The Forestry Forum

Ok, here's a couple of pictures of trees I planted in mod- heavy slash piles 3 summers ago (2002). I had this area that wasn't growing anything accept some scattered cedar, fir and balm. It was alot of work getting into the groove and finding a spot for each tree. It's something you could only do on your own land unless someone is paying you by the hour. I was quite pleased with the results and the slash helps deter the weeds. Nothing is impossible I guess, just need determination. ;D

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_Seedling-slash.jpg)
Moderate


(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_Seedling-slash2.jpg)
Heavy


Did some plantation cleaning this spring (May) with a spacing saw. I cleaned about 10 acres of the plantation and 2.5 acres of natural mixed growth along the edge of the plantation. I have more ground coming online for thinning each year. It's not that bad going and I prefer the coolness of the spring air. When it gets hot out, I'm not as keen to lug around a spacing saw. Try it for a week yourself and find out why.  ;)


(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_Cleaning-Plantn.jpg)

Notice I also have a nice nurse crop of aspen that will be harvested before the spruce. There are also hardwood in the plantation that are on a longer rotation than the spruce. In some other areas I have alot of balsam fir that will be thinned out when the aspen is taken. This section was scarified in '95 and planted in '96. My plantations were planted at various stages after that.


(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_Plantationfir.jpg)

This is an area of the plantation taken over by fir. I will be favoring the fir because of size and it's faster growth rate. I'll have to soon thin this before it gets too tall, it's handy to 10 feet tall now. Hoping for my first commercial harvest in 30 years. ;)

Anyone is welcome to post the work they have done with their own hands to improve their land. Even road building is an improvement. Good roads are essential for ongoing tending, nurturing and admiring of your ground. ;)

that is neat.  Could you tell me what a spacing saw is??

     We have a small tobacco farm in virginia.  We have 9 years and then we are going to move down there.  Just going to slow life down a bit.  This summer one of the neighbors helped us doze a road up to the barn.  We went down and planted about 3 5gal. buckets of red oak,burroak, walnut and osage nuts and seeds.  I won't have any pictures of what comes up till spring but it should be interesting.
    We just purchased a 4 wheeler and a bush hog this week for Christmas so we can mow it down and keep the weekds under control.

   This summer we met with a state forester and walked the whole place looking at trees and openings and what we should keep and what should go.  We spent most all day up there and had a ball.  Most of the place is at about a 50 deg slope in the up direction.  I was flat worn out at the end of the day. 

The forester showed us what to mow back and what to let go hence the 4 wheeler.  he even sent us some paperwork on getting in a planting program for some pines also a reason for the 4 wheeler as we need it to keep the weeds back from the pines if we get in.  I think that I'll just move some of the small white pines around instead of thinning them out.  If we get in the program we're going to plant long leaf since we already have pleanty of whites.    He thought that planting the burr oak would be a neat idea since they don't have any to speak of should freak out the loggers in 40 or 50 years to find a stand of them. :D  :D

Well those are the plans for the coming year.  I'll look and see if I can find some good pictures of the place.

good luck with your plantings

Tom

'My little piece' is actually my mom's right now, but some day its gonna be mine   :)

Is a little under 6 acres though so I'll have to obtain another 'little piece' somwheres else to play with too.  Basically this lot used to be a field, there is a hedgerow through the middle of it consisting of ash, hard and soft maple and apple trees.  Most of the old field grew in with ash and sugar maple, with a lot of maple and cherry growing under the ash.  I've transplanted some of the maple to a non-wooded part, that will become the edge of what I hope will some day be a small sugarbush.  Im not sure if I should clear the ash out now or wait til it gets bigger, because right now it is pretty small, you wouldnt even have to split it to use it as firewood.  Regeneration under this part is almost too thick to walk through, so until I decide what to do I'll just keep transplanting maples out into the open.  Since it is such a small area,  I plan on doing a full inventory as soon as time allows.  If worse comes to worse I can at least have a few bonfires  8)

Quote from: Part_Timer on December 14, 2005, 06:14:38 PM
Could you tell me what a spacing saw is??

Spacing saw Stihl FS550

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_SpacingSaw.jpg)


(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_SpacingSaw2.jpg)

Its engine displacement is 52cc and comes in at 22 lbs. It requires a full-torso harness to support it and hearing protection to run it, having a 103-dBA rating at full throttle.

"Clearing" saw is what Stihl calls it, but the 'spacing' tag might be the end result of 'spacing' trees. Never know what these foresters are going to dream up next.  :) :)

Quote from: beenthere on December 14, 2005, 07:39:43 PM
"Clearing" saw is what Stihl calls it, but the 'spacing' tag might be the end result of 'spacing' trees. Never know what these foresters are going to dream up next.  :) :)

Who'd a thunk it, but a dumb canuck. No intense offended. :D :D :D

Hey SD - does it count if they are my workers?  :)

I did help plant the first 4,000 trees so that should count, shouldn't it?

Quote from: crtreedude on December 14, 2005, 08:03:56 PM
Hey SD - does it count if they are my workers?  :)

I did help plant the first 4,000 trees so that should count, shouldn't it?

Hmmmm, I guess that would be acceptable. :D ;)

My first one came from sears in 1984.  I was given a second one, circa unknown, that is a stihl and has a chainsaw power head on it.  Both were called bushwhackers.   I've heard them called power machetes too.  Never heard them called spacing saws. :-\

We have about 3 of those - or something like it. We just added a brushhog for behind an ATV (5 foot) also.

Nothing like mowing one square kilometer of land...

We call'm spacing saws because that's what we use'm for. ;D If it was a clearing saw than in my mind your not leaving anything standing. We don't do thinning from below, it's all thinning from above. Now that statement might invite some more questions. :D ;)

http://ysc.nb.ca/ysccourses.html ;)

I used one of those saws before to thin a stand of red & scotch pine, a few of them up to about 4" diameter, lets just say there was a 'little' smoke :o

If there is smoke, it needs to be sharpened, I suspect.  :)

(which reminds me, I have one in the garage waiting to be sharpened, so thanks for the 'reminder')

Jon, I've cut softwood up to 6 inches on the stump and hardwood up to 5 inches. It doesn't have the Torque of a Huskie professional spacing saw (forget model #). It does have a higher RPM though. I like it 'cause it's lighter. I couldn't lug a Huskie around all day.

Jon, maybe ya didn't set the teeth and sharpen it properly. Shouldn't be too hard to cut pine 4".

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_SawBlade1.jpg)

Use a blade guage to set the teeth, the good ones are like $30 bucks. The ones on the file guage are pretty useless. When working in hardwood you have to check your set more often.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_SawBlade.jpg)

You can see the blade has been well used. ;D :D Usually you don't sharpen the teeth below that horizontal line on the tooth.

I think this one was a Stihl, owned by the college, and of course we always 'went real easy' on their equipment  :-X


We put a small blade on a weedwhacker to thin smaller diameter ash <2"in the stand I mentioned before

Thanks for the picture swamp I understand now. 

We call em brush cutters.  this year we bought the Stihl that you can put different attachments on.  We got ours with the hedge trimmer.  I spent about 4 hours cutting rasberries off of the road.  they were so bad that it would scratch the paint off of the truck.  We also cut some trails to the backside of the place with it.  It works well on the poison ivy and green brier also.




Tom

Man, you gotrto admire what all that power equipment can do but I have come to look for the bush axe, sling blade, hand saw, etc. before I crank up any of my saws, blades, cutters, mowers.  Must be gettin' old and shore ain't in as big a hurry.

As for my little 15.5 acres, I just (last Spring) cut some nice trees and helped saw them and now drying the lumber for my next project.  Had to get to my little pond dam to rework the spillway to discourage the beavers and muskrats from hanging around.  I have planted and replanted some cypress around the ponds and have found that a barrier of some sort must be placed around the cypress or the beaver will go straight to it and cut it down.  Started with some hardware cloth and ended up with some sections of drain pipe around the base of the trees and that seems to do the job...so far.

I'm still cleaning the tops, splitting and stacking firewood, and doing some erosion prevention, game food plots.  All part of the intial project.  It's great to have a little plot to work and see the fruits of your labors.  Good therapy too.

Soon we will be removing all the 'junk' from our property such as all the ash.  I don't know whats going to happen after that, may be clearing a building lot, so I'm not really sure.  Until then I'm stuck dealin with the swampy areas I'm gonna try to dry up a little, and around the lawn of the existing house that I think needs a couple hedgerows, especially if another house might be goin in.

