Concern regarding reforestation program

[mike_belben]

If youve got the dedication, you can get through drought with rainwater totes and an air pump.  Garden hose on the bottom and air coupler to a C02 tank or air source on top.  Put a few psi in the tote and itll spray like a garden hose.  Put it high on a trailer and the gravity alone will get it some psi. Its how i water the garden. 


 i guarantee you can save a lot of seedlings per tote.  I fill mine off the gutter during wet season.

[EWilson99]

So the local conservation authority came to do a "check-up" back in October, and we seem to be at a 60% survival rate in total, which is still better than I had expected. Deer browsing has unfortunately hurt a couple of the red maple seedlings, as they didn't put in any tree protectors until late in the summer, but otherwise not much has changed since July.

They've offered a re-fill for the trees that have died, and while I was hoping for some more drought resistant trees to be planted, the arborist on contract is still insisting on re-planting white pine and white cedar- this would just be repeating the cycle all over again and quite frankly, a waste of money. We're thinking of just ordering trees in bulk by choosing them ourselves, and later just planting them on our own.

[wisconsitom]

Not sure you will find it a waste to work with recommended species once again.  A one-time rough start is no indication of where things might end up.  I'm also not sure I'd welcome lots of eastern red cedar onto any land I owned here in the mixed-wood region.  Weed and invasive in many places.  It won't do any better than anything else if it has to start with no rain.  Drought tolerance is a non-issue in a seedling with essentially no root system.  And FWIW, white-cedar is actually highly drought-tolerant once established.

Planting seedlings take a bit of faith.  Man, when we did the 6000 back on a 2013 weekend, and then when all the ragweed came up and completely hid every single tree from view-I literally could not find a seedling!-things seemed bleak.  Those trees are now 20 feet tall for pine and spruce, and 35 feet tall for hybrid larch!  I call it painting the land with vegetation.

Do you happen to know if white pine weevil is active in your area?  I can recommend an excellent treatment regimen if you're interested, and which would be feasible on your small acreage.

[EWilson99]

Not sure you will find it a waste to work with recommended species once again.  A one-time rough start is no indication of where things might end up.  I'm also not sure I'd welcome lots of eastern red cedar onto any land I owned here in the mixed-wood region.  Weed and invasive in many places.  It won't do any better than anything else if it has to start with no rain.  Drought tolerance is a non-issue in a seedling with essentially no root system.  And FWIW, white-cedar is actually highly drought-tolerant once established.

Planting seedlings take a bit of faith.  Man, when we did the 6000 back on a 2013 weekend, and then when all the ragweed came up and completely hid every single tree from view-I literally could not find a seedling!-things seemed bleak.  Those trees are now 20 feet tall for pine and spruce, and 35 feet tall for hybrid larch!  I call it painting the land with vegetation.

Do you happen to know if white pine weevil is active in your area?  I can recommend an excellent treatment regimen if you're interested, and which would be feasible on your small acreage.

Not sure about white pine weevil, but there are a minimal amount of gooseberry plants along the property, so we're keeping an eye on those. 
Yes, white cedar can be drought tolerant, but it has to be established first and foremost. Seedlings that are planted during an extremely dry spring don't even stand a chance, I think we're quite frankly lucky that we have any plants at all, after having had no rain in May. I just don't want to plant trees that are more susceptible to drought stress.

[wisconsitom]

I'm just saying no seedling, regardless of species, is drought tolerant, so I would not personally make my species selections based on a characteristic that actually pertains to an established tree.  Other Mays will be wet.

[xkiwi]

A rather extensive look at Reforestation Practices (asof 2020 from a West Coast perspective )- methods and practices (chapter 3 on-wards) maybe useful for reference. A FVMC publication

https://f3839a3d-9851-4def-b527-fb0ceab9a570.filesusr.com/ugd/80da86_0c050def8968415189aa2dbb19fe5222.pdf


"Planted forests simply are our best hope for meeting societal demands for wood while preserving the
condition of natural forests" (Powers, 2000).

[beenthere]

Yup, lock up the "natural forests" so they are non-productive and become uncontrollable fire hazards. Been doing that for the last 40-50 years. Results are evident. 

[EWilson99]

I'm just saying no seedling, regardless of species, is drought tolerant, so I would not personally make my species selections based on a characteristic that actually pertains to an established tree.  Other Mays will be wet.

I've lived in Eastern Ontario for the last 15 years, and I don't think that we've had a wet spring in the last 5. Unfortunately, I think that this will be the norm from now on, we'll just have to adapt to it :(
You are correct, no seedling is inherently drought tolerant, but the red maples and bitternut hickory seedlings did much better than their pine and cedar counterparts. I don't see the harm in planting more of these red maples. 

[Kodiakmac]

As temperatures rise and drought intensifies, fires grow larger and burn more severely. What happens to the landscape next is unknown.  It's about Arizona and the millions of homeless and deceased animals who have lost their Trees of Life and their Forests of Life.  That's todays headline.   I realize most people on this forum are selling equipment to turn trees into something else. but with the thousands of members who log on.  couldn't the moderators lead a team of volunteers to help accelerate the reforesting. Not for plantations.  But for life.  Arizona and California, could really use the help. It's heart breaking and deviating here.  Hello Ontario?!  And please indict the people who  have decimated the monarch butterfly habitats!

