Ivan Cleanup Help Needed

[bushhog]

I have been lurking around here for awhile and have obtained alot of knowledge as a result - Thanks to all.

I need your suggestions/help now.  I have 75 acres in western NC that got hit pretty hard by Ivan recently.  Most of the damage was on old standing locust trees on unlevel ground.  I was in the process of clearing out russina olive and privet and now have the added mees of downed and hung up locust trees to contend with.

I have a NH TN75 MFWD tractor with FEL, saws, and chains but due to the terrain in some places it is very unstable.  I am considering purchasing a Farmi winch to drag logs out, but am wondering if I shouldn't just hire a dozer or skidder to do this job.  Locust doesn't seem to have much of a market either but I am cutting in 7', 8' and 16' lengths to use a s fence post, split rails, and pole barn poles possibly.  Also lost a large walnut (16-18" dia) and wild cherry tree (20-24" dia)

I want to eventually replant area in white pine and poplar as I have already had NC forest service draw up a mgmt plan for me, but need to get rid of my current mess without creating a worser erosion problem.

I stumbled across a Meri-Crusher attachement as well that looks promising, but way too expensive.

I worked all last weekend just opening my roads back up and figured there has to be a better, more efficient way to deal with this mess.

Any ideas from you pros on the best way to deal with this situation?  Any experience with the farmi winch or meri-crusher?

Thanks in advance for any and all info for a newbie

[L. Wakefield]

   I'm not much help but I will ask one question- a previous post (long ago..) had said that trees downed by tornadoes frequently got their wood fiubres disrupted by the twisting motion that tore out the tree. I am wondering if hussicane damage does the same. i saw one tree that was obviously destined to be a sawlog in Mobile- it was a hunkin big thing and I don't blame anyone for wanting to saw it. Can you post if you try sawing some out, either way?  lw

[Tom]

LW
Any tree that has been violently ripped apart or uprooted may have damage to the bole.  Tornadoes are particularly damaging because of the twisting motion.  They just wring the tree to shreds.

Even buldozers and backhoes are damaging.  Developers like to cut the roots and push the tree so that the weight of the tree will dislodge the roots.  In the process, they drive dirt into the bark, stab the tree to the heart with the teeth on the bucket or cut fibres with the sharp edge on the bulldozer bucket.

Most hurricant trees felled from stright-line wind are OK, especially if the root ball is pulled up.  If the tree is snapped off then there will be damage around the break but it shouldn't affect the rest of the log.

Each log must treated separately. :D

bushhog,

Welcome to the forum.

Think firewood.   The rising cost of fuel is going to make firewood worth its weight in gold this winter and maybe next too.   You need to be able to dry it sufficiantly but splitting and putting in a drying shed or building a firewood kiln might put it on the market this year.  

Check out the Drying topic on the forum.  Maybe one of those guys will have a suggestion.

[customsawyer]

you might be able to talk to a fence company. if the trees you are talking about is black locust it makes great fence post and such since the wood dosen't rot if you get it milled you can build some nice stuff out of the lumber and it will most likely last longer than you.

[rebocardo]

> am wondering if I shouldn't just hire a dozer or skidder to do this job.  

I like to do things myself and 70 acres is not that large. I tend to look at things on my own property as why pay if I can do it myself. All the money you make without paying someone is .. all YOUR money.

Plus, people rarely treat your property like their own, such as choosing to "nick" a 20" tree with a dozer instead of running over a small 4" sapling instead. Multiple that 12x over. By the time they are through, every decent tree is now a firewood tree. Because in in 3-4 years once the southern bugs and vines finish off a damaged tree, that is all that remains, is firewood.

How I look at it.

My woods in Maine were badly damaged by an ice storm about 2000. I was a bit upset knowing all this scrub birch and oak was going to rot before I got it out and how all this valuable wood was going to waste.

Then I started thinking long term. This little bit of forest and woods had weathered things long before me and will long after me. Those hundreds maybe thousands of trees 4"-16" trees toppled over will just be survived by trees that will grow in their place and start all over again.

The truly worthy trees, the majority, will just survive and grow even bigger, even if I am not around for it. Even if the current trees down seem like a waste. I am sure the oak and birch down on my property will be replaced by more birch and oak.

Just as if your property is loaded with black locust, most likely it will regrow without you doing anything, even if you do not live to see it.

What I would do is keep on keeping on and remove the vines and harvest as much locust as I could from the biggest and best downed trees. Go about planting your new trees just as you were.

I would go after the valuable trees on the floor first and worry about hangers later. I do not think hung dead black locust trees are going to turn into mush anytime soon.

imo, Black locust sitting for a while is not going to be a total loss or bug ridden like pine would be. Even after 2-3 years it will still be good for firewood at least.

You have a tractor, I have to assume you have a 4x4. If you built the thing up and put 35s and a hydraulic winch on it you should be able to go places (angles) the tractor could not and
easily winch/skid logs with 3/8 cable from just about any place you can imagine. You could use it to winch logs to the tractor and use the tractor to skid it the rest of the way to take it easy on the truck.