Why do you consider ash junk? ::)

oops  mis-type.... are not removing all the ash, just all the 'bad' ones - some are split, multiple stems, too close to one another, crooked stems.

There is nothing real special about this tree. But it's a Norway spruce as near as I can tell. And it looks like it was planted. But I think it got mixed in with the black spruce seed because the planting crew planted black spruce here. I have planted some red spruce as well as some white here, but none go back as fair as 1996 in this section.

I was struck by this particular tree because of it's form, branching, foliage color (yellow-brown stem and yellow-green needles), and it's spectacular leader growth over the last two years. It has been growing 33 inches, 2 years running and the 3rd year hence it grew 24 inches. Most of the spruce on the nicer microsites of the plantation have grown 14-18 inches. This is my little 'plus tree', to bad I won't be around when it's 3 feet on the stump. :D This is definately one of them trees that deserves the 'pill bottle treatment'. So what's that? Well there is a gentleman woodlot owner that keeps a little pill bottle attached to a branch of a few of his special trees, where he rights down the change in diameter growth from time to time and when it might have been thinned around or planted. ;)

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_RedSpruce-sapling1.jpg)

11.3 foot tall Norway spruce.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_RedSpruce-sapling2.jpg)

33 inch leader

:)

I had to edit this post because my initial measurements were estimates   :o way off, the actual measurements are even longer :o

Yesterday I started thinning,  I only had a tank of gas though because my 1 gal can was empty and 2 ga can was m.i.a.  ::)

  Dropped a bunch of small ash, pruned a cherry and a couple apple.  I left the ash whole so I could drag them to the burn pile easier, when I walked through there today - the deer had devoured every single bud.  the strange thing is, the deer seemed to know dropped trees = food.  After walking further,  I  came across an elm that had died while it was standing and had just fallen, there were deer tracks surrounding that as well which further confirmed my suspicions.    Now my only concern is that the deer won't stop with the ash and start chewing off the tops of the young maples I am trying to promote. - Maybe I can build a fence out of the trees I cut to keep them out  :)

If you make afence out of the fresh trees you cut, the deer will just eat them on the way to the maples.  ;D :o :o

I would have considered leaving the ash until the maples had some more height. Safety in numbers. At least your deer aren't as hard on tree bark as moose. They'll ruin a piece of ground over winter.  >:( We run into the problem of thinning hardwood stands with taller poplar. The crews seem to want to cut out the hardwood. Often times the hardwood are only 3 meters, and should be 4, I prefer 5. So you get some contractor trying to make the stand fit criteria by leaving poplar.  ::) I've seen some nice maple develop in poplar stands without having to thin it. Having said that I thinned about an acre of a similar stand but I favored the maple, ironwood, spruce and fir even though the hardwood was a bit short. If I left it for another 3 or 4 years the poplar would be too big to get down. So, anyway I walked in there this winter and the hardwood are doing nicely. Those poplar are just good nurse trees. If you have large-toothed the growth is faster them trembling, almost double. :)

The supressed maple I'm trying to release, are the same age as ones I transplanted to the lawn, trees on lawn are 8-10'  ones under ash are  3'  max. It is really amazing how well the ones on the lawn grew after I 'released' them by transplanting - I never thought they would  grow so well after that trauma to their root system  :)

Yes, I've done the same with sugar maple and they really do grow fast once established on the new site. Three foot annual height growth isn't uncommon. I'll take some pics tommorrow with the tape measure. Mine are in partial shade of spruce. Now on the other hand I have some black ash I transplanted that have hardly grown in 20 years. I think they are slower than ironwood. :D

3' a year growth will put a lot of the terminals out of deer browse height.  :)

The ones I transplanted are to form a hedgrow between the lawn and goldenrod patch,and are shaded in the morning by a  40' elm. My biggest problem was keeping the morning glory off of them  >:(

I need to rethink where I'm going to transplant more though, if any.  I was going to plant in the whole goldenrod, but I can't because I don't want the horseradish growin there to die off. :(


BTW << look what I made  ;D

Yeah I see what you made.  ;)

I have some white ash out in an old flower bed that get's morning glory. Can thank great grand mother for that stuff. I have to pull it or unwind it off the trees a couple times a year. :D

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_Aspengrwth.jpg)

Difference in aspen growth on same ground. The taller stems are large toothed and the short are trembling.


(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_SugarMaple-Grwth2.jpg)

54 inch internodal growth of transplanted  sugar maple. Growing in partial shade from white spruce.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_SugarMaple-Grwth1.jpg)

Closer look

There was only 1 trembling here, it blew over.  I cut it up and it had all kinds of sprouts on it.  Before I thought about making it clones, all the sprouts died.  I did go by there yesterday and noticed a sprout or 2 comin up by the root ball.  I think I'll wait til tey get a little bigger, then start clonin  :) The thing I like about those is that they do grow so DanG fast.

here are a couple 'before' pictures.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/13030/before1.JPG)

The blue lines are 4wheeler trails that will continue to be maintained.  The red line is where I'm putting in a hedgerow.  The space between is goldenrod, but we get horseradish out of there in the spring  :)  Where the brushpile is used to be a garden, that is where I am going to plant my aspen clones if succesful.  That little evergreen on the right I might have some questions about
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/13030/stand1.JPG)

I didn't think anything could kill horse radish. Can't even smother it with earth. Father cleared off an old homestead for field. The horse radish came back up and he plowed and sprayed herbicide on that field for 40 years and never did kill it. ;D :D :D

Cloning aspen isn't so easy unless you use rooting hormone. Balm on the another hand doesn't require rooting hormone, grows like raspberry canes.

I've never seen horseradish growin under anything, so I'd rather just leave it alone.


I'd have to travel north to find any balsam.  Maybe I will just search the woods  :)

I want to plant some specimens too.   How many species do you have growin there?

of the top of my head all we have is:
sugar maple
red maple
apple
butternut
ash
black cherry
red pine
lilac
salix spp. that got brought in with some fill
and the newly found 'mystery' tree       

Ok, I think you mean on your woodlot. Because you have more than that state wide. Ok, here is my list on the woodlot, there are some others on my house property as well.

Softwoods
black spruce (seedlings)
white spruce
red spruce (seedlings)
balsam fir (moose food, but not preferred) ;)
white pine (seedlings)
red pine (seedlings)
hemlock (seedlings)
northern white cedar
tamarack (seedlings)
canada yew

hardwoods
trembling aspen (moose, grouse food)
large toothed aspen (moose food)
balsam poplar (moose food)
white birch (moose, grouse food)
yellow birch (moose, grouse food)
gray birch (moose, grouse food)
american elm
basswood (stump sprout selective)
butternut (seedlings)
black walnut (seedlings)
white ash
black ash
ironwood
sugar maple
red maple (moose food)
striped maple (moose food)
mountain maple (moose food)
willow (various species) baby moose food ;D
black cherry
pin cherry
choke cherry
apple
northern red oak (seedlings, saplings)
scarlet oak (seedlings)
beech (seedlings)
beaked hazel
dogwood (various species)
fly honeysuckle
bush honeysuckle
red berried elder (grouse food)
high bush cranberry (grouse food)
speckled alder (grouse food)

Everything is snow shoe hare food :D :D

At the house I have some others not mentioned

blue spruce
japanese larch
european larch
jack pine
box elder
lilac
wigellia (spelling)
sour cherry
service berry
mountain ash

That's all I can think of.  ::)

I want to add more softwoods for sure.  Red pines and that little shrubby lookin thing in the pic are all we got here now.  I will probably collect seed for them and try it like that.  I want to add

norway spruce
black spruce
red spruce
white pine
cedar
hemlock

white oak
red oak
yellow birch  - we had 1 in the yard but its coming down sooon


This is just for starters, I want to grow at least 1 of every possible species I can  :)

Got some wet spots?  Black spruce and cedar prefer their feet a bit damp.  Got deer?  The absolutely love little white pine.  I made a chicken wire fence around each of my white pines that I've transplanted to improve their chance of survival.  The wire is 4 feet high to keep them from reaching over and nipping off the terminal bud.

