What are you cutting 2025?

[ehp]

Hog, foresters love marking trees against the fields here , I tell them unless its a very good tree or if I can push the tree back into the bush it's not being cut cause farmers donot want any junk of any kind in their field, drop a 3 or 4 ft in diameter red or black oak into a field and see how much of a mess you got to clean up cause the ground needs to be just as clean before the tree was cut

[newoodguy78]

Hogdaddy do you have access to a York rake? I use mine for cleaning up when cutting along hedgerows. Most people don't realize how much of a mess dropping a tree in a field makes until it all has to be cleaned up. 
Being a farmer myself I understand not wanting trash in the field it does create issues. 

[beenthere]

I like the York rake with the leveling/depth wheels for raking up logging top debris and fallen sticks.

[Hogdaddy]

Hog, foresters love marking trees against the fields here , I tell them unless its a very good tree or if I can push the tree back into the bush it's not being cut cause farmers donot want any junk of any kind in their field, drop a 3 or 4 ft in diameter red or black oak into a field and see how much of a mess you got to clean up cause the ground needs to be just as clean before the tree was cut

Yeah, as good as this timber is, (as you said, 3 or 4 feet oak) I've really hadn't made the money that I should. I will hesitate the next time I look at a boundary like this. First pull all the lap in with skidder, then take small dozer to skim the ground for the biggest of the small stuff, then pick up sticks with our hands. I do have some young men that will help with the sticks, but still very time consuming. Probably 10 to 15% of the trees are in this situation.   

[barbender]

Like anything, you have to be able to bid it into the price of the timber, or walk away from it. 

Do you want top dollar for your timber, Farmer Brown, or do you want all of your fields restored to 100% pre-sale condition because you don't get both. 

One benefit we have here, at least on winter sales, is that when we have to use the fields we can plow the snow off afterwards. The snow does a great job of carrying all of the debris off. 

[ehp]

thing is here your never going to be allowed to put a dozer on a field here , farmer wants the ground as good or better than when you came ,they want zero marks in the field so you end up throwing any pieces of a tree off the field by hard, a lot of fields here are taken better care of than most people lawns and farmers take pride in how the fields and bush look . You have to way out everything on what your cost is , if I see a 4 ft diameter red oak right against the field , first off its going to be lots of limbs, next it most times will be a double or triple stem upper part of the tree and lean hard towards the field for the sun shine so its going to be a lower grade tree , to crocked to make 18ft or longer timber logs so low value on the tree . So for a 1 man army like myself I'm looking at at least an hour or longer to clean a big tree in field up an it cost me money to cut that tree . Like I said , if I can shovel the tree to fall in the bush I will cut it but if its going in the field it better be worth coin

[SwampDonkey]

I can remember 40 years ago a logger thought he was going to put his road across dad's potato field (winter time), but it was going across where dad said it will cross. The guy had no legal right of way across that field to that piece of land he was accessing. The only legal way was to build a road down the crown reserve corridor which was all woods. So he was lucky he could even cross that field. Then in the end it was a rutted up and compacted hard mess about 3 times as wide by spring time that took several passes with equipment to bring it back. No wood or brush on it. The same kind of stuff would go on during hunting season only they would make their road on top of potatoes and no permission. It had gotten so bad that DNR now says anyone hunting needs a permit from the farmer. You no longer have to post Ag land here. Includes Christmas tree farms, orchards and reforestation tree plantations.

https://www2.gnb.ca/content/dam/gnb/Departments/nr-rn/pdf/en/Wildlife/HuntTrap.pdf

pages 8-9

[customsawyer]

I will add a little bit to the trees coming from the edge of a field. They have been growing towards the field all their lives. This gives them a little more sunshine and they don't have any competition on that side. Well this will put a lot of stress in the logs. It will add to the number of knots on that side of the log.They will almost always have a off center pith, as it will put on larger growth rings on the field side of the log. So not only are the logs harder on y'all harvesting them, but they make very poor lumber. Most times they are best for firewood.

[thecfarm]

Lots of firewood in them limbs!!!!
Seem like they grow about 40 feet long reaching for the sun. 
Then the limbs hang down and try to reach the ground. 

[cutterboy]

Most times they are best for firewood.

That is the truth.
Field edge ash tree with off center pith. Good firewood...poor lumber.

[Resonator]

One exception would be where a "new" field was created in the last few years, as in the food plot clear cut I did. The trees felled around the edge would have previously grown in a woods, and not facing the direct sunlight.

One point for farmers to consider when logging is going on, is by removing the trees along a field edge it actually may be beneficial to them in the long run. I've seen where farmers will want them cut to allow more sunlight on cropland, and thereby increase their crop yield.