A well built 4x4 is going to be much less $ then a week of a dozer rental.

Of course a dozer can run over 4 inch trees and traverse swamp/clay areas that would stick a truck. Then again, I would not want to foot the bill for a rolled or stuck dozer, even a small Cat or Hough. At 20-30 tons its still a lot of machine and it can cause a lot of damage in small woods. For only 70 acres of woods I can't see the damage and expense of a dozer or skidder being worth it.

I know from driving through tracks, they do a lot of damage compared to any 4x4 and once they dig a 2 foot trench with thier tracks it makes it impossible to cross with a 4x4 or tractor. All you can do is follow them and it breds mosquitos.

> Locust doesn't seem to have much of a market either

At least around here for lumber. Up north I think it would be much better$ received if you turned it into kiln dried boards.

The smaller northern lumber yards (try Lynn Lumber in Lynn MA or a place in Beverly MA who's name escapes me) that cater to the niche lumber "blue blood" construction markets where people pay top dollar for the non-Home Depot wood. Just because itis different. It is where I bought Purple Heart for my house. First time I ever heard of mahogany -> pallets <- was there!  

 There is a niche market for it in boating for the bottom 30 foot log. If you have some really nice old trees.Believe it or not they just use the bottom part of the trunk for keels with the naturaI curve. Or you could take this in the same vein as urban Walnut for $20K a tree. You have to have the buyer.

I was looking through the Atlanta Advertiser and saw a guy selling air dried oak for $0.50 a foot. I did not bother to waste his time to check out the quality.  But, I imagine with that kind of surplus wood in the area that cheap, it does not make sense to trailer it from NC to Atlanta GA to sell it.

> Any ideas from you pros on the best way to deal
> with this situation?

I am not a pro!

But, I would turn as much of it as I could to lumber on site with my mill. I would stick with 8/4 or larger since you have so much to do. I would turn everything else to firewood on site, while cutting, and sell the firewood for $50 a cord green locally or get enough done for someone to come get a trailer load at a time and haul it north for a bit more.

I do not see any real profit trailing wood from NC to Atlanta GA just to sell. I dont know about your truck, mine gets 8 mpg. You have to have some pretty nice wood to recoup that gas bill both ways. You are not doing it with cord wood or wood worth $0.25 a foot green. It you have a kiln and a truck/trailer that can haul 12k then that is different.  

$0.02

[Buzz-sawyer]

Hi there
Black locust needs to dry for at least a year before it can be converted to a post or pole....so if they are standing dead or up off the ground a bit....you are ahead of the game....I would say If I was doing it I would want ity done MY way...as stated a guy hired with a dozer will tear up stuff w/o even trying, its the nature of the beast....a winch could be a really neat thing to have and could pay off for..particularly if you get enjoyument from this kind of thing....
Buzz

[etat]

That's the first time I've ever heard of waiting a year to make a fence post out of a black locus.  I'm sure that might be better but I've got a bunch of em sunk in the ground on my place that were cut and put in the groung lots quicker than that when I was building my fence.  I  used steel posts but used locus and cedar, mostly fresh cut,  to make the corner posts and braces.  Also I used double post and braces every hundred feet give or take.  it took me almost two years off and on to fence this place, 6 strand bobwire.  I don't care if I don't ever have to build a fence again. ???  

The longer they sit the harder they are to drive a staple in.

Around here locus are funny.  They'll get  big and blow over or the tree will start rotting.  If they fall over and lay on the ground they'll rot through in a few years.  If you cut em up into fence posts and stack em up they'll pracically never rot except the bark and the sap wood will eventually rot off.  Also you can cut em up and sink em in the ground and they'll last for years and years.  I don't know why they rot through so quick when the whole tree is laying on the ground.  

I never took time to strip the bark off of em when using for fence posts, I usually let nature take care of that. After a few years you ocassionally have to redrive the staple where the bark has rotted off out from under it.

[SwampDonkey]

I don't know much about locust at all, in fact only enough to id it, if I see it. But, I'de think it has some extractives in the wood to thwart fungi activity. So I bet they make some dang nice posts for fencing. We always used white cedar up here and the old line fences where lined with cedar rails. But, they were cut up over the years for kindling wood. Dang nice kindling wood at that.  

[rebocardo]

Yea, I have noticed since moving here to GA people like to take a fence post, dip it in tar, and stick it in the ground. Seems to last long enough.

[bushhog]

Thank you Gentlemen for your advice.  Sorry for the response time, but I haven't had the time to visit too much lately.

I did purchase a Farmi 501 and a snatch block to take on this project myself.  It's been too dang wet to get in there, so I have been cleaning up some of the mess (russian olive, oriental bittersweet, multi flora rose) surrounding the downed logs so that when I do have a chance I can hopefully make some progress.    Those dang russian olive trees are tough! 

I have also talked to a local sawyer about bringing a portable sawmill up on my property to turn the good stuff into lumber.

Great advice and thank you all again - I appreciate it!