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Invasive Non-woody Plant Species (spreading dogbane)

Started by jayfed, July 24, 2006, 09:47:48 PM

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wisconsitom

I have heard of the Irving's empire, probably because I follow forestry happenings in New England And adjacent parts of Canada too.

Generally, what has hurt all manner of forest experimentation is the deep dump of tropical timber onto the world market by Chinese entities beginning around the year 2000.  This has tended to cut the legs off most efforts towards tree improvement, etc.  What's the point, when another giant barge-load of tropical wood, cut below-cost, is making its way to some cheapo paper mill or veneer plant somewhere in SE Asia?  It's only enthusiasts like me and the other larch research guys that even keep these sparks lit.  In other words, folks with interests in the trees themselves, not market tabulations on Xcel!

tom
Ask me about hybrid larch!

TKehl

Certainly a gamble looking at the long game with all the changes going on in the industry.  What will be worth a darn in 40-80-100 years?  Will my Black Walnut and White Oak be "highly valuable", fall out of favor in the market, or succumb to thousand cankers and wilt?  Will biomass fuel take off? 
 
I don't consider myself knowledgeable enough to really know long term.  My strategy is to have a reasonable annual return from the land (mixed pasture and timber) (livestock, fodder, firewood, and lumber from dying and thinned trees) with the hopes of periodic higher payoffs from timber sales.  Still a gamble, but shifts the odds back to where I can accept.   ;)
In the long run, you make your own luck – good, bad, or indifferent. Loretta Lynn

SwampDonkey

Just a little tidbit on the Irvings, they got a better tariff deal on the softwood lumber dispute. They've dreamed up some formula in their favor. Traditionally it was all or nothing for everyone. When you play divide and conquer very few win and a lot more lose. A game they love to play. ;)
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

wisconsitom

As far as I can tell, the best things to be doing are those you really care about and appreciate intrinsically, with or without remunerative payback.  Easy for me to say....all of my tree farm activities are outside my main income generation.  But in explaining what I am doing....or trying to do, with these hybrid larch and aspen, I really can't lose.  I'm only planting them because I like them, not for any other later goal.  Sure, I'd like to imagine these things going forward into time, perhaps creating pockets of "synthetic species", which are simply new entities on the landscape.  And true, I am working with groups seeking greater utilization of these tree types in the industry at large.  But I have no idea what will happen long-term.  If the prognosticators are correct, even my northern location may get too hot for any larch or aspen, though I don't expect to quite see that in my lifetime.  And the inclusion of Japanese larch genetics in these hybrid larch do give them greater heat tolerance.  So there's that.

If I were starting all over-just bought the piece of property-I'd be planting exactly the same mix.  The main players are that hybrid larch, red pine, white pine, and Norway spruce.  Aspen hybrids begin next week....or maybe a week or two after that!  It's snowing.

tom
Ask me about hybrid larch!

SwampDonkey

My goal is to work with native species on the sites that they do well or better than some. I have some wet land for the elm, black ash, tamarack, cedar and balsam poplar to dominate. Then the better land for everything else. I don't plan on cutting more than I need for firewood and maybe a fir log now and again. I doubt very seriously the next guy follows that plan, in fact high probability it will be flattened as soon as I'm planted in the ground. All I gotta do is look around, it says it all. :D And I'm not one to dictate what someone else is going to do with the land or tie it up in some high end land trust. No chance of that anyway because there is nothing all that special about it nor uniqueness for anyone to have that kind of interest. Well, maybe if you want a cabin in the woods and a mountain to look up at. What's that worth? :D
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

wisconsitom

All the native trees you mention are in good supply in my woods.  All my words relate only to the "plantation" portion of my property, and even there, within the plantation acreage, the ultimate goal is to allow and encourage the dispersal of the existing native tree types into that area over time.  I am often pleased to already see new tiny white-cedar recruits showing up here and there, as well as white pine volunteers.

Some day, if I'm around long enough to so direct, there will be the remnants of a pine/spruce/larch plantation, full of recruits of birch, aspen, maple, as well as more of the coniferous species themselves.  By then, we will have thinned plantation growing stock such that it will now be widely-spaced and begin to appear more as a natural woodland.  There will be additional species within that matrix.  I will have transplanted a fair number of white-cedar up into that zone of my property, which is something I've been engaged in for some time now.  To wit:  When I go to dig a young white-cedar out of somewhere in my swamp, where they are coming up too close together, etc, I just can't kill one.  Even if I go from a wet spot to a higher, well-drained location, the trees don't seem to skip a beat.  Must be among the easiest of tree types to transplant!