Holy Mackerel!  Best calm down ... relax.
And as for the monarch butterfly decimators, you can point a finger at the silly corn-sourced ethanol industry.  More than anything else it is responsible for converting hundreds of thousands of acres of milkweed land (old pastures) into cornfields.   And every greenie I ever met assured me that the world needed more ethanol.

[ppine]

Too many trees per acre.  Your woodlot will need a lot of thinning. 

[EWilson99]

Haven't posted in this forum in several years now, but getting to the 4 year mark now I think that it's time to give a little update on it all. apologies for the necro!


Drought has been very bad. it's improved a lot since the first year, but still a lot of the trees are struggling due to the heat and lack of rain. stunted growth has affected all but a few of the white pines and white cedars*. all of the red maples have fallen victim to deer browsing and the bitternut hickories and bur oaks are nearly invisible at this point. for the long term I'm not expecting anything more than cedars and pines, and even then what's left is very spotty. I'm not worried about long term growth, as I know that a lot of cedars and pines will make it through, but man so much for a diversified forest 

*the tallest cedar is at about 5 feet tall, whereas the tallest pine is at about 3 feet tall at the 4 year mark

[EWilson99]

Too many trees per acre.  Your woodlot will need a lot of thinning.

don't think that there's enough left to warrant thinning  

[Ianab]

Sometimes the site selects the forest that is best suited. Also, what grows now, and what may grow in the future, with more shade and shelter is different. 

At least locally you simply cannot plant a "mature forest" mix in open ground. The "mature forest" species are the ones that need the shelter of a younger forest (or an existing forest) to grow. If you go out and plant rimu and tawa in open ground, they shrivel up and die. Sunburn / wind / frost does them in. But plant them in gaps of an established nurse crop of hardier short lived trees they have the sheltered spot they need to grow. Then they grow up and out of the canopy and become the dominant forest trees, shading out the shorter lived / smaller first colonizers. Probably 3 generations and ~100 years with the local species, but you can cut it down to 2 and 20 years with intensive management. 

And of course browsing animals is a whole other spanner in the works. ANY browsing mammal here in NZ is considered a pest (shoot on sight). Deer and goats will eventually destroy an established forest canopy by eating any regeneration. Not sure how you deal with that if deer are your local native wildlife?

[TreefarmerNN]

As temperatures rise and drought intensifies, fires grow larger and burn more severely. What happens to the landscape next is unknown.  It's about Arizona and the millions of homeless and deceased animals who have lost their Trees of Life and their Forests of Life.  That's todays headline.   I realize most people on this forum are selling equipment to turn trees into something else. but with the thousands of members who log on.  couldn't the moderators lead a team of volunteers to help accelerate the reforesting. Not for plantations.  But for life.  Arizona and California, could really use the help. It's heart breaking and deviating here.  Hello Ontario?!  And please indict the people who  have decimated the monarch butterfly habitats!

The issue in much of the west is that a lack of management, including harvest and prescribed burning has put so much fuel in the forests that when a fire starts it expands rapidly into monster fires.  There are several places where thinned tracts adjoin unthinned tracts.  The "natural" tracts burned down to mineral soil and in some cases so hot it fused the soil.  The thinned tracts still have living trees. 
But thinning costs money unless there's an adequate market for the thinned trees.  Unfortunately, the shut down of harvest has caused many sawmills to shut down so there's no market for thinned trees which typically are small diameter trees anyway.
The awareness of the issue of just letting it all grow is slowly building but politicians and the public knowledge lag behind the science.  It will take decades to fireproof the millions of acres that are ripe for megafires.

[SwampDonkey]

As to the honeybees earlier in the discussion.



A thunderstorm took this sugar maple tree down in the yard. This was home to a colony of honeybees for 12 years. A bee keeper came over and salvaged as many as possible to add to her own hives. I did not think they had survived last winter, which was not a severe winter at all. But around early July I heard the sound of swarming bees in the yard, looked out and they were at the 'bee' tree. Bee keepers told me that I have had better luck with keeping bees alive than most keepers.  And I didn't lift a finger, other than clean up the fallen tree branch for firewood. :D  My grandfather talked of honeybees in old rotten elm logs along the river, which was common to see in his day, which was probably 1920's-1940's era, before hydro dams in the area.

[EWilson99]

Sometimes the site selects the forest that is best suited. Also, what grows now, and what may grow in the future, with more shade and shelter is different.

At least locally you simply cannot plant a "mature forest" mix in open ground. The "mature forest" species are the ones that need the shelter of a younger forest (or an existing forest) to grow. If you go out and plant rimu and tawa in open ground, they shrivel up and die. Sunburn / wind / frost does them in. But plant them in gaps of an established nurse crop of hardier short lived trees they have the sheltered spot they need to grow. Then they grow up and out of the canopy and become the dominant forest trees, shading out the shorter lived / smaller first colonizers. Probably 3 generations and ~100 years with the local species, but you can cut it down to 2 and 20 years with intensive management.