[Magicman]

Well this will put a lot of stress in the logs. It will add to the number of knots on that side of the log.They will almost always have a off center pith, as it will put on larger growth rings on the field side of the log. So not only are the logs harder on y'all harvesting them, but they make very poor lumber.

I constantly deal with this and always alert the customer.  I'll point it out to them before sawing and then show them what is happening as I saw.  Boards gradually getting thicker on the ends as the cant picks up which leaves the dog board thin on the end.  Sometime you can flip 180° after each pass but even this can get you in big trouble when the clamp is released.  Bad logs make bad lumber.

[Magicman]

One point for farmers to consider when logging is going on, is by removing the trees along a field edge it actually may be beneficial to them in the long run.

Yes, edge encroachment is constant so trimming, removing, or spraying prevents those bothersome overhanging lower limbs.

[SwampDonkey]

Up here they usually use an excavator with a mulcher head and mulch the tree down to the stump. If they need to remove a hedge row, then they stump with an excavator and load on a dump truck. Neighboring farmer did both on all his land a year ago and last fall.

https://www.skidsteersolutions.com/excavator-attachments/forestry-mulchers

[cutterboy]

I've seen where farmers will want them cut to allow more sunlight on cropland, and thereby increase their crop yield.

That is exactly why I am constantly cutting the trees along the field edges.

[Rhodemont]

Nothing.  Everything I want is cut and skid out for this year.  Shifting to the sawmill and building of my post & beam.

[David B]

[SwampDonkey]

I started cutting some more firewood yesterday and today. I want 4 more cords. Nothing special: aspen, ash, some dead spruce or ones about to be or big fork at the top. I use those spruce for corduroy on wet crossings. They hold up a long time. So the wood don't add up fast because some I cut is also junk or misshaped whips to get on the ground for worm food. Plus thin out some patches that have too many stems. I even cut some mostly dead alders once in awhile. Alders can grow really tall, but not like popple. I have cut some down that were 40 feet tall. The bigger popple, after 30 years is 70 feet. I will limb some spruce, but not in next to the trunk, a chainsaw is not a pruning saw. I just cut the limbs so I can move around easier handling wood. I just stopped to think about it, I've cut about 60 cords off 3 acres of ground and have lots of crop trees growing, now able to grow more live crown. Limbs now are dead up to 20 feet on the dominant softwoods. Leaders are still 12-18". A whole lot of growing to do yet, decades worth to get some girth.  Need some regen to, pretty much dead under growth, zilch.

[cutterboy]

I've been cutting field edge ash for firewood and I thought this was interesting.


All three of those stumps are the same age...16 years. The largest stump is 10 inches across and the smaller two are 5 inches.

[g_man]

You must have some good ground Cutter. I would not come close to a 10" stump in 16 years here. Some how that big one got all the nutrients and light it seems.

gg 

[Resonator]

Could be they share a common root system, grown together like stump sprouts.

[SwampDonkey]

Good soil, lots of light and longer season.

Once was on a course, a fella from NY was leading the charge. We were in a sugar maple stand. He was saying they get 4" of growth in 10 years. I said not up here, about 60 years in the forest to get to 8". I revisited a maple stand 20 years after they were thinned, I was not impressed by the growth. It could very well be their age and the soil to.

Here's a fir, which grows supper fast when thinned. Hardwood up here only put that kind of ring growth on out in a field with crown the length of the stem. Large tooth aspen grows super fast in a grove of them, grow way faster than trembling.




Large tooth, same age as the aspen in front of them. It's real pretty in the fall, it turns orange at first like sugar maple, then yellow like trembling aspen. I go out of my way to save the best ones. They are never as abundant as the other aspens.



I was in Virginia one time, in the Blacksburgh area. I saw one aspen tree. It grew by a rock pile and the ground was not flat, quite a hard hill. Looked like an abandoned clearing. But that was a large tooth aspen growing.

[cutterboy]

You must have some good ground Cutter. I would not come close to a 10" stump in 16 years here. Some how that big one got all the nutrients and light it seems.

gg

g-man, Right at the edge of a field it had good soil and plenty of sunlight and as SD says, a little longer growing season.

[David B]

This may sound strange but I'm gonna go ahead and throw it out there. I quite enjoy felling/falling (depending on where you are 
:-D) but I am locked in to another business, so it is a hobby/study for me. Come summer (now) it is too hot, so I'd like to travel (vacation) and cut elsewhere if anyone has any they'd like done or need help with. Conifers are my favorite but I've done lots of big sketchy brittle stuff. 

[thecfarm]

If you wanted to dig   I would of taken you up on your request.