).

Establishment cost in 1987 =          $1184
Fertilization in 2000           =            $700
Property Taxes over the 30 years = $5017

                                Total Costs    $6901

Income -1st thinning in 2000 =       $5197
Income - partial 2nd thin in 2010 = $2160
Income - final harvest in 2016 =   $21327

                              Total income  $28684

Net Gain = $21783
Net Gain = $1815/acre

Total tons harvested  Pulpwood   = 970
Total tons harvested  Sawtimber = 678
                      
                   Total tons harvest = 1648

Tons per acre produced over life
of the 30 yr old plantation         = 150 tons/acre

That is awesome.  :P

@wdh really appreciate that.  That's a great overview, very interesting to think over.

Nice spray coverage by the looks of the kill. And yeah, doesn't take long with a big crew of planters to fill up a field.

Good returns. ;D

I think it will be 15 more years before I do a commercial thinning, but I will soon be doing thinnings for firewood needs. But 15 plus 20, we are looking at 35 years old I guess. I hope to have some 50 footers in the fir. The fir will be close to 50 years old by then, a bit older than the plantation stock. But all kinds of'm. :) Budworm will probably eat'm up by then. :D Nah, doubt it, didn't in the last budworm scare. :)

OK.  Status update on my new plantation.  The trees are in their second growing season and are doing well.  Amazing how much wildlife and birds are using the site.  A pair of red tailed hawks are raising a family here. 



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Looking good, Danny.  I am glad to see that they are growing well.

A family that I have become friends with is dealing with salvage, clean up and replanting in Blountstown, Florida.  William, a young forester and former Florida state FFA officer, is being interviewed in the Fox report on the link below.  I met William when he was on the high school forestry team competing in the state contest.  The team he was on beat a very good team that I took that year.  William and his team won the national FFA forestry contest the following October.  Their place was well managed and absolutely beautiful prior to Hurricane Michael.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/florida-timber-farmers-hurricane-michael (https://www.foxnews.com/us/florida-timber-farmers-hurricane-michael)

There were a few other stories in which family members were interviewed.

Looking good. thumbs-up

Reminds me that I have to count the rings on a couple 18" fir I cut for firewood this spring. These two were leaning toward the main road after Arthur. I cut some others same size a few feet back with sign of ants. Whorls 12-18" apart. Balsam doesn't grow tall like pine ;), but sure looks nice when managed on well drained ground. These aren't old because they established on old farmland. I have very few old ones, and one of them fell down last winter, the one I took a photo of 3 years ago.

Those are doing fine. Nothing like enjoying the fruits of your labor.

Getting toward the end of the 2nd growing season.  This is at the end of September.  Some of the trees are taller than me.


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I expect them to really jump next year.

Trees look good. Whatcha do leave the camera there for 4 months!!

Do they plant bare root, or is it container stock down your way? I always liked red pine bare root seedlings on fields. But the only nursery doing them was government, the company nurseries all did container and the pine was always too short for field unless a 2 furrow plow or Kulla scarifier flopped the sod. We had some fields that was just wild strawberry and low stuff, best left undisturbed for planting. :)

This was bare root stock.  I really focused on quality site prep after the clearcut of the original plantation.  That pays big dividends.  Poor site prep usually results in a poor stand. 

Yes for sure. I've seen landowners clear alder off fields to plant and then never control the alders. The trees can't survive that.

Looking good.

Thank you.  I have always been handsome. 

And forthcoming too.  ;D

More of a accounting question. Are the tree planting costs treated as an expense and deducted as you incur them or do you have to capitalize and use as them as a basis when you sell sawtimber 20 years down the road?

Quote from: WDH on December 15, 2019, 06:27:08 PM
Thank you.  I have always been handsome.

Danny is ageless!

Some of the best performers after two growing seasons.


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Two seasons growth!!?  I was lucky to have my Ponderosa pines make it to my kneecaps the first two seasons.  I'm sure your site is much better though.