And of course browsing animals is a whole other spanner in the works. ANY browsing mammal here in NZ is considered a pest (shoot on sight). Deer and goats will eventually destroy an established forest canopy by eating any regeneration. Not sure how you deal with that if deer are your local native wildlife?

I am aware that cedars and pines are usually the "junior species" after which hardwoods like maples and oaks can grow. But yea, there was at least some hope that with the original format, that we could get at least some form of variety early on. Depending on how it progresses in future years we may decide to just let the trees outgrow all of the old hay and hogweed

unfortunately due to the forum's limitations, I cannot include a higher detailed image. However the picture that I've attached here should show at least a few green trees popping out of the field. The bigger trees as those that delimit the edge of the property

I'm taking my PAL and RPAL next month, but with that being said neither myself or my dad hunts. Quite frankly, I don't think that my parents would be comfortable if myself or someone else shot a gun on their property, and they'd prefer a different approach.

[beenthere]

Ewilson99
Give it a 100 years or so, and it will develop into a forest (or brush field) that can be thinned to release the trees you (or someone) want(s).

Or plant and protect those trees that you want to see sooner.
I established a northern red oak forest 26 years ago that desperately now needs much more release from the Norway spruce and thinning of the red oak.

[EWilson99]

Ewilson99
Give it a 100 years or so, and it will develop into a forest (or brush field) that can be thinned to release the trees you (or someone) want(s).

Or plant and protect those trees that you want to see sooner.
I established a northern red oak forest 26 years ago that desperately now needs much more release from the Norway spruce and thinning of the red oak.

ooh nice! Do you have to trim underneath the trees every year? Or do you find that the red oak does well as killing off the grass and other plants underneath?

[SwampDonkey]

I don't know about red oak, but an overstory of balsam fir with a crown closure will ensure their is nothing growing under it. I have been cutting in mine to get other stuff to grow. A deer or a moose would starve to death in most of my woods. They get browse by going to the edges in blow downs or open meadows of wetter land.

[Ianab]

Do you have to trim underneath the trees every year? Or do you find that the red oak does well as killing off the grass and other plants underneath?

Once you have that sort of crown density, very little light reaches the ground once the trees leaf out. Only really shade tolerant stuff, that's usually no problem. Unless it's some sort of creeper that will grow up and smother whole trees. But you can take care of those with a hand saw and some paint on death applied to the stump.

[Treefarm1]

My parents own a farm here in Eastern Ontario, and they've decided to reforest a small 0.7 hectare (1.7 acres) piece of their property. The trees are being planted by the local Raisin River Conservation Authority, and the amount of trees goes along like this, for a total of 1400 trees:
800 White Pine
300 White Cedar
100 Red Maple
100 Bur Oak
50 Bitternut Hickory
50 Black Cherry
The composition of the trees, and their amount, were solely decided by the RRCA, and my parents had no control over the decision. What worries me is the lack of space that there will be in-between the trees once they're planted, and what effect it'll have in 4-5 years time. My parents calculated that there should be about 4-6 feet between each seedling, but I've heard that some of these trees actually require more space. Does this mean that there's a chance of most of the trees (50%) not reaching maturity? If some of the seedlings die, would it help other nearby trees when it comes to space?

Any help is very much appreciated

I'm a retired forester in Wisconsin. The mix of trees looks like some of the plantings done under a federal program such as the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). The number of trees totaling 1400 works out to roughly 9' x6' spacing. It's best to have a wider space between tree rows to allow for maintenance and future management, such as grass control or thinning at some point. If you will be hand planting your trees you could plant 4 evergreens and then a hardwood to evenly distribute the hardwoods. If machine planting you could mix the hardwoods in occasionally as you are planting the evergreens, what we called a "bucket mix" to try to get the hardwoods scattered throughout. I would ask your Conservation Authority for clarification of the planting plan, or your local service forester for guidance, so it gets done the way it should. You should have plans for site preparation and follow-up weed control until the trees are established, especially if you have heavy soil. 

[beenthere]

I planted Northern red oak between Norway spruce year '98 in rows about 10-12' apart. Within the rows, distance between trees about 6-8'. 
The spruce grew faster in height than the oak, and I should have started removing the spruce earlier than I did. Would have been much easier than waiting for them to be so tall and large in diameter, but I'm taking the 5 acres as is. Many spruce have been removed. Now the red oak need some thinning. 

[SwampDonkey]

Surprised the spruce out grew the oak in height. Up here the hardwoods out grow the softwoods in height, especially red oak, birch and maple. I get 2 or 3 feet, sometimes 4 feet on maple, yellow birch and oak out in the open. Maybe 12-18" on spruce. My acre of yellow birch in an old orchard are twice as tall as white spruce planted in open grass. Both 24 years old now, the birch have been making seed for 4 years. Perhaps the height difference it's due to compaction. Red oak is deep rooted, white spruce roots grow just under the sod and soon come to the surface. White spruce is a terrible lawn tree because of them roots on top. Blue spruce don't seem to do that.

[beenthere]

Treefarm1
You may know the Forester I worked with, Steve Holaday before he retired. Good man.