PCT question

[GATreeGrower]

I am working on 10 or so acres of PCT in a loblolly pine patch with a Husky clearing saw.  I thinned this last year, but by the looks of it now, I only got it down from 1500+ stems an acre to around 1000.  I'd like to be around 600 and let it go until a first thinning

I haven't done much of this work before in a stand this thick, I was wondering if some guys on here had a certain method they use to establish some working room?  Free thinning in this patch is becoming a bit of a hassle.  Its so thick you have to wrestle each tree to the ground.  Trees are 8-9 yrs old but thin for that age due to overstocking.  Lots of fusiform rust also which I am trying to eliminate from the stand.

The only equipment I have to work with is the Husky.

[KBforester]

This sounds like a question for Swampdonkey. I struggle as you do.... but I just try my best to fell the trees in the direction I've already opened up. Not as easy as it sounds, as I'm sure you know.

[SwampDonkey]

Yes, and pine is a little tougher cutting because of the thick stiff limbs. Many times the saw is used as a pruner to get at the tree trunk. Tip up the saw 60 degrees and snip off the limbs as close as possible to the trunk so you can get at the trunk to cut it. The easiest way to progress through a thinning is to cut a face off, that opens up a 'hole' in the canopy. Trees spaced appropriately of course. Cut this face about 30-40 yards wide, and call that width a work strip for discussion purposes. Work back and forth along this edge by cutting up to 3 yards deep with each pass. Direct the taller trees between the spaced ones with your left hand/arm. Have your water and gas jug along the side line, that is usually a straight path, being created as you cut deeper into the block. Keep a 5-6 foot corridor down this side line as a safety trail. It's a lot easier walking out with a nice trail and not much effort to it.  Cut the stumps lower in the trail corridor. Always use the hills to your advantage and fall down hill. If there is wind, sometimes you have to change direction of your face so the wind throws the trees into the cut out areas and not into the trees you have to get at. Keep cutting the work strip to the depth of the thinning block. You will often have to direct the falling between the standing (spaced) trees to make a neat job with no hang ups. Usually the taller ones, the smaller hardwoods and such will fall once you get used to using the saw to direct them by back cutting or fore cutting the stump, turning the saw blade a little on angle sometimes and double cutting by severing the stem 4 feet up and then cutting at the stump when the trees a bit tall and softer (less dense wood) trees to reduce the tree height for falling. Sharp blades, don't use the saw like a sythe or axe, the saw should cut not chop. :D For clumpy hardwood, I thin around them then come in and drop the stems between the standing trees otherwise it's all hung up. Get yourself a survey rope to check density with a circular plot (1/100 acre, about 12 feet rope), once you get your eye in tune, throw the rope in the back of the truck. ;D Have fun. I cut 75 acres last summer and fall. ;D

[GATreeGrower]

And there it is, a method to the madness  :D  8)

[SwampDonkey]

If ya didn't live 3000 miles away, I'd show ya how it's done.  8) ;D :D

[GATreeGrower]

I will try what I think you are saying and post some pics.  I appreciate it sir

[curdog]

We did a stand of lob a few years ago that was about like you described and cut ten foot strips just like a thinning and then worked the trees in between to fall back in the thinned row. We started on the down hill side and felled everything down the hill. We were after a 10x 10 spacing or roughly 435 trees an acre. It seemed we ended up with closer to 500 tpa.
I did another by running a kg blade dozer with a drum chopper behind it to punch in rows and then thinned the residuals. Those pct stands make me nervous for a few years with all that fuel laying on the ground, but without it they would never make anything timber wise.

[GATreeGrower]

You are right, if a fire gets in it, it will never go out

[SwampDonkey]

Leave the cigarettes in the truck to. ;) There was a small fire this year on one of the blocks. A fellow didn't put his cigarette out, but it only burned a little patch and was put out. But other than that I've never heard of a forest fire from thinning. And there are 1000's of acres thinned every year up here. But we don't have 110 degree heat neither.  ;) ;D Don't try a controlled burn in there or goodbye pines.