The majority of this growth response is due to genetic improvement.  These seedlings are Arborgen MCP Elite.  MCP stands for Mass Control Pollinated.  The father and mother of these trees is known and are chosen specifically for top growth response.  Each individual cone on the mother tree is sealed in a brown paper bag to prevent any other male pollen from pollinating the cone, and the chosen father's pollen is collected and injected into the bag with a syringe.  The seedling grown from the seed cost about 3 times as much as the standard 2nd gen seedling.  Since this is my 2nd and last rotation on this site due to my longevity (not the trees), I wanted to go with the very best.

Don't stand in the way of them pine. I heard they grow so fast they could knock a man out of his saddle. :D ;D

Just wanted to say thanks for recording and posting all this I've been reading through the years and have appreciated watching and learning.

Them things are just a growing!!

Looking good!

Easy Danny. I'm  sure Ron was referring to the trees. :D Just kidding I think all three of you are looking great.

I hardly recognize them.  They are growing up so fast.  It is good to see you out there doing what you enjoy to do.  They look to be staying 6' apart too.

Just finished reading through this entire thread. Very informative and some laughs! great to see the progress from the start! Glad I stumbled my way onto this site! 

This year so far, 2020, perfect weather for my plantations as we have had copious rain.  The trees are happy and will maintain their social distance until the first thinning in 10 years from now if I live to see it. 

Update:  Here is pic after the third growing season.  Compare with pic in reply #357.  They are really taking off. 


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Wow! That's impressive.

In forestry, there have been great strides in genetics. 

Wow Danny, just Wow!!  

A picture like that shows a lot of know-how coming together.
Nice work Danny!

I'm impressed!

That's NZ growth rates there.  ;D

Just interested if you can get a premium for clear pruned logs later? That's a big thing here as clear pine lumber is worth MUCH more than your regular knotty stuff. So year 3 to 8 is all about lift pruning to get clear butt logs. After the last prune they would be thinned to final stocking and the thinned trees left to rot. Unless it's a really easy access site ( most aren't) it's not economic to harvest the pulp / post sized logs. 

That pine is like a rocket in flight there Danny. Don't stand too close too long, we might loose you in the shade. :D

How much premium for the pine Ian? I have clear pine doors, that isn't southern pine of white pine, pretty sure it's radiata, but could be from China, who knows. They are $100 doors all clear wood. :)

Radiata ex China will probably be NZ logs originally. 

Prices are currently around $200 a ton for pruned vs ~$100 for unpruned or top logs.  As the butt log is the largest, and harvest / trucking costs are the same, it's in the forest owners interest to prune the trees. Could basically double the return at harvest time. 

Like if the whole tree is worth 200 or 300 at the mill, and harvesting / trucking is $100 in either case. One tree makes $100 for the forest owner, the other $200. 

That's not bad money. Close to veneer price for spruce. Best I've seen for spruce veneer was $1000 US back 20 years ago. No more market local. :)

I've also used this wood that was machined for stair treads, it's a solid 1". I used it to make a nice pine corner shelf for a mantle clock that is quite tall. Goes with all the pine trim and doors quite nicely.

Here, there is no premium for pruning.  Who knows what the future holds. 

Impressive growth.
My only problem with that super fast growth is that the lumber is about as strong as an 83 yr old man,(me).
State conservation department now the department of environmental conservation, used to prune both the Norway spruce and Red pine but stopped doing that in the 70s
I did some privately planted red pine in 1969 and wonder what it looks like now.
It was a federal cost sharing project, I pruned to 8' for I think 50 cents a tree, not a very good money maker.

I looked pretty close at a SYP 2x the other day and the density from seedling was tight but what an impressive growth spurt when thinned at maybe 15 or 20 yrs.  3/8 rings or so until harvest. 


