Anybody seen a white pine with this many leaders before?

[Klicker]

Hemlokking  What part of Nova Scotia are you in.

[SwampDonkey]

I have 3 wet runs that I let nature deal with. I put the effort where the biggest bang for the effort counts, so that is probably the other 7 acres in wet land.

Do you have any pictures of this wetland area you speak of SD?

Here a 2-1/2 beaver flood area, not seeing all of it there because it is a long narrow run. This is the day I was headed cross to thin those fir out. The fir patch is part of a 3 acre section along the line. One end of it next to the Maine border is aspen mostly, I never thinned those the beavers have been taking them. The wetland was a cedar thicket before the beavers moved in and the creek was just barely a creek. When the woods was mature the creek was not above ground at all. Moving under the cedar roots. ;D


Thinned, some white spruce on the perimeter. ;D Back in 2008. The brush in there now is totally soil.



On the edge, where all those sedge are. Beyond was good ground where the fir and spruce are mixed with maple. That's all thinned over in there and now those fir are 30 feet tall or more. Thinned 2007. My wet places have sedge and cattails, with red maple, elm, willow and some cedars, but not thick.



Not the exact spot, but similar. This photo is probably 5 years old, so bigger trees still. ;D



My cedar I'm waiting on. The photo is 8 years old.



And here was an area that needed planting, it has cedar slash and wasn't producing much. So now it is spruce. ;D



8 years later. Plus 8 years since the photo. :D



Tending your little piece of Earth

[HemlockKing]

Thanks for sharing those SwampDonkey, you seem to have a spot in your heart for fir no? :D I keep a good fir when I find one but will always favor a spruce or pine since they are so short lived. The area of fir I thinned out was just like your first photo, they were starting to starve off, some couldn't be saved, but I got a good lot of fir now I just need to wait for them to grow  ;D  That's a nice little cedar, I dont recall seeing any around here, lucky to see a hemlock, there are some more east of the county.

[HemlockKing]

Hemlokking  What part of Nova Scotia are you in.

Shelburne county

[SwampDonkey]

I like fir because they grow twice as fast as spruce, so you can turn some coin quicker. ;D Fir lives 80-90 years up here. I have very few old ones, wouldn't be a dozen. I cut the culls down for firewood. Nice splitting, lots of heat. Spruce is a bear to split, like splitting tamarack. :D

Rings



I've got plenty of spruce, probably 40,000 spaced ones. I'll be too old for them to make a difference in my wallet. The planted ones are 16-25 years old, 55 - 74 more years to go for a nice log. They to are getting a second thinning. But gotta watch when you cut'm for firewood and where you're going to stack'm. The spruce bark beetle moves in fast in the warm weather. They'll make a lot of brown powdery dust and cover your basement window trying to get out. ;D

[Jeff]

If it was my tree, I'd keep it because it is awesome.  Awesome mutant trees matter.  

[HemlockKing]

If it was my tree, I'd keep it because it is awesome.  Awesome mutant trees matter.  

Well I haven't cut it down yet but I'm going out later today and I will see how I feel when I lay eyes on it  :D I'm torn, I have lots of other old mutant pines I will never cut but this one is .....somethin else

[Jeff]

Cut the leaders all off level about 3 foot up and put a camping platform on it. Still awesome.

[Sauna freak]

I have one with at least as many.  Healed lightning scar (probably what topped it in the first place), carpenter ants, pileated woodpeckers, wood ducks, flying squirrels.  It's a regular high rise apartment for all the critters around.  One of the leaders broke off last year in a storm, and I counted 24 rings near the base.  It's a great seed source and nurse tree, keeping it shady, and moist, but not too shady and moist.  Full repopulation density of healthy seed/sapling white pines in a 200' plume downwind.  This thing keeps kicking out cones at a rate that seems higher than other healthy trees in the stand.  Last gasp seeding?  

It's a prime bedding area for my deer, and the grouse like to roost on a certain limb when there's snow in the air, so I treat it kind of like a meat locker.

[HemlockKing]

Decided to keep her  

Other pics today

 
 One of the only black cherrys I have not full of black knot disease



 Regenerating balsam and some pine in the back I thinned this last fall

[SwampDonkey]

Your thinning looks good. That cherry is like most up here, not straight. :D But I have a few in the back yard I save. I want to open them growths up on a lathe or saw and see if there is treasure buried inside. ;D I cut one a few years ago, 54 cm and made this.





https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=47604.0

[HemlockKing]

Your thinning looks good. That cherry is like most up here, not straight. :D But I have a few in the back yard I save. I want to open them growths up on a lathe or saw and see if there is treasure buried inside. ;D I cut one a few years ago, 54 cm and made this.





https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=47604.0

That looks good SD, good craftsmanship. I have lots of smaller ones but they are always junk. This one pictured is the only one worthy of a photo  :D

[SwampDonkey]

About your pine, there was a huge one up these way with 3 or 4 leaders starting about 6' up. They had to move the 4-lane around that pine. ;) I knew the old guy who owned it, he was a woodsman and farmer. He was a great old timer. Not mentioned in the article below.

The Big Tree, Forestry in New Brunswick, and the Value of Nature ? NiCHE

[barbender]

I would probably keep it too. It has a lot of value as a seed tree, the seeds can disperse a long ways off a tall tree like that.
 Many woods you hike around here will have old multiple leader white pine like that, they were old growth when the first logging took place around 1900. The loggers just went around them. One spot I take the family fishing down on the Mississippi River, there is a monster that must be nearly 5' dbh, which forks to 2 stems about 7-8' up. The wife and kids get sick of hearing me say, "that sure is a big white pine" every time we drive by it😁 Most of those trees have had 2 or 3 harvests take place underneath them. I don't cut them down, but if one dies and falls over I certainly try to make use of it. I swear you can saw up the ugliest crooked piece of 4" knot laden white pine, and it will still behave itself🤷🏽‍♂️

[Ianab]

Here's a pretty ugly old pine that's just around the corner from home. I think it has 5 leaders remaining, one blew out in a storm a few years back. Hard to show a scale, but the limbs / leaders would be 2-3 ft dia.



 

[HemlockKing]

Here's a pretty ugly old pine that's just around the corner from home. I think it has 5 leaders remaining, one blew out in a storm a few years back. Hard to show a scale, but the limbs / leaders would be 2-3 ft dia.

We call it ugly but the tree is otherwise healthy and doing its job  ;D Probably a testament to the resiliency of pine 

[Ianab]

Pine aren't native to NZ, and can become an invasive species if they spread out of the plantations. 

So we call em Ugly.   :D

[tawilson]

Pretty sure this was just one little pine when I bought this place in 1993. Now it's got it's own little forest and still spreading.  I used to brushhog that area around it but haven't in 5 years or so or it probably would have spread even more.

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[HemlockKing]

Pretty sure this was just one little pine when I bought this place in 1993. Now it's got it's own little forest and still spreading.  I used to brushhog that area around it but haven't in 5 years or so or it probably would have spread even more.

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I say go under and limb the dead branches and have a nice shade tree ;D

[SwampDonkey]

Never saw a straight Scots pine. :D Them things was brought over here before people paid a lot of attention to genetics. Probably picked seed off a tree growing on a rocky bluff that had developed a way to withstand high winds. The weevils and sawflies love'm to. :D

[HemlockKing]

 

 Swamp donkey, I understand you appreciate a good balsam stand, here is a stand that arised after Juan and is 15-20 yr old, I got in and thinned them last summer just in time.

[HemlockKing]

 

 

[SwampDonkey]

Look'n good.  Does NS help landowners with some $$ for their labour?

New Brunswick's silviculture program on woodlots.