[VT_Forestry]

As I've previously posted, we have a mulcher that puts rows in for us before we head in with the brush saws.  This year, we are trying out a few different types of mulchers since we will be replacing ours soon.  We used this to put some rows in -


That left us with this -


Then we head in with our brush saws to eventually end up with something like these - 1st photo is 3 years after PCT, 2nd photo is an area that was PCT'd last year





Prior to our mulcher, we would run bush hogs through to make the lanes...certainly not the cleanest finished product, but it did what it was supposed to do, which was open up a lane.  I've free thinned before, and you're right - talk about a time-consuming process that irritates you to no end.  Pine never wants to lay flat and there are days I swear the needles are made of velcro.  We have found that if they are growing extra thick and are pretty spindly, they have to be left a little more dense than you might want...otherwise you'll end up with a percentage of them in a very unmerchantable U-shape.  Good luck and keep knocking away at it...you'll get there!   

[SwampDonkey]

VT's mulcher did a better job than any I've seen used up here for trails. All they did up here was leave a trail of spears, that was too dangerous to ever use as a walking trail. In fact I refuse to go anywhere near them spear trails. Could fall and spear a lung or something.  ;)

[enigmaT120]

You are right, if a fire gets in it, it will never go out

I worry some about that, but the dead suppressed trees are even worse standing, as the fire can climb up into the canopy of the dominant trees.  I also limb my leave trees to try and remove some of the fuel ladder.  Well, mostly because I think it looks better and it's easier to walk through....

75 acres last year, now I feel tired!  I've been working on the same 6 acre dog-fur patch of Doug Fir for about 5 years, I should finish it this year.  Those trees almost never fall without me dragging the butt away from the stump and the top from out of the other trees.

[SwampDonkey]

Yeah 75 acres was actually a low year, I marked out a lot of land besides (100's of acres). We go through 100 acres in less than 3 weeks with 12 guys. Plus there are several other crews the boss runs. One year I thinned 110 acres, back in 2010 I think. I've also thinned 50 acres of my own land, over 3 different years, because of the timing. If it was already at the same time I woulda done it all at once. I have a strip up through the middle of the lot that is wet cedar on one end and areas of white birch mixed with aspen that should be thinned, but I might just wait on the birch and just do a crop tree around the nice ones and leave the aspen alone unless too close to a birch. The cedar ground is fully stocked and I also interplanted some spruce in it years ago.

[GATreeGrower]

Enigma, I feel your pain.  This is loblolly that was planted but wasnt site prepped... its so thick in volunteer pine you can't see the rows.  The volunteer in the middles is the same size as the planted or bigger so its impossible to tell.

[GATreeGrower]

And you sweat more trying to get the tree on the ground than you do all day running the saw   :D

[SwampDonkey]

Then you ask yourself the same thing I do, when I enter a government tree plantation to cut down all the natural red spruce by the thousands where they planted a black spruce nursery tree. I'd rather have the red spruce. :D

[Ramicorn]

I have had to take down sugar maple to leave fir here in NS, its pretty backward.

[SwampDonkey]

When we thinned for AV in the past, their instructions were to cut all fir in site and leave the sugar maple and yellow birch.

[caveman]

GaTreeGrower,
Do you know why the trees were planted at 1500 tpa?  Aren't most SYP planted at 712 or 640 tpa?  I see them planted really close together sometimes and wonder why.  Good luck with your thinning.  I did recently talk to someone who was planting them close with the intention of producing fence posts.  The remaining trees should respond to not having to compete so much for nutrients and light after you finish.
Caveman

[Ryan D]

I have had to take down sugar maple to leave fir here in NS, its pretty backward.

That's why I try to work exclusively on private land when I can. The sawmills I work for are pretty good about leaving multiple species too. Fir is the enemy on our PCT sites, I'd rather see a red maple left.

[Ryan D]

Then you ask yourself the same thing I do, when I enter a government tree plantation to cut down all the natural red spruce by the thousands where they planted a black spruce nursery tree. I'd rather have the red spruce. :D

We did a block on crown land a few years ago that had parts planted in Norway Spruce. The contract said to favor them but we had a good tech from DNR looking after the job that let us cut them and favor the red spruce and other native species.

[SwampDonkey]

When I get into a cedar patch, there is usually fir in it to, I save/space the cedar. Fir will just go yellow and die by the time it's 6 inches diameter. White cedar grows pretty big up here, but a very long time to get there. But It's good for the deer and lasts centuries. I have a few cedar patches on my land. Cedar I will space and cut all other softwood unless I think a spruce will amount to anything. The fir won't in those wet patches. if it weren't for cedar those patches would be cattails and willows and balm to I guess.