In 2016 i unknowingly mowed these seedlings in my front lawn, as the grass was pocket high from abandonment.  I dont know if they were planted or natural seeding from neighbor pines that survive standard mowing.. They spacing is erratic and past owner was flat broke so thats my guess.  Either way that one in the center has twice the growth rate of its siblings.  What are the chances i can breed that thing for privacy plantings elsewhere in the yard?

 
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Have to be controlled pollination or you wouldn't be sure of the progeny. Traits you want could be 25% chance if open pollinate.

I expect that the future of wood products is engineered lumber, not natural boards sawn from logs.  The wood will be a raw material for an engineered product that will be better in performance than conventionally sawn dimension lumber.  It will be 20+ years before these trees will be harvested for anything other than pulpwood. I strongly suspect that wood technology will advance quite considerably in that timeframe.  In any event, it is unlikely that I will be around to see where these trees end up.  

This is an 11 acre plantation in front of my house so I look forward to tending it while I can still tend to anything.  This site was an old field that I planted to pine in 1987 and harvested in the Fall of 2016 at age 30.  This is now the second plantation crop on this site. 

If I recollect, that is the tract you had a crew hand plant shortly before I dropped in with a forestry team a few years ago.  Those trees are certainly growing.  Thank you for showing them to us again.

Great looking stand.

You recollect correctly, Kyle.  I will post a pic about the other stand that was the original subject for this thread, the one planted by Mr. Customsawyer (note the Mr. Mister). 

Quote from: WDH on March 16, 2021, 07:45:32 PM
I expect that the future of wood products is engineered lumber, not natural boards sawn from logs.  The wood will be a raw material for an engineered product that will be better in performance than conventionally sawn dimension lumber.  It will be 20+ years before these trees will be harvested for anything other than pulpwood. I strongly suspect that wood technology will advance quite considerably in that timeframe.  In any event, it is unlikely that I will be around to see where these trees end up.  

This is an 11 acre plantation in front of my house so I look forward to tending it while I can still tend to anything.  This site was an old field that I planted to pine in 1987 and harvested in the Fall of 2016 at age 30.  This is now the second plantation crop on this site.

With a caveat........engineered wood has been the "future" for the last 30+ years.  When I was in forestry school, that was the talk of the town.  We were anticipating nothing but OSB, glulams, LVLs, and other engineered lumber.  We are seeing an anomaly in the framing lumber market today, but as long as we can produce $3.00 (in the norm) 2x4s, I believe the small dimension lumber market will continue.  As Russia develops infrastructure to (timber) mine Siberia, I believe cheap dimension lumber will prevail on the world wide scale.  With that said, I built a new home 5 years ago and it has engineered I-joist, AdvanTech Flooring, OSB sheathing, and LVLs carrying the floor load across a great room on two floors.  The architect specified a triple 12" LVL to carry the second floor load above my great room.  My builder suggested that he could utilize triple 16s there to insure a stiff floor.  I went with the 16s and I believe I could drive a D7 across it without deflection.  Even with a dozen rambunctious teens upstairs, that floor doesn't move.  The walls are still conventionally framed 2x4s and the roof rafters are 2x8s (32 foot long Doug Fir compliments of British Columbia). 
Southern yellow pine (lobl_olly in particular) still owns the treated lumber market.  With the Formosan termite running around the Southern US, I don't think that will change in the foreseeable future.  With the superior genetics of today, we are growing arrow straight boles with tiny limbs.  When I cut the stands that I planted this week, I guess I'll be ready to retire then.   ;D ;D
Wudman
        

I have all those material in my new house as well. 2 LVL's on a 32' span, 1 per floor. My wood room partition  in the basement and kitchen partition on the first floor does the job for the great room upstairs where a heavy wooden floor loom sits. ;D

LVL

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/house-flu3.jpg)

Look at all that dimensional wood. ;D

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Great room with loom. ;D

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/loom-space-july2020.jpg)

The coffee table is the middle point, but the end by me has an L corner. To the right of the loom is a bedroom and stairway. 6' on the corners to 9' to 14' ceiling

Wudman - Grow some size on those for me and reserve the truck to come here when you cut them please.  