Quote from: Minnesota_boy on February 16, 2006, 09:15:49 PM
Got some wet spots?  Black spruce and cedar prefer their feet a bit damp.  Got deer?  The absolutely love little white pine.  I made a chicken wire fence around each of my white pines that I've transplanted to improve their chance of survival.  The wire is 4 feet high to keep them from reaching over and nipping off the terminal bud.

I don't know if 'prefer' is the optimum term. They will definately do better on well drained soil. I have some black spruce planted in 1996, those near wet ground are 1 to 3 feet tall, those in well drained sandy clay loam are 6 to 12 feet tall. ;) I have tamarack in wet ground that seem to grow about as well as on dryer ground. Cedar grows faster on moist well draind ground than in swampy mushy ground. As far as white pine, if the hare doen't prune them to death the moose take thier antlers and rub off the bark and limbs.  ::)

Ok, so I had to add this picture of the 'Pill Bottle Treatment' ;D

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_PillBottle.jpg)

Inside the pill bottle is a pencil and a datasheet used to record the growth of the tree and any treatments to the stand during the development of the tree. I will be installing pill bottles on a number of trees this year as it's been 10 years since the first plantation was established. I have some hardwood and other softwoods eyed for special attention.  ;)

Ok, I usually walk over my plantations with eyes wide open and am always aware of what is happening even if it seems trivial. What I have noticed for quite some time is, there is a significant difference in the growth increment between different seedling sources. What really rings true here is that I'm finding a significant difference in growth based on needle size. Now all my trees in this non scientific survey are spaced equally and are not over topped by other trees or weeds. The ground is the same soil type. The year they were planted has a 2 year gap between one source and another. I compared needles from two sample clippings with 20 other trees selected as random as neccessary. One sample clipping was taken from one of my best seedlings from DNR, planted in 1996. The other clipping was from a tree of one of the best seedlings from a private forest nursery. The two clippings where within 100 meters of one another and the aspect of both sites in south. Here is a picture of the clippings below.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_needlesize.jpg)

The top clipping is from a DNR tree, the bottom is from the private nursery. So what is the significance of this? I've noticed that trees with larger needles put on growth 20 - 50 % faster than trees with needles 10-30 % smaller. The size in this study can vary by width or length. As I said, this is unscientific, but when you walk these plantations it's as plain as light vs dark. The species I'm comparing is black spruce, probably the most studied/nurtured tree species in Canada. I'm now about on the web to search for any published papers on the subject. I can't believe that such a study has been overlooked. Anyone with some info on this?

cheers

Swamp.

Is it possible that one seedling was seed grown and another was grown from a cutting?  Even though both seedlings are the same age the cloned is genetically already 5 or 10 years old and will switch from juvenile growth to an adult growth mode much faster. Cuttings are often used for pine trees here in NZ for that reason, they grow faster and better form as they dont spend their first few years in a juvenile growth mode.

Just an idea, otherwise, well maybe one just came from genetically superior seed stock?

Cheers

Ian

No they were from seed, but the seed was from two different seed orchards. I have long said that the seedlings this private nursery has been selling are culls. We can't get seedlings from DNR any longer, they all get planted on Crown Land.

The difference between certified teak seed and the other stuff is amazing. Your source of plants can make a profound difference in a few years. Not all seedlings are created equal.

Also, how they are planted creates a huge difference as well. I am sure you know all this - but just thought I would coment on it anyway.  ;D

Same planting crew, same techniques. Just what I've come to realize, cull trees. ;D All I know is that if I compare the best microsites of one area to the other, the DNR trees are twice as tall and only 2 years difference.  ::) And where you plant the little tree (microsite) makes a very significant difference in growth. Sometimes you'll get someone not thinking and he sticks a tree in a dip in the ground where water lays and the trees there won't grow 4 inches a year even. They'll look like a 3 year old seedling and they have been there 10.  ::) But, I was comparing trees that were on good microsites. Anyway it sure is interesting. Also, if you have raspberry, it slows them up quite a bit too. They'll grow up through it, but they will be spindly and week for a bit once they get above it. Probably a 3 year delay in response to release from what I'm able to judge.

Yes, there is a lot of varation between sites - we have a few trees looking weird right now - perhaps 20 or so - and I suspect it is because we just found a large pit of black volcanic sand! Not sure yet.

This is sure interesting.

Some microsites even look wet because of the vegetation and periodic high water table, but as long as it's not saturated during the growing season and the water is draining well so it's not stagnet, the trees will grow just as well as on a well drained knoll. I've experimeted with those kinds of sites, you just have to be careful planting the tree and also be aware that it is more susceptible to windthrow when it gets big. I've been on some spruce sites in the wild and your just walking on roots all day. Some hard on the feet, but the spruce seem to be doing real well there as long as it's not stagnet ground water.

Just had to say something crtreedude.Now you have a scraf and earmuffs on?The snow is getting deep.   smiley_sombrero smiley_sombrero

No pictures yet, probably not necessary, but I have been getting some of my ground ready for thinning this spring. I have some sections with a lot of sugar maple and ash within the planted stock. I wanted to make sure we left as much ash and maple as possible and good quality ones. The best way I can think of doing this is to flag the crop trees so the thinning saw operator does not have to slow up when he's spacing and selecting trees to leave. Just has to worry about spacing and getting the stuff to the ground. I want to leave the hardwood as tight as possible 5-6 feet preferably since they are not really that tall. I wouldn't treat the area yet if it weren't for the fact that some of the softwood is getting pretty big on some sections. We have about 12 acres to space on the woodlot next spring and I think close to 3 acres on the adjoining woodlot.

I've come to the conclusion that the neighboring woodlot owner is crazier than a bag of hammers. Looks like he won't be having his stands thinned. Pretty soon they'll be too big and I'll here nothing but bad mouthing. Some people just can't be educated while their mouth is moving. ;)

The project I was working on at my mom's got put on hold, she said she wanted the junk out then told me to stop what I was doing.  She likes trees that are dying, have multiple leaders and other defect.  :D  What I did cut turned into bushes from stump sprouts, at lease the deer will have somethin to eat  :) The sugar maple in the area I cut is doing good except they are almost all double leaders, but I don't think that'll be a problem since I just want them to reach 9" asap.   

I think it's the brush from the thinning that concerns your mom. I have an uncle like that. The thought of having anyone thin his ground would cause seizures. :D :D A lot come from his uncle who would say: 'What good is that going to do me? Look at the brush, what an unsightly mess. What do I get out of this?' But, I could thin all that's doeable on ground owned by my folks.

If worse comes to worst a few years down the road at least there'll be a bunch of firewood.  :-\

Good job, SwampDonkey!
Another lovely thread here!
As I can see, you’re having a plenty of spare time there.  ;D
Don’t want to consider, if you have to calculate this expenses in the future log’s price.
Actually, where does the hobby end and business starts?

@ Toni

:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D


:-X :-X

OK!
Besides joking (SwampDonkey knows pretty well, I like joking) I must say that this is the most important thinning for hardwood stands. This isolation of forest defines the future composition. Always there are some species that are valuable and more desired. According to Murphy’s Law, it usually happens the weeds and bushes overcome if stand left unattended. In that big competition the most aggressive species are off-grades.

This is a pretty good example of good management. I know it takes many efforts and money. I hope that some day this forest will pay back with the most valuable sawlogs. I hope then SD will invite us all to see the result of his hard work. This is a good opportunity to play a host to annual pork roast. Personally, I’m looking forward it!   ;D

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_WoodotPCT.jpg)

Everything from the road toward the green perimeter has been thinned in 2005. There will be about 11 acres inside the green and we should have it spaced within a week with four fellas on the crew. I may wait until late in the fall because the road stays good in wet weather. Freezing and thawing in late November makes roads greasy. This road has no hills to slip and slide all over.

Been poking around a little bit looking for newly germinated seedlings. I found 5 new butternut seedlings and 3 new oak seedlings and I flagged the locations to GPS later this year. I'm kind of like a squirrel, I know the general area the seeds where set into the ground. But, it takes some searching to find them. The leaves blend in with the surrounding ground veg.  ;) ;D

I've been wondering what to do with the slash left when the loggers finish their selective clearing. I had considered renting a big chipper but the price versus benefit just didn't make sense. I also thought about burning it but hate to lose the benefit of the nutrional value of the slash as it decomposed. If I understand these pictures, I can just leave it on the ground and plant right in it. Is that true?

