Questions for the Forester

[Dogwood Heart]

I am meeting with a Virginia State Forester later this month and would like to have some questions on hand to ask about timber management. My New Lt40 should be in this week and I would like to manage the family farm myself with no commercial timber harvest. 50 Acres of mixed oak, maple, popular, pine, and a few others in smaller numbers.  The age goes from ten to 180 years old. I cut down a 24" dbh WO that was 175 years old and a 16" dbh turpentine pine that was 80 years old in the same stand.  I intend to manage for forest health and for the future of the woodlot.  What questions and thoughts should I keep in mind during the timber cruise? Thanks

[PoginyHill]

In addition to "forest health" (maybe a bit vague), what objectives do you have? Income? Age or species diversity? Wildlife?
How many stands would he identify within your lot?
Do you intend to have any commercial treatment for the life of the plan (normally 10 years before it's re-evaluated).
Do you want treatment recommendations limited to what you can do personally? If so, what limitations do you have? Volume removed annually? What to do with material of no value (chipping, cut up and leave on the floor, leave standing?) Will you harvest firewood? Limitation related to equipment you have? Any hard to access areas? If so, does how does that change treatment recommendations?
Will he lay out access roads?

Others will have much more input, I'm sure. Glad you are seeking professional management!

[Ron Scott]

Be sure that the Forester knows what your future management objectives are for the property. Review the Soil Survey for the property. 

[Dogwood Heart]

I have no desire for income off the farm woodlot. I have a line of people lining up to give me logs, and good ones at that. The timber I harvest will be for personal projects such as barns, my furniture, and future house.  Firewood is harvested from the blowdowns and standing dead/dying. I see about 3 different stands based on age and mix. I am 23 years old and have all the needed Iron to harvest and manage.  I pulled the soil reports already for the pastures and will pull the ones for the timber. Access is simple with only about 4 acres making a 3pt winch appealing. I want quality timber with wildlife in it if that makes sense.  I also can't stand the look of a clear cut or a pine plantation.  Thank you for the questions now so I have time to think about them. Also the soil reports on hand is a nice point, needed them for pastures and trees are just another crop. 

[Ianab]

I want quality timber with wildlife in it if that makes sense.

Main thing in coming up with a plan is to get YOUR aims laid out. People have different wants and expectations. Wildlife / Aesthetics / $ return (short of long term) / Conservation / Hunting are all valid factors. But you sound like you have sensible expectations, and with a mixed age forest currently, you can basically keep it like that indefinitely with some careful harvesting. 

One thing to consider when harvesting is what species you hope to regrow. Some trees only regenerate in a fairly open setting, while others prefer the shelter and partial shade of surrounding trees. Selectively harvesting a single tree may not open up a large enough clearing for the first group to regenerate, but will create the right conditions for the 2nd group. There are ways to manage that by making small "clearcuts", less than an acre maybe, where the "full sun" seedlings can sprout. The clearing looks a bit ugly for the first year or 2, but then the regeneration kicks in, and it's a magnet for wildlife as well. After 10 years it looks like the newer patches you have now. 

A sensible management plan wont be "wrong", but can change the makeup of the forest over time. You have different tree species to locally, but pines for example doesn't grow well if shaded, it does better exposed to full sun. So if you do single tree harvesting you may get little pine regrowth. Still have a "good" forest and nice healthy trees, but the mix has been subtly changed over time.

[barbender]

 A lot of times people (in the past, myself included) think a well managed forest looks like a park. Nice and neat with a minimum of down trees and brush underneath. Sometimes that can be the case, but if wildlife habitat is important to you, my experience is that good wildlife habitat doesn't tend to look nice. Animals are drawn to cover like underbrush, dead falls with root balls, and anything else that keeps them from being seen. If it looks like a park they don't have anywhere to hide. 

 Just taking out dead and dying trees may not achieve the timber you are trying to grow. In fact, you are selecting for the shade tolerant species, as someone else mentioned. Species like oak need more ground opened up, as one forester told me, "if you want to grow oak you've gotta cut oak" because they aren't going to regenerate in their own shade. The jobs where they had us just thin the oak, the forester said was was coming back in really nice ironwood🤦

 I've been on a lot of jobs in hardwood where we cut what are called a "string of pearls" locally, they are small patch clear cuts with the "string" being the skid trail between them. It is one method of trying to encourage full sun requiring species, without clear cutting the whole area.

[Texas Ranger]

Be sure that the Forester knows what your future management objectives are for the property. Review the Soil Survey for the property.

The USDA Soil Survey will give you an in-depth, if not exact, view of your land.

[Ianab]

I've been on a lot of jobs in hardwood where we cut what are called a "string of pearls" locally, they are small patch clear cuts with the "string" being the skid trail between them. It is one method of trying to encourage full sun requiring species, without clear cutting the whole area.

Yeah, that's the sort of thing I was thinking of. You don't go in and clearcut everything, but you take maybe 5 x 1 acre clearings from the 50 acres. Overall it's not enough to really notice, and you still have a "forest", with a few bald patches. Come back in 10 years and do another 5. You can keep doing this indefinitely, because it would take 100 years to get around the whole forest, in which time you have mature trees in the first areas. Your Great-Grandkids can Rinse and repeat. It's not the highest cash return, but that's not your aim. You want a "healthy" managed forest with good timber and wildlife, and that sort of plan delivers. 

Local native forest is a different ecosystem. The "old growth" trees are the shade tolerant ones. You can harvest one Rimu / Totara or Tawa, and expect more to sprout up in the small light tunnel a single tree left. If you clear cut you will get completely different species, and go through maybe 3 stages of succession (and  several centuries) before you get mature original species back. You can of course short cut this with some careful management and planting, but just sticking a rimu seedling in an open field will fail every time. Plant a nurse crap of some sort, and plant the rimu in a small sheltered clearing 5 years later, and it will survive, and you will have gained 100 years. 

But none of that applies to your particular forest, that's where the locally trained forester knows the local species and how they regenerate, and how best to manage them for your particular aims. 

[JonathanPace]

Make sure the forester understands the goals you have in mind for the development of your property.