Update.  Here is last March 2021 after the 3rd growing season:


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Photo from same spot one year later in march 2022 after the 4th growing season.


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You wore the same clothes for a year?  :D

Awesome Growth!

Grow them trees.  8)

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It makes me happy to see you standing there with them.  I remember when I brought the FFA forestry team by there, they were just little loblollys.  I wanted to transplant a dozen or so volunteer slash pine with my three-year-old grandson, but I may have waited too late this year.  You must have good ground and super good genetics in those trees.  I look forward to seeing you next month at Jakes.

I see how it is. I help you get this tread going and now you don't need me anymore. Since you have these new little babies. I need pictures of the ones I planted.......

He probably fed those to the tree smoother.  :D

Danny,
Was going for a sawmill blade, but I think it is a cut-off saw. Could be planer if you excuse the fact the board got turned 90 degrees along the way and live edging. ;D You've got to work within the limitations of what you've got to work with, that includes the mind of the artist. :D

Don't want to hurt Customsawyer's feelings.  Here is an update on the original plantation that started this thread in 2009.  The trees are going into their 14th growing season and will be 1st thinned this year.

Here is my truck for perspective:


(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14370/IMG_4854.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1647693686)
 

Average diameter about 8" and average height over 40 feet.  They will be thinned to 50 square feet of basal area which is about 150 trees/acre.  


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This is Agri-forestry which may offend some people.  I have 90 acres in various age classes from age 3 to 34.  I also have 150 acres in naturally managed forests, mostly hardwoods so there is some balance.  The goal for the plantations is for timber value while the goal for the natural areas are a balance of timber production and wildlife habitat management.  Once this plantation is thinned and burned, the native weeds, forbs and herbaceous plants colonize the site and the wildlife habitat value goes way up.  This stage from about age 8 to 14 has the least wildlife value but that will change significantly very soon.  

Great stuff! Even the dog approves. ;)

That takes 25-30 years for fir and white spruce up this way. Been thinning my plantations now the second time, for 3 years.

Pretty cool! A friend of mine was telling me when we were down in my woods looking things over that a customer that bought a 300hp dedicated mulcher for their Poplar plantation saw a increase of 25 to 30 percent growth from mulching 

Makes a huge difference in ring growth up here for sure, when thinned.

Far to the north, a guy has similar growth on hybrid larch, on sandy, gravelly but deep loam.  For the region, much faster height and caliper growth than say, white or red pine.

But what caught my eye is WDH's mention of the changes that take place in a stand of planted conifers.  As he said, some folks are put off by this forestry model, and I have to admit a strictly put-and-take plantation, where the crop trees get harvested, and the exact same thing then gets planted, does not stir the heart.  But in many other cases, pines or similar are being planted to "capture" the site for forest, meaning over time, additional elements can move in and find things to their liking.

Is already happening under my larch, pines, and spruce, where especially white-cedar is popping up randomly.  We can do early non-commercial thinnings, and then later, likely early pulp thinnings, and still have this natural regen moving in from down yonder in the woods.  Obviously, a seed source must be nearby, or clonal aspen, etc.

Amazing stand Danny. It's great to look back on them. I drive by to many stands that I planted in the early years of my business that are now clear cut and replanted again. Makes a guy realize how much time has passed when trees have matured and been harvested, that he has planted. Dang I'm getting old.

Looks good!!! Well, great really!!

With the recent events in the last week I felt it right to give this a bump. Sure going to miss the updates on this thread. They had the original stand lined up for thinning in the near future. Maybe Terry can keep us in the loop in the future.

Thank you for the bump.  I feel like the last hour+ I've spent reading this is like finding a textbook filled with knowledge and devoid of all the fluff.  I'm sure I'll be rereading this several times over in the future.

Out of respect to Danny, Thought I would post to this thread and bring it back around for newer members to have a look.  I started planting this week in Southern Virginia.  Technology, genetics, and thinking have progressed over the years and I would like to show what we are doing now.