Sometimes the slash is left to prodtect the seedlings in some areas.If you have some that is really bugging you to look at,a little chainsaw work will hide it.Depends what kind of wood it is on how long it takes to rot and if it's up in the air or on the ground.

Hardwood slash in our forests up here is usually gone within 10 years. Cedar and softwood slash can persist for a couple decades. On pre-commercial thinnings softwood slash disappears quicker because of the high humidity and moisture in under canopy. On our hardwood thinning blocks the initial (green) slash looks 3 feet deep. A week of sun and it's down to a foot and 1/2. By next spring a foot or less after the snow melts. On my lot the slash was not too bad in that small area, but it does slow you up a bit. The soil is wet in some areas so I had to pick the ideal spots. If you have tall hardwood tops, maybe planting in those tops can keep deer away. Just a thought.

Found several new butternut seedlings this year on the woodlot and flagged the locations for future GPS. I have some new oak as well.  Still searching for basswood when I get time. ;D

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_WoodlandFlowers-015.jpg)

Quote from: SwampDonkey on February 16, 2006, 04:25:53 PM

Softwoods
black spruce (seedlings)
white spruce
red spruce (seedlings)
balsam fir (moose food, but not preferred) ;)
white pine (seedlings)
red pine (seedlings)
hemlock (seedlings)
northern white cedar
tamarack (seedlings)
canada yew

hardwoods
trembling aspen (moose, grouse food)
large toothed aspen (moose food)
balsam poplar (moose food)
white birch (moose, grouse food)
yellow birch (moose, grouse food)
gray birch (moose, grouse food)
american elm
basswood (stump sprout selective)
butternut (seedlings)
black walnut (seedlings)
white ash
black ash
ironwood
sugar maple
red maple (moose food)
striped maple (moose food)
mountain maple (moose food)
willow (various species) baby moose food ;D
black cherry
pin cherry
choke cherry
apple
northern red oak (seedlings, saplings)
scarlet oak (seedlings)
beech (seedlings)
beaked hazel
dogwood (various species)
fly honeysuckle
bush honeysuckle
red berried elder (grouse food)
high bush cranberry (grouse food)
speckled alder (grouse food)

Now,

What will be the exact/desired tree composition at mature stage for the final cutting?
How will be natural regeneration directed, towards what primary and secondary species and how?

All the above.  ;D

Brushing, spacing and pruning as needed.


Most desirable is spruce, cedar, fir, aspen, white ash.


As far as final harvest, I'll be making fertilizer by then, but those top five species will be in abundance as with red maple. I may remove some aspen and fir in another 25 years, grows fast on my ground. A couple sections will be dominated by sugar maple with ash mixed in. Some area will be dominated with aspen mostly. Pruning will be done to hardwoods when the canopy closes in and trees are over 30 feet tall. 50 acres are spruce plantations, but when spacing we will be leaving a lot of other species mixed in.


First stage is establishment, second phase is pre-commercial thinning, third is commercial thinning of fir and aspen, fourth is pruning hardwood, fifth is a later commercial thinning to remove mostly junk and space the spruce more. I'll be long exhausted by this time.  ;D

Quote from: SwampDonkey on August 06, 2007, 06:21:01 PM
I'll be long exhausted by this time.  ;D

Me too. Of long waithing.  ;D ;D ;D

Was just thinking, 2013 will be the 20th anniversary of the last harvest of my woodlot. That's six more years. I was hoping (mostly trying to remember) to do an initial inventory of the woodlot by 2015 and every 10 (maybe 5) years hence. Mostly to see how much stuff grows on various stands in my woodlot. Kind of like watching interest accumulate on the savings. I've seen a big difference in the last 7 years.

What would make it most interesting is to establish permanent sample locations, by placing a permanent stake in for point centres. Don't mark any trees just do a prism cruise on each point and watch as trees get larger, the plot grows to include trees further away as they increase diameter. I won't loose many trees because my woodlot is young, but once in awhile you find a young tree that died and you wonder why.  :-\

Very interesting reading Swamp Donkey.

I am curious, I have alwa ys heard / read that northern forest tend to be less diverse than tropical and yet that is a very nice list of trees. Not as great as we would have, but still impressive. Is this normal?

A mature forest for us should have 200+ species.

The Acadian Forest Region (St. John River Valley Hardwood Forest Ecoregion), which is where I'm at, is a lot more diverse (tree species) than the Boreal forest to my north. We have some Boreal in the far NW part of New Brunswick and I would argue there is a large scope of it in the Christmas Mountain - Big Bald Mountain region as well. All but black walnut and scarlet oak (from the list above), are native here.

Natural history of the area (http://cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/subsite/mx-204/introduction)

It is probably in here somewhere - how big is your little piece of earth?

We just added to ours, now we are somewhere around 500 acres. I believe I still need to buy another 150 or so acres this year to have enough.

There is never enough land eh?  ;) My lot is about 70 acres. Dad sold off about 380 acres on other farms.

Here are some shots of thinnings I'm doing on my tree plantations.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_Thinnings-003%7E0.jpg)

Selection of crop trees for maximum species diversity.


(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_Thinnings-005.jpg)

Hand selecting natural born hardwood crop trees within the plantation with flagging, sugar maple and white ash.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_Thinnings-009.jpg)

A lot of white ash here for future crop trees.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_redoak-002.jpg)

Lets not forget the red oak seedlings starting to take hold. ;D

See? Not all of us are growing monocultures. ;D  :)

Nice pictures SD. What a neat project! I am not yet ready to do it, but I have had in the back of my mind to purchase land in the North to do something similar. There are times of the year I might want to go and dry out. ;)

Yes, you never seem to be able to get enough land. Each new piece is very interesting to me. I will say though it is pretty much impossible to fully explore 500 acres in the tropics.  :o

I used to walk all of our property every week - now it is more like once a month and just the plantation areas. Someday I might get a life back, but who knows?

Quote from: SwampDonkey on February 11, 2006, 01:33:47 PM
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_RedSpruce-sapling1.jpg)


(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_RedSpruce-sapling2.jpg)

This season the tree suffered from undetermined insect damage and the current year's growth was killed. I have to take a set of pruners and cut back to a good bud (hit the restart button).  I suspect sawfly or some shoot moth. ::)

Several more white pine have recently suffered from moose harassment.  There are 2-3 moose determined to spend the winter, I see them almost every trip to the lot now. ::)

Quote from: SwampDonkey on November 23, 2007, 05:56:19 PM
There are 2-3 moose determined to spend the winter, I see them almost every trip to the lot now. ::)

OK,
Please, don’t let them spoil the view I’m keen on!  ;)

Where will you make the cut and what would happen if you left the tree to it's own design?

Tom, I guess I will have to go back to an internodal bud or shoot. If I don't prune it, it will have a 50/50 chance of being forked, probably closer to 80% chance. One shoot will eventually express dominance. I figure it's a lot better to prune a small shoot, rather than have the tree split in half some years down the road. See all those whorls of buds on that leader? They are all branch whorls now.

So what will you do, go back to that first whorl and cut all of the leaders, including the current apical bud, off at the base and leave just one of them to become the dominant apical/terminal bud?

Ok, I thought it would be interesting to see how much volume is present in 2007 on my thinned section of the woodlot. I used a plot radius of 10 m and a plot spacing of 100 meters. I will update the table as I gather the data.  Trees 6 feet and taller are measured. ;D

Update: Nov 26,2007                 # plots: 14    Stand #: 3        Area: 10 ha


SPECIES      TALLY  DENSITY(st/ha)   BASAL AREA(m²/ha)   VOLUME(m³/ha)  CORD/AC

Black Spruce  434        987                       1                          4              0.716
White Spruce   38          86                      +                          1              0.179
Red Spruce       0            0                       0                          0                  0
Balsam Fir      287         653                       2                          7             1.253
White Pine        4             9                       +                          +                 +
Red Pine           0             0                       0                          0                 0
Larch              16            36                        +                         +                +
Cedar              5             11                       +                         +                +
Aspen            93           212                       +                          1            0.196
Red Maple      84           191                       +                          1            0.196
Sugar Maple    29           89                       +                          +                +
Black Ash        21           48                       +                          +                +
White Ash       38           86                       +                          +               +
White Birch      2             5                         +                          +               +
Yellow Birch     1             2                         +                          +               +
Red Oak          1             2                         +                          +               +
Ironwood         0             0                         0                          0               0
Elm                 0             0                         0                          0               0
Basswood        0             0                         0                          0               0
Butternut        0             0                         0                          0               0
Cherry            0             0                         0                          0               0
=================================================================
Total             1063        2418                      3                        14            2.54

Not sure yet Tom. I'll have to assess it a bit. I'll take pictures of the process of selection.  ;)

Here is the Norway spruce damage.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_redsprucedamage-001.jpg)

Damaged leader


(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_redsprucedamage-003.jpg)

We've just diagnosed the bug as white pine weevil. Yup it hits spruce to, but mostly Norway spruce and White spruce.

