U.S. Forest Service

[Ron Scott]

Subject: Chequamegon old growth
 
https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2023/10/02/groups-petition-u-s-forest-service-to-stop-north-woods-logging-project/

[OntarioAl]

Folks
Welcome to forest management by the touchy feely crowd
Just setting things up for a catastrophic forest fire
Which will occur sooner or later
Cheers 
Al

[barbender]

 I read a news article about that the groups trying to hold up the harvest in the Chequamegon. It said they wanted to curtail logging of old growth and mature forests...what is that, in our northern forests? 80 year old white birch, aspen, and balsam fir is at the end of its life span, is that old growth?

 I was running processor on a MN DNR sale last winter. A county forester came out to mark an adjoining block for sale. He marked about 100 cords, and reserved about 200 in one 10 acre area. I asked him, what the idea was behind that? "That's a nice stand of old growth." Said stand was primarily Balm of Gilead, also known as Black Poplar. A very short lived tree. I had clear cut the Balmy on the adjoining block, the tops were already dead and it was on its way out. Balmy, Balsam, Birch, and a little stunted ash in there. Really stupid, IMO. This guy is about 5 years out of school, some of these new forestry graduates don't make me very hopeful.

[SwampDonkey]

If it is white pine and eastern hemlock they don't cut'n up here anyway. The pine are mostly what the last 5 loggers left and the hemlock is full of shake and no markets within reach because it pays about $60/cord,the last I saw posted in market sheets. In hardwoods they leave all the old growth because they'd have to be hand felled and 99% of them are hollow, but put out some good seed. If you want a predominant sugar maple stand to be yellow birch, just leave a few of them dominant yellow birch around and it will turn into a birch forest. Most of them will soon die from the top down within a few years.