Working on a project that involves the harvest of redcedar sawtimber and the killing of the rest. Before I got there, the landowner had a verbal agreement with a logger to cut and remove the sawtimber and also kill off the smaller trees. Long story short...the logger was cutting all of the sawtimber and not holding up the other end of the bargain of killing the smaller trees. Again...before I got there...they were told to stop cutting the larger trees and to catch up on killing the smaller trees. At this point, they began 'running them over' with, presumably, their skidder...breaking most of them off at the roots and leaving a huge amount of fuel close to/on the ground. The problem lies in that the redcedar infestation was mixed in with some decent timber that is now surrounded by a lot of fuels and the felled cedars are completely shading out the ground. Now I'm left to decide between dozing the debris out from under these stands and burning it or clearcutting the stands of hardwoods and burning of the debris following the cut. The most cost-effective way is going to be the cut-and-burn, but my question to you all is...at what fire intensity does soil structure and soil carbon begin to break down? Some of these areas have 12 foot fuel depths, but a rough average I would guess to be at about 5 feet.
You need to check with your local NRCS person about the soil type in this locality to see if it would be degraded by the heat. Maybe a local State Forestry Forester could tell you.
But, I have done hundreds of site prep. prescribed burns in Virginia from the sandy coastal plain soils to the shaly, slatey, limestony mountains. Most of these were clearcuts that had been pure pine. Some were pure hardwood, some were mixed. Burning the laps and limbs to clear it for tree planting. Fuel would range from 3 to 6 foot deep uniformly across the burn. We'd also burn the slash piles around the decks, they would be pure pine well seasoned, from 10 to 20 feet tall. We'd burn drumchopped areas where the area was growing up into worthless brush. No commercial sale possible with this 2" - 8" diameter, 20 foot tall brush, so we'd drumchop it, let it cure, then burn it. Fuel would be 3 - 5 foot deep and very uniform.
We got the best survival and height growth with the replanted pine seedlings on the spots where we got the hottest burn. I think because it was nothing but pure bare dirt on these spots with large fuel loads. Could be the ash content put into the soil on those spots too.
I don't think you will have any soil problems with heat from a burn. For one thing, cured cedar will burn pretty fast. Not much heat will be held close to the ground for very long. But check with somebody knowledgeble with your soils and see if they can figure it out.
I agree with Phorester. Burning should not be a problem.
Sorry to hear from you, the logger is doing things on his own schedule.
Unconscious logger can easily spoil even the best forester’s intentions.
At once. Before anybody else will realize it.
The worst thing is this could lead to LONG recovery… :(
Besides, I cannot add anything to the above thoughts of the foresters
Thanks ya'll for the input. From what I have seen in other areas, the soils have to be much sandier than what they are here for it to matter, so you pretty much confirmed what I was thinking. I still plan on speaking to an NRCS person about it, but just wanted to throw it out there to you all first.
Anyone have any information to share about the eastern redcedar market?
Fence posts if your lucky around here.
-nate
We hired a consulting forester and did a sale on a property we own in North Arkansas a few years back. Single species sale eastern red cedar. We werent' expecting much interest but several firms showed up for the pre-bid and we got a bigger lump sum check than we were expecting. The winning bidder was a logging subcontactor for a company that made picket fences out of cedar. There were also bidders who cut for log cabin kit builders.