Weevils are usually polyphages. Nevertheless they are commonly spread among young pine/spruce plantations here, they appear as secondary insects. Usually they are attracted by weakened trees, which have some sort of physiology disturbance.
In your particular case, the soil might be not drained enough if it is a flat/low country (it looks to me so), which might be critical for the good physiology sometimes.  Spruce prefers moist sites, but still well drained.

Another good reason for spreading their influence could be a number of stumps, which are ideal places for hibernation.

The worst thing here is that hit is somewhere around the zone of best quality logs. Thus it probably can affect the future log price. On the other hand, I hope you don’t have many trees attacked.  ;)

It is flat ground with gentle rises. Soil is sandy clay loam and gravelly on elevated sites and organic with gravel on low sites. There is no heavy clay and the root restricting layer is shallow because the water table fluctuates seasonally. The highest sites seem to favor hardwoods and fir and lower ground favors more cedar, aspen and spruce. Fir on the low ground is necrotic. But, the tree has been growing fast the last 3 years, over 30 inches a year. It's growing on an elevated site. Can't count height growth this year because the weevils killed the top.  In 2006 the tree grew 33 inches. ;)

At eleven years since planting, the volume is about 2.5 cords/acre. It was the same for 5, 10 and 14 plots measured. ;D

A small piece of land I own across the opposite side of my brook needed tending where the softwood were growing. Today, I took the brush saw and made the 1 km hike to the back of the lot. I had to walk across a small wetland and later a small beaver dam to reach the softwood.

Here is the site before the job.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_spacing_2008-002.jpg)

The beavers have been busy lately, cutting aspen in behind the fir stand for winter food.


(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_spacing_2008-004.jpg)

After the first tank. I found a few spruce along the bank of the stream, a couple in the foreground here.


(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_spacing_2008-005.jpg)


(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_spacing_2008-007.jpg)

The images are a bit fogged up, because my lens got condensation between steam rolling off me and high humidity of the air. A couple of images in the middle of it after the job was done. It took me about 4 tanks to cut about 1/2 an acre. I was done at 12:00 pm.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_spacing_2008-009.jpg)

One last shot from the beaver dam looking back as I was exiting the site. This is the same vantage as the first picture. Used wide angle lens.

I pruned the buts up 5 or 6 feet with the brush saw as well.

After the first picture I took crossing the dam, I managed to sink up to my knees in muck and water, so that was nice. ::)

The hardwoods in the middle two pictures where sugar "rock" maples. The beavers like to cut them to.  :-X >:(

Looks like a Moose friendly lot. ;D :D

Quote from: SwampDonkey on November 25, 2007, 12:48:00 PM
Here is the Norway spruce damage.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_redsprucedamage-001.jpg)

Damaged leader


(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_redsprucedamage-003.jpg)

We've just diagnosed the bug as white pine weevil. Yup it hits spruce to, but mostly Norway spruce and White spruce.

The spruce has recovered from the damage and little evidence of any damage unless you look thoroughly. The new leader is growing straight as an arrow. :) The tree is now over 6 meters and has doubled in girth.

This is what the spruce looks like today.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_red_spruce_recovered.jpg)

This thread is one of my favorites!
Keep on posting!  ;D

Can't say too much at this stage, but from what I've seen in 2-4 years growth since the thinning (this will be year 3 and 5), depending on section treated, it's probably better than fertilizer alone since the trees have more room to put on volume.  I updated some measurements in the pill bottles the last couple days. The moose spent the whole winter in the woodlot, but they don't hold up this winter in any one area, not much snow. 8)

I brushed out one of my side lines this morning and I came across a small patch of taller fir and spruce that I thought I had better touch up with the 550. The beavers have been removing the balm-of-gilead out of it this spring it seems. Anyway a good deed done on that patch and carried on into neighboring plantation to finish out the tank. I need to do my north line some time, but looks to be wet weather a few days coming. Then I will also brush my trail on the way back to the car. I have about 12 acres I'm going to be spacing sometimes, but maybe not until next year.

It's on the same line as the previous thinning and about 400 feet to the east on the other side of the beaver pond. Those buggers are really flooding a lot land down stream. Darn things.  There was a nice stand of white cedar coming back on the neighbor's lot real good until they destroyed about 10 acres of it with flooding. That's what clear cutting invites, beavers. >:(

Hey SwampDonkey, fall is here....good weather to be out in your woodlot. Is the commercial thinning of the fir and aspen next?

Another 20 years Brandon, the oldest thinnings are 5 years old now.  Some of the fir buts are over 8 inches across, but that is not the average since there were two harvest entries years before and some fir is ahead of others. I'd say though, that most are at 4 inches. I keep records on certain trees in a little bottle I tie on a wire. That's if the bear leave them bottles alone. :D :D

As to being there in the fall, it will be late fall as I'm still thinning on crown land, probably into late November if I don't get snowed out. ;D

Here are some photos of 6 year old thinning on my woodlot.

This shows tamarack I planted in 2002, beside black spruce planted in 1996.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_tamarack-2002.jpg)

This is a section of natural that has sizes ranging from 3"-6" in view. The dominant trees are around 32 feet. You can see the lower limbs dying now and soon will prune up.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_Balsam_PCT-5thyr1.jpg)

Another area of natural here with some older fir 4" to 10", with the biggest around 50 feet tall. There is a dead yellow birch there that I think was killed by herbicide. Been dead for some years.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_Balsam_PCT-5thyr2.jpg)

This area is in plantation, but between planted rows is balsam fir 3"-7" mostly, some 8"-10"  scattered in it, bigger sizes are sparse up to 16". I believe these in the photo are 7" and around 32 feet. One behind me and at the end of the stick.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_Balsam_PCT-5thyr3.jpg)

Here is a largetooth aspen which only appear in small groups and not very common on the lot. It's 10" and 53 feet tall.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_Dominant_Aspen.jpg)

Here is a butternut near the main road I planted (the nut) in 2004 I think.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_Butternut_2011_Sapling.jpg)

This balsam fir is 20" and 68 feet tall. It has reached it's potential and beyond and the ants and wood buzzards are at it now. Surprising the crown is still all green and the pitch blisters still look decent on the bark. But once they are attacked this way they are usually gone in 3 or 4 years. Some of the trouble was harvest damage to some trees. This tree may not actually be real old.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_Balsam_dominant.jpg)

On the neighboring lot there is 10 acres where they are in the same shape and destined for worm food.

Looking good there, SD.

(I mean the woods  :)).

This year I also cleaned another 14.5 acres of plantation with a "clearing" saw. The trees planted in the first photo of this thread where part of the area. I had a few balsam poplar and white cedar that needed to be spaced and cut from those spruce. One area on a gravelly bank was invaded by a lot of white cedar, it was solid green. Some areas where kind of marginal because of drainage, but had lots of tree count for crop trees. That pretty much completed the first phase of thinning.

I may have to take a chance and visit that plantation myself!
Have to start planning the visit.  ;)

As a matter of recreation, I have taken by pole pruners into the woods and cleaned up some limbs on the larger balsam fir. I am only pruning the nice (potential) log trees. And also just the 8" or bigger and 30+ feet tall with limbs beginning to die. No need to waste effort on trash trees, I'm not looking to create a park. I am careful to undercut the limbs and not have the limb rip bark off as it's cut. I have been pruning up 8 to 10 feet depending on height of the trees. It's still quite warm here by noon, so I am just playing at it until noon. When it gets colder it's more enjoyable and won't have wet clothes from sweat.  ;D

"This balsam fir is 20" and 68 feet tall."

I understand how you get the 20".  I have always wondered how folks get the other number.  The only way that I could get that close would be by using a range finder and the Pythagorean theorem.  What's the easy way?

tan 45 degrees = 1, similar triangles, horizontal distance, add height from ground to eye. Flat land. ;D  8)

Hi Draco - do a search on "Biltmore stick" and "clinometer" and you will learn all kinds of neat stuff  ;)  8)  8)

You can use a framing square and a level to figure heigth also .It's just basic trig .