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For one, we have progressed to planting 100% containerized stock.  This is a control mass pollinated lobl-olly produced by IFCO.  


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In controlled pollination, the flowers of the parent tree are bagged to exclude unwanted pollen.  The pollen of the desired male parent is then injected into the bag.  Cones of these two known parents are collected and seeds are extracted.  Needless to say, this is a labor intensive practice and prices reflect such.


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The seedlings are grown on elevated tables in open bottom and sided containers.  The openings cause "air pruning" of the roots and leaves a nice compact plug.  The seedlings are under a center pivot irrigation system.  Nutrients can be injected into the irrigation water.


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They are delivered to us palletized and shrink wrapped in boxes in refrigerated vans.  You can get in the neighborhood of 200,000 seedlings in a van.


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The planting crew swings by the cooler and picks up their day's need.  We utilize box trailers to keep everything cool.  Note the writing on the side door of the trailer "bano".  The Department of Labor requires a port-a-potty on site, among other ridiculous things.  How often do you think a man is going to walk back to the port-a-potty?  It gets used for storage.  This crew consists of 13 men plus a non-planting foreman that directs the job and insures quality control.


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Here is the crew getting started on Monday morning.  It was ideal planting conditions at 37 degrees F and overcast skies following a decent rain.  Ground conditions were very good.  They carry their seedlings in two pouches attached to a shoulder harness.  There are 300 seedlings per box and that is what they generally carry.  This crew will plant about 3000 trees per man per day.  In the days of past, the planters worked on production.  My top tier guys could plant 6000 trees per day working about 60 hours per week.  Crews averaged about 4500 trees per man.  The wage and hour laws have been restructured and the planters are now basically hourly workers working 40 hours per week.  They are paid a "Prevailing Wage" that is based on the combined average wage for the counties they are working. (it can change from county to county).  Doctors to fast food workers are included in the calculation.  When it all shook out, the new system hurt the high production planters by reducing their pay, but buoyed the slower workers.  It managed to cut our production significantly and double our costs.


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My tool of choice is a "hoedad".  In my opinion, it is the better tool for working in this compacted Piedmont clay.  To use it, the worker grabs the handle up near the head with one hand and raises it.  As it starts downward, the handle is allowed to slide through the hand.  Note the obtuse angle (haven't used that word since high school geometry) of the head. This allows the head to enter the ground vertically. Move the handle vertically and twist slightly to open the planting hole.  Stick the tree in the ground and use the blade to close the hole back up around the roots.  Pack it with the boot heel as you head to the next spot.  I'm planting 435 trees per acre this year after becoming a little bit gun shy from some survival problems a few years back.  That is a 10x10 foot spacing.  I've planted quite a bit at 400 trees per acre.  Model runs indicate that number can come on down some more.  350 trees per acre is probably sufficient.  


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This is one of the guys in the ground.  This site was a pine plantation previously.  It was chemically site prepared using imazypyr and glyphosate.  It was sprayed aerially with a helicopter.  Note the dead sweetgum in the background.  One good thing about a sweetgum is that it is easy to control.  We do not worry about hardwood competition.  It is easy to control.  Our concern in Virginia is natural pine regeneration.  That has to be controlled to fully utilize your genetics.  Note the "coarse woody debris".  There are nutrients tied up there that will be reallocated to the pines as it decomposes.  This site will receive a grass control treatment with hexazanone in the near future.  Grasses can be a significant competitor.  Going forward, we anticipate a commercial thinning around age 12.  It will receive fertilizer following the thinning (diammonium phosphate and Urea).  Final harvest is anticipated around age 23-25.


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What is the potential of these trees?  This seedling was planted on Southside's Farm back in March of 2022.  This picture was taken in December of 2022.  For reference, I am six feet tall.  This guy was in a pretty good micro-site with his feet in the edge of a compost pile so it is an outlier, but it does show the potential.  Southside's portable bug catchers (chickens and guineas) probably helped keep the tip moth in check.  Maybe we can set up a side business for tip moth control.


