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Good quality trees or poor quality trees?

Started by Dobie, October 28, 2015, 11:56:18 AM

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WildlandFirefighter912

You need a good stewardship plan. Talk with your State forester and see if they can work one up for you.

The timber business is like anything else..you win sometimes...and sometimes you lose. Supply and demand.

Main thing I'm seeing is the decline of forest. Everyone is converting to agriculture fields or real estate.


I'm a tree man. I"m for protecting this renewalable resource and it's animals. If i make money for logging. Good. If i lose out some..oh well.

SwampDonkey

Up our way we have lots of trees but a lot of people don't let them mature anymore. 80 years was suppose to be the rotation age. Well that hasn't been followed for nearly 20 years once the mature timber got more scarce.
"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)))

WildlandFirefighter912

Quote from: SwampDonkey on March 22, 2016, 03:11:58 PM
Up our way we have lots of trees but a lot of people don't let them mature anymore. 80 years was suppose to be the rotation age. Well that hasn't been followed for nearly 20 years once the mature timber got more scarce.

People want money is the main reason. Not to mention a study showing that older timber doesnt clean the air as quickly as younger timber.. supposedly.

SwampDonkey

Yeah but an 80 year old red spruce is far from extreme age for a species that lives over 400 years. And a 30 year old balsam fir has 50-60 years of life left.  ;)

Money is definitely at the top of the list around here. I think that tends to be on most people's mind. ;)
"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)))

Dobie

Quote from: SwampDonkey on March 22, 2016, 04:02:09 PM
........
Money is definitely at the top of the list around here. I think that tends to be on most people's mind. ;)


I'm not sure if I gave off that impression but here's some examples to show what we're doing.


People can judge for themselves if we're treating the woods right or not.


Mature cherry ready for harvest.




Getting rid of the clumpy maple in the middle to let the cherry in front grow.





Getting rid of the soft maple with the clump top to let the better maple on the right grow.




Soft maple with crooked tops that will never turn into high quality trees.



Mature good quality maple ready to be harvested.




Nice maple being marked so the other maples around have more room to grow.


24" cherry that has reached it's maximum potential.





cull tree


Crooked maple



good quality maple being taken for spacing




Almost all black birch taken.  Low dollar tree




poor quality mature maple



Hard to see the blue mark on the middle tree but you get the idea of what we were taking and what we were leaving.




Nice but multi stemmed cheery.  Left side was starting to develop rot.



Clumpy maples being thinned.



Taking the middle soft maple and leaving the cherry on both sides.




WildlandFirefighter912

Well, in our pine platations we thin out the undesirable pines...ones with cankers, bows, crooks, etc. Leave the best for saw timber, piling, and poles.

So you can do the same with your hardwoods.

SwampDonkey

Folks in my area Dobie, not directed at you. All you have to do is go for a drive.  I've thinned my ground as a first step to space the trees as it has been clear cut and fill planted after. The next steps is to thin the lesser quality over time. The forest is young so I have a long time. I have been pruning some trees for clear logs as the mood hits. These will not be sold as the mills don't offer any premium on clear wood in these parts.  I'm also concentrating on promoting hard maple, birch, ash. When the borer arrives that may be the end for them, maybe not if I'm diversified enough. Wishful thinking.  ;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)))

Ron Wenrich

With the talk of a slump in the cherry market, are you considering holding the sale off the market until conditions improve?  I don't agree that all black birch is a low dollar tree.  We sold 8/4 to a butcher block counter top company as well as grade 4/4 birch.  Its worth more than the hemlock that is being left.  Its all in the marketing.
Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

Dobie

Quote from: Ron Wenrich on March 23, 2016, 06:06:50 AM
With the talk of a slump in the cherry market, are you considering holding the sale off the market until conditions improve?  I don't agree that all black birch is a low dollar tree.  We sold 8/4 to a butcher block counter top company as well as grade 4/4 birch.  Its worth more than the hemlock that is being left.  Its all in the marketing.



We already had our sale several weeks ago and we were extremely pleased with the results.   6 of the 8 bids were above our estimate and the final high bid was 30% higher than our projection.   



We only marked 49 cherry trees for this sale since the cherry market is down but from what I understand, high grade cherry is still doing good.  #1's on down are in the dumps.  We have a 25-30 acre stand of younger pole cherry on the northern section we'd really like to thin out but it's lower grade so we left it alone.


As for black birch, selling on the stump up here doesn't bring very much so we're taking all the birch we can to keep them from reseeding after this first cut and give better spacing to more desirable species.  The one thing about selling standing timber is you never know the value bidders placed on each species so it's pretty much guesswork. 

enigmaT120

Quote from: SwampDonkey on March 22, 2016, 03:11:58 PM
Up our way we have lots of trees but a lot of people don't let them mature anymore. 80 years was suppose to be the rotation age. Well that hasn't been followed for nearly 20 years once the mature timber got more scarce.

That's how most of the industrial timberlands around here are being managed.  Douglas fir, and it gets clearcut after about 40 - 45 years.  Most of the mills aren't set up for trees bigger than 40" diameter anyway, and they like smaller trees fine. 
Ed Miller
Falls City, Or

SwampDonkey

There's not any native 80 year old trees that our local mills can't saw. They don't grow that fast around here. Takes 60 years to get an 8-9" hard maple when managed. More like 80-90 when not thinned and released. Now a 250 year old dominant tree that wasn't suppressed is another story. There's not much money to split among the players harvesting small low grade wood. Keep the serfs poor I guess. ;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)))

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