tree thinning projects

[coppercat]

there is to be an abundent supply of tree thinning projects throughout my state...givin a real small skidder, like JD 440...how long would it take to cut, buck and skid 10 acres of smaller sized lodgpole pine?

[ford62783]

that depends on how thick the wood is what type of terrain how many people work with or for u and stuff like that in ny and depending on terrain and one guy cutting down id say 2 to three weeks comfortably working every day

[coppercat]

well i'd be doing the cutting...and one helper skidding with a real small skidder

[ford62783]

id say a safe bet is 4 weeks

[Jeff]

Still no way to estimate without the knowledge of stand density and terrain type.

[SwampDonkey]

I've seen it done in a week, and on hardwood ground using skidder. Ground was flat, wood was mature. Lots of maple veneer and sawlogs.

[woodtroll]

Lodge pole grows thick, can be real thick. Whats the size and stems per acre? What is the final spacing? What do you need to do with the slash? Whats your product?

[coppercat]

yes it is a bit thick. product is all firewood. i do no hauling.  nothing will be more than 10"dbh. I leave the fire wood decked along the edge of the property. spacing will average 20 to 25 feet between tree boles. i need to gather all slash in piles for burning...i won't do the burning.  I thought if I did this one project, I could get a few more.  I need to justify buying a real small skidder.  If 2 guys can't do one acre in a day, then for me it's a "no go"

[woodtroll]

That is a wide spacing. But you should be able to. The piling is the work. A skidder does not do that well. A skidster with grapple may.

[SwampDonkey]

Maybe it's a seed tree? Burning of jack pine tops will release the seed. Lodgepole is similar isn't it? I know the bark beetles like both. That is the  fear of it hitting the jack and coming all the way across the boreal in Canada. My friend says that pine beetle out there needs some real cold nasty temps to stop it. I say burn the darn things if it starts this way. The trees are gonna die anyway, and be as thick as dog hair again in 3 years time. You ain't seen thick pine until ya seen thick jack pine. :D Plantation jack pine is garbage, they need to grow thick from fire to be straight tall trees. Irving has planted 1000's of acres of them and I wouldn't give him a dime for the whole mess. Most crooked limby stuff ever planted. ;D

[coppercat]

i'm looking at the forcat 36 hp now....i think this could do this kind of work.

[madhatte]

I was thinking a small tractor with an arch should do the trick nicely.  We've got some overstocked stands on unstable soil where that'd be pretty much the only way to go.  Light touch and all. 

[Rocky_Ranger]

One acre of lodgepole per day?  No way without a harvester (mini-skid with nippers), has anybody ever seen this stuff that wasn't thick?  We thinned a bunch in Upper Arkansas Valley to about 18' spacing, and averaged about 10" for leave.  You'd swear the stems would grow back during the night there were so many of them.  Not uncommon to remove 1200 - 1500 stems/acre of 4" to 9" stuff......

[Pilot1]

Man it's been a long time since I worked serious lodgepole stands--1978.  But I would guess if you are looking at 10" max, you are probably averaging 8".  So my very wild guess would be around 500 stems per acre and you are only leaving 8-10 trees per acre.  So I have to ask, why leave any?  8-10 lodgepoles per acre is nothing.  And cutting 500 or even 400 stems per acre, man, that is a lot of bending over in a day.  And hooking up chokers.  Or if using a grapple, a lot of backing up to small logs.

I would want an accurate stem count, some idea of the distance of the skid, how long it would take to skid how many logs, are you cutting off tops or skidding them, etc.  Go thru with a stick cut to 6.8 feet, take a series of circular plots, counting the trees in each plot and multiplying by 300 and dividing by the number of plots to get the number of trees per acre.  Or use 8.2 feet and 200.

And my bias:  I hate rubber tired skidders--wost machine you can put in the woods as far as impact on the ground is concerned unless your trees are growing on concrete.  Around here, no one uses them any more; it's almost all excavators, cheaper, faster, less site damage.  But we have higher value timber; maybe in some areas folks can't afford the investment.

[SwampDonkey]

My frustration is rutting in wetter soils with skidder. Other than that, no trouble with regeneration at all where I'm from. Spruce will grow in the trails if there is any seed. Any machine will damage advanced regen and I've seen processors tear up a lot between trails fishing around for tree buts in 10 foot fir. Looks like a hydro axe came through.

Four years post harvest on a marked hardwood stand, looking down a couple skidder trails. Can barely find the trails. ;)