tom

PS...kind of an oddity, but I intend to also plant a great number of seedlings/saplings of "Canada red cherry" around the perimeter of my site, in groves and bunches.  Why?  Because I ultimately want purple brush around my site, and to offer massive bird food, etc.  There are places right here in town where I've seen a suckering grove of CRC set against a backdrop of say, large, old Norway spruce.  The effect is marvelous.  I plan to periodically take the little saw and coppice the groves...to keep it as brush, not individual trees.  I have sourced very affordable transplants of this item, but because there is a $200 minimum order...and because that would amount to far more plants than I will have time to install this particular spring....I told the lady that I'd be getting back to her in 2 years-once I'm retired-and go ahead and get the hundreds and hundreds of plants that such an order would amount to!  Pockets of purple puckerbrush around the edges.  Wait until fall, when the larch are giant golden cones!

tom
Ask me about hybrid larch!

SwampDonkey

Yes cedar is easy to move, shallow and like a mat, no tap root. :)

One shrub that is in no small numbers around here is red berried elder. Any dozing of mud near roads is prime habitat. And old Christmas tree plantations. Lots of your purple woody sticks to look at. :D





I've been trying to get the wild Canada plum going again around here. A lot of it was torn up over the years. It gets black knot bad, but WD40 kills black knot. I found a small grove with trees as big as apple trees. Most places around they are like alders with thorns. :D



Jelly, precious stuff and closely guarded. :D

"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

wisconsitom

Yes, no Prunus species is going to escape black knot.  Never heard of the WD40 technique!  My CRC's will be periodically mowed down via chainsaw to keep them brush, not trees.  This may limit black knot development to a degree, but not completely, of course.  Still, I won't be worried about that.  Just mow 'em down when things get bad.....kill off (or let die on own) if things get bad enough...it isn't going to matter by then when I've got thousands of pine,spruce, larch and cedar to occupy my time and energy!  Utterly un-managed plantings of suckering CRC's can be seen around this town, doing just fine, year after year.  If I get something similar, I'll be satisfied.

CRC does not like wet feet.  The entire zone where I would be installing this chokecherry variant is upland and moist but well-drained.

tom
Ask me about hybrid larch!

SwampDonkey

Is your CRC, pin cherry? The leaves turn scarlet on them. They don't get black knot much here, but the black cherry do.

Old photo here, where the scarlet red pin cherry are there, I have a grove of yellow birch now. Be a nice mix with those larch trees in fall. ;D

"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

wisconsitom

"Canada Red Cherry" is a cultivar of chokecherry.  Sometimes also known as "Schubert". I like the pin cherry puckerbrush too.  Your y. birch grove is a great thing..  That's the tree I will most likely be interplanting into conifer plantation area as thinning commences in years ahead.  I'll get sugar maple and some others without trying.

tom
Ask me about hybrid larch!

SwampDonkey

Lots of choke cherry here, but they turn yellow like black cherry leaves. Never seen any go red in the wild here. :)
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

wisconsitom

Swamp, have you seen "Canada red cherry" used in landscaping?  It will typically be trained into singe-stem tree form, and is by far the most purple entity in the summer landscape.  It is a common, although not "trendy" landscape plant around here.  I used to have two in the backyard that were trained as trees.  They eventually succumbed to black knot and gummosis, but not before serving well in their locations for roughly 30 years.

So it's not fall color-although that is good too-but all-summer-long purple color that we get from this plant.  I'd guess you've got CRC as a landscape plant in NB areas.  Very cold-hardy cultivar, originally sourced (I believe) from a nursery row in N. Dakota somewhere.

I can use it for my upland border areas.  It's not a plant of soggy soils.

tom
Ask me about hybrid larch!

SwampDonkey

Well, when I make a trip to Scott's nursery I can keep an eye out for it. If anyone is supplying it around here it would be them. Our growing zones (Plant Hardiness) are different than what you use, but here is zone 4b. Extreme minimim of -30C (-35 F). In comparison, down on the southwestern tip of Nova Scotia is zone 6b in Yarmouth area of -20C (-29F).

Right now I am into growing black elder. I also have some grape I need to move location with. Last year was the first year the grapes never go ruined by disease. I have to get them off the ground though. I've had them for 30 years, but not enough aeration to the vines and fruit and never tended them much. I have to move 3 or 4 rhubarb buds to this spring, just as soon as I see life. These are over 100 year old plants. Also need to fill in some raspberry I started in my new patch. Was awfully dry last summer and didn't get many shoots off those transplants.

Summer, just a lot of darn work on top of paying work. :D

When father (an old spud farmer for 45 years) was asked if he wanted to volunteer some. He was retired then. He said he volunteered all his life, not going to any more. Took up golfing, never held a golf club up until then. :D
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

wisconsitom

Your location and that of my tree farm are in essentially the same climatic zone.

tom
Ask me about hybrid larch!

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