I find the project interesting and commendable .

This area of Ohio and in fact the entire state was once dense eastern hard woods from Lake Erie to the Ohio
river .All you need is a hole in the woods where sunlight can reach the ground and shortly after the removal of a big tree there will be new growth of saplings .It really amazing how fast they reseed themselves .

My father now deceased planted a bunch of firs in 1980 from seedlings .They are now over 60 feet tall and right at 24" at the base .

A very nice record for years to come of what you are doing to your land.

When I originally bought this place in '84, it was part of St.Regis plantation that had been planted about 5 yrs before.  This is as it was when I first became member of the forum.  This is the entrance to the property.



 (https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/13641/property%20entrance.JPG)

I had ordered my mill and this is the beginning of clearing a path and a spot to set up and mill the logs I had been taking from the clearing.



 (https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/13641/may%2022%20stack%202.JPG)



 (https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/13641/road%20in%20to%20woodlot.JPG)

This is as I began clearing a tractor/people path toward the back in order to harvest trees and just general 'get around'.  :)



 (https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/13641/tractor%20path%201.JPG)

Bringing up logs from the back.



 (https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/13641/log%20skidded.JPG)

There is a natural water shed running across the property, and along it, is older growth not harvested.   As this is to be continued, I will get to some of that next. 

Back where the little yaupons grow.

You have a very nice ranch tcsmpsi. I say ranch because of the fence at the gate. ;) Keep enjoying your land.  :)

East of Mississippi Farm . . West is Ranch ?

Far northeast is poor farm. :D

The very first post in this thread was concerning seedlings planted in cedar slash in 2002. The thread began in 2005. Here are the spruce now, and they were cleaned around in 2011. They are 5 to 10 feet tall now. A little slower growth and some yellowing at the edge because the beavers raised the water table on the neighbor's lot and has backed up on my land a little.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_seedlings-slash-13.jpg)

Do you think it's a problem to regenerate cedar when it's been clear cut? I was told it would be difficult to regenerate cedar. What do you think? Some people may look, but they don't observe. ;D

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_cedar-regen1.jpg)

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_cedar-regen2.jpg)

The first picture, is white cedar 'absorbing' a spruce plantation. :D I have thinned this in 2011.

I have some areas throughout that are wet land that vary in size from 1 to 4 acres, that follow the poor drainage. These were all ceder stands.

My pruning efforts that began in October 2012.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_pruning-fir1.jpg)

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_pruning-fir2.jpg)

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_pruning-fir3.jpg)

These trees are all over 8" dbh and I'm real fussy what and how I prune. I don't waste time on trees that have no future potential. They have to be near perfect if I'm putting my sweat into it on my own dime. ;D Some smaller trees may look pruned, but that's nature's doing. ;)

Nice job pruning SD. How did your prune them and what equipment did you use?  I'm looking to invest in the next year.

The regenerating cedar is tricky business around here.  If you've got white spruce growing you can discount cedar making it because there will be deer around.  Get into wetter ground where the deer don't tend to wander through and you can get it to grow but it still seems very hit and miss.

Clark

Clark,

I use a manual Fiskars extendable pole pruner. I first make an undercut so that the limb does not break and strip the bark off the trunk. I don't have that many fir ready to prune, so I'm not overwhelmed with numbers. There's a  lot of fir, but not all will make a nice perfect log. I have a lot with pistol grip buts because of mechanical damage. I soon have to bring out the chain saw and thin out the junk in areas where I have 30 feet of growth. For now they help maintain density and and keep the good ones from brushing up to bad. One of the areas included is a cedar patch.

I did notice some deer droppings the last couple of years on my woodlot, but they don't winter there. I never see a track in the winter. I never see more than 3 deer together. I swear it's been the same 3 does the last 15 years. :D People only hunt from windshields up here these days, so them deer are safe. ;D The trees are not mature enough (tall) to offer much thermal cover yet. But the trees are tall enough now, that it seems like they are jumping by leaps and bounds every year. Some places I no longer recognize.  ;D

I keep looking for browse evidence on the small cedar, and all I see is rabbit works down low, and not a real problem even there. Anyway, I'm real impressed at how to cedar is filling in the wet places. It does take awhile for a cedar to get going. Probably 20 years to get to 8 feet. Then they seem to get a foot or more of growth after.

Sure wish I had one of those little Dion forwarders to play with. :D

The pole pruners work OK, but locally we would use a ladder, some heavy duty loppers, and a good hand saw (Swedish blade) for any branches the loppers wont handle.

You would routinely go up to 6 metres (18ft) with that gear. While it seems like a hassle to haul a forestry ladder around, once it's wedged in place and you are up in the tree it's pretty secure, and you can deal to the pruning pretty quickly, and much less physical work than using a pole pruner.

Page 2 of this link shows a standard pruning kit
http://www.timbersaws.co.nz/site/Documents/Forestry%20Catalogue.pdf (http://www.timbersaws.co.nz/site/Documents/Forestry%20Catalogue.pdf)

Ian

As I said I don't have the numbers. I cover an acre a day doing what I do now with little investment in equipment. And that's a 2-3 hr day. The advantage of pruning the fir is that it's not plantation, it's trees of many sizes from 1" to 12", so I have a few years for the 1" to grow, and anything 12" is beyond pruning because fir is short lived. I saw a fir yesterday, 12" and stone dead. Not a mark on it. It's probably 80 years old and had survived a few years after being released from suppression. It would be a real hassle to try and move a ladder around in thick brush. ;) I do however intend to bring out the brush saw in any additional pruning to clear brush from the trunk and snip off any junk tree (up to 6" but) too close.

Here is the ladder being used to prune radiata pine in New Zealand like Ian described.  You can see that this is the second pruning.



 (https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14370/AusNZTrip_218.jpg)

SD,

You need to have a simian nature to be good at this.  Those spruce are waiting for you  :D.

I'm leaving the spruce alone because they'll be 100 years to be a nice sized log. On the other hand I'll see balsam fir logs in 20 years.

And I'm staying on the ground. We came out of the trees centuries ago. It was a hard fall, and we learned right then not to go back up. :D

   What kind of fir, and how big does the cedar get, is it like western red?

Pretty neat, SD. ;D

Quote from: terry f on December 09, 2013, 10:26:30 AM
   What kind of fir, and how big does the cedar get, is it like western red?

Balsam fir. The cedar is white cedar ( we call eastern white, some call northern white), and they reach about 36" dbh, very slow grown. But yet, no one really thinned cedar, and it can grow thick because it's shade tolerant and almost necessary to stand wind.

Here's what a typical stand of white cedar looks like unmanaged at 180 years old.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_Ce-Stand1.jpg)

This stand is on the farm north of me.

Just for contrast, the tree in WDH's picture is probably 6 or 7 years old. It may get one more prune, then it's left alone to grow, for maybe 20 more years. It's not just about removing branches, it's about keeping the defect core small. Only the section of the final log that you can see in the picture will be knotty (and those will be tight "live" knots). All the future wood being laid down in that log will be clear and high value.  But pruning an older tree wont gain you much, the knots are already present.

Ian

Yes I agree. Know the silvics of the trees your pruning and how they grow on your site. That is why I have a min and a maximum size to focus on, also limb diameter for me is important because fir does not heal up as fast as pine.  I am only interested in the but log to 10 to 12 feet. I would go higher, but to reach the size to be worth while to me I would have to live longer. Plus if I prune too much I'm loosing wood growth. I want to cut the limbs that are dead or beginning to, not the ones taking the full sun. In another 4 years I am going to do a second cruise, the first was in 2007 with 2.5 cord/acre. My plots were circular in thinned areas, so my density was known before hand as 1000 per acre and everything was tallied. Whereas a normal cruise I would only count 4" trees and bigger. Softwood can hold dead limbs for 2 or 3 decades, meanwhile making knotty wood and more chance of rot. And if you haven't got it yet, I'm pruning for me, not someone else. These are my logs. haha ;D

Keeping the core small is key in pruning.  Otherwise, you just wasted time and a lot of money.  I pruned 10 acres of loblolly pine after the first thinning at age 13.  Pruned up to 18'.  That was in 2000.  Now they are going on 27 years old and look nice except for the portion of the stand that has annosum root rot  :).  No matter what you do, nature has her way. 

