When to thin pine 'plantation' in Maine

[mjeselskis]

I have about 700 Eastern White Pine trees that I planted on a 7' x 7' grid on a couple acres back in 2013. I'm wondering when the right time is to thin them, and how much to thin when it's time. The trees are about 12-18' tall at this point and super thick.

[WhitePineJunky]

Some pictures would help but I'd say PCT now or within 2 years 

[TroyC]

What is your management goal?

[mjeselskis]

My goal is to manage for sawlogs eventually. I've been spraying every spring for the last few years for the pine weavil that kills the leader, but I didn't spray this spring since I thought they were tall enough to not be bothered. I was wrong and now I have some dead leaders. I need to go through and prune the ones with multiple leaders but I don't want to bother pruning the ones that will be thinned. 

What would a PCT look like? What's the desired end product as far as spacing? I'll just be using a chainsaw and leaving the tree/brush so I don't necessarily need to take a row at a time to get in there with equipment. 

[beenthere]

You could go through and prune off the lower branches to a comfortable height to walk around among the pine, but leave at least a third of the crown. 
Then can manage the form of the stem to keep the potential saw log straight as possible. 

A hand saw should be fast enough that a chainsaw is not needed, nor the best cut for a good branch pruning. 

As the trees mature, you will see which ones have better sawlog potential. 

[mjeselskis]

Thanks, should I be taking out whole trees at this point?

[beenthere]

Maybe if you see some that are not doing well, or have some crooked stems as they likely will not get any better. Judgement call on your part. 

As said, some pics of what you are seeing would help. 

Are you planning to prune up the lower branches? 

[mjeselskis]

I can prune up the lower branches, I'm honestly not sure what needs to be done. I assumed that some trees would need to be taken down since I don't think I'll get to mature pines on a 7x7 grid. I just don't want to take out to many to eliminate the natural thinning that occurs in a thick stand. I'm sure there's a balance, but I'm not sure what it is. 

I posted a couple pics (I think) but it's hard to show much detail since it's so thick.

[SwampDonkey]

I'd stick with pruning for now, and knock down the junk ones. When we space up here in NB in wild stands of softwood we space them the same as you planted them when they are the age and height you've got. I wouldn't thin them out more until they are about 40 feet tall. White pine is more tolerant of shade than red pine. Pruning will help reduce rust and get air flow under there to keep needles dry so the spores can't germinate. Rust is bad up here. I wouldn't be surprises if there are quite a few hit by blister rust, which is more deadly than weevils to w. pines. Rust does not spread from pine to pine, needs currant bushes. Sap will ooze from bark, which will be sunk and dark. Keep the sky filled with crown so the currant can't live under the pines. Thick can mean two things to different people, 1)stem count or 2)bushy crowns. The edge pines are always a lot more bushy. I wouldn't spend a lot of effort on those. Looks nice, but doesn't pay off. We don't get very good money up here for w. pine, I've never seen more than $480/th for the best pine you could cut. When I looked at hard maple in Home Depot, all dried and planed, an 8'er x 10" was $120.  I can buy that board locally, dried, unplained for $20 Doesn't cost me $100 to plane a board. :D

[mjeselskis]

I started thinning today. I'm pruning them up 4-6' depending on the height of the tree and the sunlight. I'm trying to avoid increasing the sunlight hitting the ground. Some of them do appear to have what looks like rust but hopefully getting some airflow will help. After I'm done pruning the lower branches, I'll go back and remove the double leaders from the weavil. 

And to think, I planted pine to have a low maintenance crop in these couple acres. 

[Plankton]

I would continue prunning and thinning all the ones with a double top. Also might be a little radical but I would also thin anything that doesnt have good form for a future sawlog now regardless of spacing.

My dad planted some here 30 years ago and never got around to thinning them when they were small like that. When I went through and thinned them around 10 years ago all the ones that were not worth growing were to small for saw logs and the stand of good leave trees was too tight to skid them out for pulp. It made for a whole lot of extra work with a chainsaw cutting those larger trees for nothing.
 
So I would cut them down now when it takes 5 minutes to chop them up instead of 30. All the good trees will grow faster and the first commercial thin should be small well formed sawlogs. 

[SwampDonkey]

And all that pruning will be wasted on open grown pine that will sucker limbs and might be more vulnerable to rust as currant will thrive in areas of light. Thinning is done more than once. It will need thinning at pole stage.