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Finally, we all know that a whitetail cannot survive in a cut-over pine plantation.  Somebody forgot to tell the deer that.  This trail needs traffic control on it.  That is the result of deer.  Thankfully, we have no hogs in this area.   ;D ;D

Wud

   

 

Never met Danny yet hard to see how he can't be smiling down on that post. Great pictures. How many acres of tables are in that one spot?


Geez Wudman be careful about suggesting another job for Southside's chickens, who knows what you'll get yourself into  :D

Great post to add to this Wudman. It shows how the industry has grown in 15 years.
I actually started my business with a couple of planting bags and a hoedad. There are still a couple of them in my shop. My back and I hope we don't have to go back to it.

Great post Wud. I haven't planted trees since 2002, wow 20 years. But I'm the guy that comes in with his clearing saw and thins around the planted trees now. :D

Keep your chin up. :)

A very nice add on to this post.

How do you make the lines and distances between the trees for planting? I remember it wasn't easy to do when i panted my teak.

I just read this entire Topic with a lump in my throat, and was honored to see his Reply #268 on page 14.  I found it very ironic that Danny's first and last post were showing pictures of the Pine Plantation.  Alpha and Omega at it's best.

Danny would be proud. smiley_thumbsup

That 3rd picture with the field of seedlings in impressive to say the least. :o
Never heard of a "hoedad" before, learned something new. I watched some friends plant seedlings up north here back in the late 80's. They used what they called a "spud" bar, looking online it's also called a "dibble". A long metal handle with a wedge on the end, and a step on the wedge to drive it further in the ground. 

We used dibble bars but mostly Pottiputkis up here for planting. Years ago we did some with shovel as they were 2 year bare root red pines.

Quote from: teakwood on March 17, 2023, 07:38:23 AM
How do you make the lines and distances between the trees for planting? I remember it wasn't easy to do when i panted my teak.

The planters do it on the fly with their pace and ocular estimation.  It is pretty remarkable how close they can get to the target density.  Actual counts seldom vary by more than 5-10 trees per acre and that is in spite of logging slash and blackberry.  Blackberry is one of their least favorite plants.  It can make planting miserable.  Also, the foreman follows behind with his gauge stick.  He has a 10 foot bamboo rod and is continually checking distances to be sure the guys are on target.  
Wud  

Quote from: newoodguy78 on March 16, 2023, 07:51:23 PM
Never met Danny yet hard to see how he can't be smiling down on that post. Great pictures. How many acres of tables are in that one spot?


Geez Wudman be careful about suggesting another job for Southside's chickens, who knows what you'll get yourself into  :D

I am not sure of the acreage under that pivot.  That is IFCO's Nursery at Moultrie, GA.  I was down there last year for a seminar.  The equipment they use for that nursery is fairly similar to what the tobacco and vegetable farmers use to start their crops.  Do a Google search on IFCO.  That is a pretty good read in itself.  They tour some of their facilities.
Wud

IFCO does have a very impressive operation down there. I have help them do lots of test plots on some of their properties in that area and also around Bainbridge, GA.
As to a Dibble bar that is used to plant seedlings. I have found that if I make my own out of leaf springs from small pickup trucks they penetrate the hard ground, like clay, a lot better than any other mass produced ones. I don't know why but they do.

Quote from: Wudman on March 17, 2023, 10:32:20 AMHe has a 10 foot bamboo rod and is continually checking distances to be sure the guys are on target.  

We had a 3.5m rod for every planter and they presented that rod lengthily and then side ways to each other and marked the hole. the first line i marked with sticks, then they went from there. not perfect lines but the trees don't bother if they not growing in a perfect row :D.
they did a 20cm x 20cm hole about 15-20cm deep and then loosened the dirt on the bottom of the hole another 10cm. the bigger the hole and looser the earth the faster they get a hold and push for growing. I had trees 1' high within 1 month 
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that was the best tree after one year
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ran planting crews for years with them using dibbles, like Jake I ended up making my own with a narrow blade for clay and debris sites.