Nice looking pruned fir trees, SD!
Valuable logs they will become.  8)

I have been pruning now for a couple years in my firs. Late last week I bought a Fiskars Power Tooth 10" pruning saw, well I might have 4 hours on it and the blade shattered today, in two places at once. The tip and back where it enters the handle. Well I won't use that brand again. More Chinese junk at Canadian Tire, and reviews on Amazon reflect same. So instead I ordered up a BAHCO 396-LAP Laplander Folding Saw, blade made in Sweden from good steel. Good reviews. I'll be fighting back this time. :D The fir are healing up in 2 years. A 4"-8" pruned fir grown to 20" has a lot of clear wood in a 12'-16' log. A 4" fir is about 25-' tall. If I was to sell clear fir logs, they pay no premium in these parts. I see nothing in their specs sheets. Only how many knots are allowed over the length and size of knot.

Things will change in 20 years. Maybe even for the better. ;D :snowball:

Not up here. It's ok to dream, but nope. :D These will be for my use only. Then if I switch gears by then, I'll just stand and look at'm. :D

Nice thread SD keep it going....nice variety of trees you got on that piece of ground....Banjo

This attached Google Earth .KMZ file takes you to the woodlot.

No experience with softwoods but planted 750 Red oak in tubes interspersed with Scotch pine and Norway spruce for competition  1995 and 96.
Was busy with consulting for the first 10 yrs so neglected the plantation on about 11 acres.
I hired a young fellow with a Husky pole pruner 3 summers ago to prune and he did a fair job as some scars were 2 3 inches in dia,
The larger ones are now about 3/4 closed.
If I knew then what i know now all would have been Norway as these are taller than the oak as are the worthless Scotch pine.

I have found red oak even to be slow compared to yellow birch. I planted both species, oak from acorns and birch from seedlings (had nursery grow from seed I collected) about the same time. The oak have lots of light in the open and the birch are 3 times their size, canopy over the top to walk in under like a park. Both on soil like in a garden. But I also have 4 or 5 red spruce I planted near by, and they are very slow compared to white spruce that are 3 times as big, same soil.  ;D

Although I have planted over 50 acres on my woodlot, I also encourage the natural regen present when I make decisions with my brush saw. I give native hardwood, balsam fir and white cedar a place. They all have a strong market and aesthetic value (especially hardwood fall colors) in this region. Moose, monkey bears and rabbits make other decisions I have no control over.  ;D :D :D

moose

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmpxa8vVe2Y

white throated sparrow, blackbirds, butternut

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbFhdzu_b1A

chickadees and butternut and tamarack (both planted)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5-blgmFdb0

monkey bears

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QSMpYGacCw

aesthetics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTdd38mDRwo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnwq_aOEIM4

You are connected to your land.  There are so many people, especially in the big cities, who don't even have a clue what land is.  Everything is given to them or produced for them.  The only thing that they know is the phone in their face.  I appreciate that you are tending that little piece of earth.  The creatures appreciate it too, in their own way.  Sometimes moose probably don't act thankful  :D.

Yesterday I found some yellow and some white lady slippers, not in patches but in ones and twos in areas I never saw them before. And I never saw white ones on my land before. Never found any pink ones, but I think they are the same species as the white ones. Across the road from the house is a patch of yellow ones, and some are with double flowers. Never seen that before. My brother's girlfriend is sketching/painting them on canvas for mother.

Yellow? Nice!! White and pink are no big deal on my land. We had alot and I mean alot growing among some pines. My Father and me went in and cut the pine,the lady slippers never came back. :(  Somewheres I have a picture of a clump of Lady Slaippers. Was not on my land. Seem like there was a dozen in about a foot of space. Never saw them grow like that.

I came across them for the first time also.
My BIL is the one who spotted them out.
Had no idea what they were.  On the bank of the stream.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/13635/20190614_143651.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1561376367)

This is an older photo of the ones across the road. There are at least 4 of them with double flowers there.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_butternut_next_dr-005~0.jpg)

Nice picture of the clump!!!

That is a Whack of Lady Slippers.   ;)

Quote from: SwampDonkey on June 24, 2019, 09:56:54 AM
This is an older photo of the ones across the road. There are at least 4 of them with double flowers there.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/SD_butternut_next_dr-005~0.jpg)

Hows your deer population?
Lady Slippers are an Orchid. Around here any member of the orchid family or lily family get constantly chewed by deer.
I have notice in my work on my land that the deer love White Oaks. They will rarely browse on a Sugar Maple or a White Pine. Sugar Maples carpet sections of my woods as seedlings. All left alone by the deer. Red Maples are not so lucky.
Deer are funny, they have their preferred foods and it changes as the seasons progress.
In May they will chew every flower bud of Golden Alexanders but in June they leave them alone.
They will occasionally chew the White Oak buds/new shoots till winter hits then its mass destruction for White Oaks. Not a one in reach of a deer will make it thru the winter.

Maybe 3 deer in 10 square miles here. ;) The deer love the lily beds in flower gardens, but not enough deer at my place to worry about. The coyotes yip here most every night, and of course the neighborhood dogs have to answer back. :D

Quote from: SwampDonkey on June 25, 2019, 02:17:16 AM
Maybe 3 deer in 10 square miles here. ;) The deer love the lily beds in flower gardens, but not enough deer at my place to worry about. The coyotes yip here most every night, and of course the neighborhood dogs have to answer back. :D

Your lucky, we have around 25/sq mile.

Those are cool.  Don't recall ever seeing any.  Are they a northern thing...?  If deer love them that might be the reason I don't see them.  I will be on the look out though.  thanks   Banjo

Banjo,

I think there are subspecies all over the continent, info from searching Google.

Things to take notice of in the wood pile. ;)

Here are a fir and a tamarack. Both taken from managed forest (ie the woodlot), but specifically trees were spaced some time ago.

Fir........... Notice two rings to the width of my index finger, still respectable growth.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/fir-rings-2019.jpg)

tamarack ......... double the growth of the fir, if not a little more.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/tamarackrings-2019.jpg)

Definitely can grow 2 or 3 times the wood in the same time frame when you thin. Trees are much healthier to. Too bad tamarack wasn't 'the' money tree. :D I only planted them for firewood, they are dandy firewood to. But, I wouldn't want them too big, I hate splitting them. The old Collins just wants to bounce. Fir in comparison isn't even work to split. :D

I have read this entire post a few times I enjoy hearing about the different species of trees. I have 43 acres in Indiana and love managing my piece of earth. I am mostly thinning maples and oaks, keep up the post. 

We're currently thinning young stands (6 years from establishment from seedlings/plug stock) of Norway spruce, white pine, red pine, and hybrid larch.  We're going up to just past head-height at this stage and will eventually prune up to approx. 16 feet on all softwood species.  We're not looking to necessarily harvest all of this stuff, but we do want to thin it properly as it grows.  In particular, we're going to have the opportunity to do significant thinning in the larch blocks within the next 5 to 10-year time-frame.  At some point in the near future, we may wish to take out every other row!  But that's not where we are now.  We're just raising up lower limbs and culling any small trees that have been overtopped, etc.

I must say, I simply love the look of our blocks after we raise up/thin.  We're also having to un- bury small spruce and pine plastered down to the ground by heavy, wet snow.  

A little video of what has been going on at the woodlot this spring. Right now, the firewood is just from trail cutting. Then I'll have 3 or 4 years to thin out more firewood. I'm working on a ~5 acre section. I may have to cut 2 more cords, that will also come from trail cutting.

Thin 4 firewood ranger - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0PtTil_g0U)

Nice video. You have some wood to pick up. I did notice the lack of eastern white pine. I have a lot of old fields too. But mine have big rocks in it. Your land looks level, nice piece to get around on. 