I thinned my woods 15 years ago, I'm on the second thinning now and getting 24 cords to the acre for firewood. Mine is mixed woods. The volume is in the fir and aspen. You can hardly see where I cut because of all the new growth, which I want for moose and deer. Before, I started the undergrowth was near zero. I don't sell wood, they don't pay enough. Where I haven't cut yet, it's dark as a closet underneath. I'm leaving around 800 trees per acre, original spacing/thinning was 1000. Ring growth is finger width on aspen and 2 rings to the finger on balsam.

[Greenie]

I'm in Bangor. In 1999 we bought land that had a few ares of white pines planted in rows in the early to mid 1970's.  We first pruned the branches up as far as we could reach and took out the dead pines and fir stragglers. Many of the pines had the weevil so they're mostly all misshapen with crooked trunks. After the pines get to a certain size weevils don't seem as interested. I've cut enough pristine pine, big and tall to realize that most of what we have here will never amount to marketable saw logs.
I have noticed our smaller blue spruce ornamentals don't seem to attract weevils like in the past - with those at least I can treat the trees but lately there's no need. Shopping at nurseries most of the smaller spruce and pine trees have had the top leader killed off which doesn't seem to affect the price at all. 

[SwampDonkey]

Spruce will recover better than pine and make a straight log, pine will always have a crook. Sometimes you can get a fork in spruce  though, when two laterals try to become dominant. Spruce have a lot of advantageous buds between the whorls, pine none.

[Ianab]

Locally, lift pruning is the initial management. Rust / fungus can be an issue, but dropping those lower limbs sees to reduce that, more airflow and drier conditions etc. 

As the trees got to where you can't lift prune them sensibly. then you start taking out the less desirable trees. Some are obviously rejects, multi leaders or just weird. Knock those out. Not an exact spacing grid, but you pick the obvious rejects first  then other crowded tress, 

But that mostly depends on local markets. Good pruned saw logs here are worth 3 or 4 X random pine logs Because the end product is much higher grade. This is different if you can't a premium for the saw logs. 

[SwampDonkey]

The price in Maine for pine is better than here in NB. Probably up to $400 difference for the best pine you could sell, factoring in currency exchange from the US dollar to Canadian. Not a whole lot of white pine in my region. More pine east and south of here. Very scattered here. I think on 400 acres here at the farm we had 3 mature pine. On an old pasture below the house we had a handful of 'cabbage' shaped younger pine, no good for much.

[mjeselskis]

The price in Maine for pine is better than here in NB. Probably up to $400 difference for the best pine you could sell, factoring in currency exchange from the US dollar to Canadian. Not a whole lot of white pine in my region. More pine east and south of here. Very scattered here. I think on 400 acres here at the farm we had 3 mature pine. On an old pasture below the house we had a handful of 'cabbage' shaped younger pine, no good for much.

Pine logs do pay decent around here right now, but there is not much of a pulp market.  Who knows what it will be like by the time these trees get some size to them. Things seem to change fast. 

Once I get them pruned up a ways, I'll go back through and prune out all the double leaders. It's much easier now that I can walk around in there. The trees I've done in the past seem to do pretty well straightening out in that area as they grow. 

SwampDonkey - I looked up currant and I don't think we have it here. I do have blackberries around but I'm not sure whether they fill the same role in the spread of the rust. From what I read, without the currants, the rust can't spread? Or complete it's 'lifecycle?

[SwampDonkey]

Yes, it needs currant for the rust. That includes garden kinds and gooseberries. If you find any rust on the pine, there are currant someplace. You might be the lucky few. Up here it's everywhere and it's not necessarily growing thick like raspberry. Can be a plant here and there. We have 3 wild varieties. Plus I have black currant in the garden. I see a wild ones here and there in the back yard under my yellow birch and cherry.

[beenthere]

Rust needs the Ribes as host, and can be gooseberry or currant. 

https://ag.umass.edu/landscape/fact-sheets/white-pine-blister-rust-ribes-species

[Tarm]

I have about 700 Eastern White Pine trees that I planted on a 7' x 7' grid on a couple acres back in 2013. I'm wondering when the right time is to thin them, and how much to thin when it's time. The trees are about 12-18' tall at this point and super thick.

You should think about low density management. With pulp almost worthless the goal is to grow sawlogs as quick as possible and prune them for high value.
When the trees reach 25 feet tall cut three quarters of them down. Keep the best formed stems. Prune about half of those left to 12 feet. As the trees grow keep pruning higher until you reach 17-18 feet. You will be rewarded with amazing diameter growth.