I've been scrapping and cleaning up lately, the dibble bar went up, and I couldn't do it, though I'll never use it again. We were hoedad planters back in the day, usually bare root stock, i think at 6x9 spacing, the frame on one of my old trucks was welded back together with worn out hoedad blades  :D. At one point we planted a lot of "Hugo Hells", after the storm a good bit was too tangled to harvest, too loose to burn, it was climb and crawl trying to get some growing trees back in the ground. 

Quote from: Don P on March 18, 2023, 10:07:29 AM
I've been scrapping and cleaning up lately, the dibble bar went up, and I couldn't do it, though I'll never use it again. We were hoedad planters back in the day, usually bare root stock, i think at 6x9 spacing, the frame on one of my old trucks was welded back together with worn out hoedad blades  :D. At one point we planted a lot of "Hugo Hells", after the storm a good bit was too tangled to harvest, too loose to burn, it was climb and crawl trying to get some growing trees back in the ground.

I got my forestry start in the "Hugo Hell".  I came out of school in December of '89 and landed on the NC/SC border.  Even months after the storm, I-95 still had trees laying on the shoulder.  The tops had been cut to allow passage of traffic, but the bulk of the stem was still there.  I started salvage operations down around Manning, SC and worked north and west over the next year and a half.  I kept a crew within the city limits of Charlotte for about a year.  The last salvage work I did was in Lincoln County, NC.........blown over Virginia Pine with backberry 15 feet tall.  Truly a nice place to work.  ::) ::)
Wud

Sounds like the fun running a clearing saw in softwood, knee high and pole wood that died and fell down or rotten fir that got buried in the green strips during harvest. Trails were nice and clean though, except wild raspberries. And the rocks to strike the blade on. :D Those green strips were like pitching hay with a saw, nothing would fall because limbs of trees grew into other tree limbs, limbs to the ground. 4-8 foot tall stuff. Could only cut about 1/2 an acre a day, 8 hrs.

I went over to give Danny's family some help yesterday. The stand that started this thread was thinned this past January. I had to take a couple of pictures to update this thread.


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Thank You Jake for the update and pictures.   

Nice stand of trees. :)

I can't think of a better memorial to Danny.
Thanks for the photos Jake, and a tip of the hat to you for continuing to support his family. 

Pretty impressive when you realize those trees are all of 14 years old. 

All I can say is they are the ones that deserve the credit for continuing with Danny's work. It is truly my honor to be the one that gets to help them. If any of y'all were closer I would have to fight you off to get that honor.

Amen.

Nice to have a update.

A Memorial Forest.

Hi everyone, this is Amanda, WDH's daughter. This is a picture of the other plantation - the one that my daddy planted in January 2018. The trees are in their 6th growing season. We tried to find the same spot as his other pictures, but I'm not sure if this is it...looked close to us. My daughter, Maddy Claire, is featured in this photo.


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Thank you Amanda, thank you. That brought a tear to my eye. Jim

They are sure growing.  I saw them not long after they were planted when your daddy spent part of a day with my forestry team and me.  Your daddy was tremendous influence on me and a wealth of knowledge to this forum.  He is sorely missed, and I am thankful to have had the opportunity to know and learn from him.

Amanda, thanks for posting.
It's been said that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.
Following in Danny's footsteps is probably the biggest compliment that could be paid to the man that all of us on the Forum admired. 
I'm looking forward to everything and anything you may contribute in the future.

Well done Amanda! The trees sure are doing their thing too. Looks like I need to get some more doughnuts over there to Maddy, so she can keep up with those trees.

 thumbs-up Great stuff. Your dad, and now you, sure know how to grow pine.

Thank you for putting  that up!