I have a few pine that I planted, but sparcely. The moose, bugs and rust kill most of them or make them junk. :D

Yes, flat ground and very few stones on the surface. But
any digging will pull a few up. Course, on this old farm they picked them off the top already and dumped them in piles at the edge of the old field. The piles are small because this field was not a large one. One of them fields I like to call a small patch. :D

I will be going up this morning and cutting some more trail wood. Probably that 2 cords. Nice and cool and overcast, gotta wear the bug armour. :D

Really no moose to do damage here, just the deer. I have at least 2 good size piles of rock around here. I have been hauling that up into the bogs, as needed. Hauled off 2 stone walls into the bog all ready. These are not boundary walls. I am working on a truck road now. Trying to level one part up now. A good layer of rock and a layer of gravel will make it better. Like to see the low stumps too. Easier on tires too. Hard on bar and chains. :)

Can be hard on chain, but cheaper than equipment damage. Most anything ya break is going to cost ya $1000 min in my experience. ;) :D

Just think @thecfarm (https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?action=profile;u=436)  , 200 years ago some poor schmuck and his 12 kids, for 3 generations hauled those rocks by horse and wagon up out of the bog to build a wall...  do not feel bad.  :D :D :D

Yes Doc, they did work hard. Without them working so hard I would have no way to get across that bog without wet feet.  :D
This wall was by the driveway, only about 20-40 feet away. All gone now.


(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10436/stonewalls_in_woods2017.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1507893733)
 

Than this picture is of the bog. The ones on the left are almost 2 feet high.


(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10436/longrockyroad2017.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1507893388)
 

This must be about 200 feet long, than a good size hill, with springs on that hill that keep the bog full of water. There are some over 3 feet high in there. Many trips with a forwarder drove the rocks down into the bog. Now I have a road that is high in the middle and low on the sides. Another coating of rocks is taking place.  ;D

I have some wet places I would like to do that to, but I have zero rocks....if you want rock you have to come off that pocket book.  Banjo

Banjo, corduroy it with some smaller pine like the old timers. Leave some stubs on one side of the posts to drive toward the mud so them posts don't roll. ;D I have some spots to corduroy, all kinds of small spruce to throw on and not far to go with it. ;)

That road across the bog was corduroyed.  I think it's about 4 feet under rock now. There use to be fields up on top of the hill. Levels out when I get on top of the hill. 

There were portions of an area called the great black swamp in NW Ohio. At one time before it was drained grew some of the largest oak trees on the planet .It starts about 2-3 miles north of me and goes north about 100 miles to Lake Erie .In the years since it was drained they have dug up white oak logs used to build the corduroy  roads in times past .Some had sank 8 to 10 feet under the ground .They say it was infested with mosquitoes which evidently like the migrating birds are still in plentiful  supply at times .

I've seen old corduroy in the rain forest on the British Columbia coast, some used to haul wood on with skid sleds. :)

I did put down some slabs,  but with nothing anchoring them down....when a wagon of logs hits them they move.  Banjo

In 2007 I did a ground survey of my plantation, the estimate was 2.5 cord/acre at 12 years age and spaced 1000 to the acre, planted and natural. I'm now thinning again and started last year. On an area of 2.5 acres, I've cut 18 cords from thinnings so far, taking out old fir, aspen with dead tops, broken or pistol shaped buts. I have another acre (on same 2.5 acre piece) in there to cut through still. I figure 6 more cord to come out, judging on what has been cut up to now. And that's leaving lots of diameters and taking just the low quality stuff, plus trail wood. Trails are only wide enough for a SxS. There's another 60+ acres to thin yet. I projected that the growth was around 0.5 cord per acre a year back in 2007, boy was that a bit low. Growing faster than that. :D There is some low productive wet ground, but that's not much area, there's a good 60 acres of ground like a garden. We are getting 20" fir diameters by 50 years in my area, seen some only 40 years old on the but rings, rings as wide as your little finger. No premium here for slow stuff, so might as well grow it fast. Slow fir is usually red anyway. :D

Can't bank too much on hardwood up here, the moose will change your projections in an instant when they move in on your maple stand and tear off the bark. :D Mainly they bother red maple though.

Areas I thinned so far are outlined in photo.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/firewood-thinning-2020.jpg)

Working on your own plantation has to give you a lot of satisfaction. 

Yes indeed. Yesterday I cut a fir, that had to be 24" across at breast height. It had to go because it was leaning and toward the road and definite signs of rot. That old girl was like an 8 foot culvert on the but end. :D I did cut a lot of firewood from it though. It had a huge witches broom up in the crown to. One beside it is almost as big, but straight up and no sign of rot in the but. Seed tree, I do see a number of little firs growing around the base already. Oh, and I cut another earlier in the day that was 20", had an old scar from logging and lots of hollow rot for a ways. I had a couple small maple it had to come down between, it was kind of bow shaped in the trunk a little, was hard to really tell which way it favoured. But I cut the wedge out on the side I want it to fall, but I made sure I left a little holding wood on one side, where I wanted it to kinda swing it a little toward that side. Worked like a charm, saved the maples. Like directional felling techniques, and a little bit of thinking before drop'n them. :D

Still thinning and gathering firewood and a few tidbits. 8)

Thinning my land and using wood for firewood - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wK25h-fGCs)

That was a great video! I feel like we just had a visit and really enjoyed the heck out of that. I will confess I had you pegged as a guy in his early 40's, but now it looks like you are a tad older, maybe 48 or so? ;D
 Really, that was fun and it makes me think how nice it would be if more of us did stuff like that to really show what we keep our hands and minds busy with. I am inspired with the pretty roads and how you are maintaining your little parcel of the world.
 I did have a hard time following your voice a couple of times when you turned away, but I got the flow of it all, none the less. Nice work, and please do show us another sometimes. Seeing Jeff's stuff and your stuff 'in person' as well as a few of the other guys really does make a difference that can't be conveyed in the written word.
 Nicely done and thank you for putting a nice cap on a nice day Bill!

Thanks a bunch. Yeah, about the sound, I've not got a loud voice to begin with, but as you walk or turn away it doesn't help. :D

I've been getting lots of compliments from the nearby farmer (especially for cutting the trees back from the road) and lots of guys who are either just out hunting or simply driving for the scenery and a chance to see a critter. A lot of them I know from around here and some I've probably forgotten who they are over the years. I see some people who come from as far at 30 miles away. One fella I seen 2 days ago when I was splitting up my last tree, said he had just seen 3 deer at about my property line down near the old bridge. One guy was ahead of him that I know, he hunts, but it's buck only and they were doe deer. We were talking before the second guy come up behind. That's how the luck goes and the odds ain't good. :D :)

A nice piece of land you have there. Looks flat and free of rocks. Lucky you. My land is hard to get around on. Between the knolls, rocks, wet places and leave trees, I don't have many straight trails.

Yep, well I can't just go any place because of mounds and wet runs but to have straight paths is because the plantation was bull dozed in with rows. And this area I'm working on was old field. Plenty of obstacles beyond that old field. A SxS is nice though, I can sneak through some rough places, just have to plan my paths. ;)

I have old "fields" too. Stone walls through the woods now. I asked my Dad many years ago, How did they mow the fields here?  :o  We had a Ford tractor and a 6 foot cutter bar and in some of these fields in the woods that would not even fit in between the rocks. But back then they was cutting hay, there was no tractors, all was cut by hand.
My Father and me cut some nice pine in one field that he picked strawberries when he was growing up.
My land grows some very nice eastern white pine. Some of the woods looked like what you have, but pine 3 feet across. Than my Father and me started to cut and we disturbed the soil and opened it up and those white pine came in like hair on a dog. The cycle starts again.

Yeah, around here the white pine was all pretty much cut, those worth cutting, in the 19th C.  This land has been in family hands since the RR was brought into Centreville. Grandmother's (dad's mother) uncles were teamsters who cut wood. I think they lived up in there, she had a brother who lived up there. The 3 houses that were there are gone now, even the power line from the 40's. Funny story about the power. My grandparents had just built a new house and grandmother's brother wired the house. There was no power by then. Neighbor said 'I don't know why you'd wire that house, we'll never have power up here." The power was run up within 2 years. :D

A reminder of the total volume back in 2007, 1-2 years after a thinning.

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=17457.msg406691#msg406691

Been harvesting 16 cord/acre from a second thinning. In need of an update on standing inventory to determine volume/acre/year. ;)

pretty cool the ability to quantify your earnings on something so vague as "woods"

like counting bushels and dry tons. 

A little update about the bear lugging off the tarp in the video. I finally found it, 300 yards from camp. Must'a been his baby bear blankie. :D :D

Just a little walk about for fall 2022. ;D

https://youtu.be/fwaD3lHINmk (https://youtu.be/fwaD3lHINmk)

Butternut tree on the lawn.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/11009/butternut-Jul2-2023.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1688321299)

Looking good!