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Norway spruce rot causes?

Started by Plankton, March 28, 2016, 08:32:12 PM

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Plankton

I'm currently logging 5 or 6 acres of Norway spruce in mass, planted in 1935 as a replacement for white pine.

It is a clearcut for pasture so everything is going regardless if quality. I have been coming across a lot of rotten trees that look fine on the outside. The stand was never thinned as far as I can tell.

What's confusing is sometimes all the codominant trees will be rotten and 50 ft away the dominant trees will be rotten and the small ones are solid. I'm guessing around 20 percent if the stand so far has been a total loss from rot.

It almost always starts on the butt end but in a few cases the trees have been solid up until the top log which is rotten.


Once I'm done with the clearcut I'm going to be thinning a seperate 2 acre stand of spruce planted the same time. My question is what is the best course of action here? Should I lowgrade, Highgrade and take out obvious culls or clearcut it. The ideal goal would be to pull some merchanatble stuff out and leave a well stocked stand to grow for future harvests. The landowners would be open to clearcutting it if I reccomended it though.

Not sure if the rot is from over stocking or age and I don't want to thin the stand and have the remaining trees all be rotten for the next harvest.

Thanks, Daniel

g_man

I'm not a forester by a long shot so this is just a comment. - I have quite a bit of fir/spruce (80%/20%) forest that has grown since 1938. Most of the trees over 60 years old have butt rot. I brown cubical fungus. They look like the picture of health until you cut them. In mine though the stunted small trees of age are worse than the larger ones which grew more vigorously. I have no Norway spruce just red and white spruce.

On mine the ones rotted up top but not in the base have damage in the upper part of the tree and I don't think it is the same as the butt rot.

I am interested to hear what they say about your situation.



 

gg

thecfarm

g_man,my fir looks like that too. For the most part now I come to a fir and I cut it down for firewood. And it's starting to rot. My Father and me cut alot of fir just like what you have. We only found about 5-6 acres that grew nice looking fir on the butt. I've had my land cut 3 times so far. I told him to cut any fir that would make it for pulp or logs. Let something else grow that will do good. I can grow some real nice looking white pine.
Model 6020-20hp Manual Thomas bandsaw,TC40A 4wd 40 hp New Holland tractor, 450 Norse Winch, Heatmor 400 OWB,YCC 1978-79

WV Sawmiller

Plankton,

    I have a small stand of Norway Spruces planted for Christmas trees about 90-95 years ago. I have cut and had a few fall over the years since I have been here but have never had the rot you describe or as shown in G Man's photos.

   Many of my spruce trees are very stunted and only 5-6 inches dbh even after all this time. None of my remaining trees are over 12-14 inches dbh even though there are a few scattered white pines that are 20-24 inches dbh that I assume were planted at or after the spruce planting. My spruces used to seed and I had new volunteers growing above/up hill from the planted stand but we either cut them for Christmas trees or my goats/hors/mule finally killed all of the small ones.
Howard Green
WM LT35HDG25(2015) , 2011 4WD F150 Ford Lariat PU, Kawasaki 650 ATV, Stihl 440 Chainsaw, homemade logging arch (w/custom built rear log dolly), JD 750 w/4' wide Bushhog brand FEL

Dad always said "You can shear a sheep a bunch of times but you can only skin him once

chep

Plankton,
  We use borax to prevent the fungus "fomes" spreading. A handheld shaker is what we use to sprinkle the stumps. Add some carpenters colored chalk to remember what stumps have been treated. On some state sales it is in the contract.

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