Sapling thinning?

[darkbyrd]

My woodlot was logged about 6 years ago, and is mostly saplings (1-2", 8-15'), primarily of tulip poplar and white pine, some oak and cherry, and lesser amounts of others. I know thinning would be beneficial to the trees I want to favor, but I don't want to thin out too little or much. Some weed control will be available with grazing goats. How far apart should I thin my trees?

[woodtroll]

How big are these saplings?
Goats don't seem to know the good trees from the bad, they eat them all.

[darkbyrd]

most of the saplings are 1-2" and 8-15', some go up to 4" and 30'. Stump regrowth is larger. The goats are not penned in the area, instead are brought over daily for a 'walk'. They usually leave alone what they should leave alone, they don't start eating bark until there isn't a green leaf in reach.

[darkbyrd]

[pineywoods]

What you need to take care of that brush is a "brown tree cutter" behind a 100 hp tractor. It's basicly a rotary mower aka bushog on steroids. Couple of major differences. There are 2 sets of blades separated verticaly about 2 inches. Takes a 2 inch chunk out of the tree. The cutters are bolted to a solid steel disk about an inch thick and 3 ft diam. The back foot or so of the cover is hinged so it can swing up and expose the cutter blades. Raise that and back into trees that are too big to bend over. Power companies here use them to clear grown up right of ways.

[darkbyrd]

Thanks for the reply. This is on a homesteading operation, and there is not any money for large scale clearing to be hired out. I use my dad's tractor and bush hog to keep the old logging roads clear, but most of the thinning will be done by hand, chainsaw, or brush-blade. It sounds like you're saying I should thin to a very wide spacing (if I'm going to use a machine like you describe). Would that encourage the saplings left to get crooked and cause a new explosion of weeds? The blackberries have only begun to be shaded out in the last 2 years. I know I said I have weed control, but our poor goats can't keep 22ac of briers under control!

Still reading, thanks for the good ideas guys!

[Clark]

I'm sure Swamp Donk will be along to share some of his experiences.  I have two suggestions:

1. Check out this article which seems to be along the lines of what you're thinking.

2.  I'd recommend releasing around 100 trees/acre which is a 20-21' spacing.  Release the crowns of your crop trees by cutting any trees that are close to or touch the crown of the crop tree.

Clark

[SPIKER]

At this stage it is probably better to TRIM what you can but not do a heavy thinning just yet, you need to start to groom for growth and form/species ect.   If you dont want X species then yes you can thin for that as you mentioned saw & machete and an axe for most of them at this stage.  

I would groom for log, trim off up to 25~30% of the lower branches & removing stuff that is malformed overall.   With a heavy thinning like this some loss is expected and take this into account when you are removing malformed low value species.   If you do a heavy thinning and open up light all around the trees as this stage they will bush out and grow wider bushy and be of lower value for timber later.   The crowding actually forces them to grow up fast & straight when they are tight.   thinning out later 10~15 years for first thinning on site that appears to have been cut heavily if not nearly a clear cut.

Mark

[WDH]

Like Clark said, thin them so the crowns of the leave trees are free to grow.  This mean that they should be able to get light on all four sides, ideally.  Really, just use your common sense.  You can tell if you are leaving them too far apart if there are sizable gaps between the trees.  Imagine yourself looking down on the stand from the air.  Think about what it would look like if each crown was free to grow on all sides, but then, they are just about barely touching the crowns of the trees around them.

Leaves grow wood, so good crown development will support the highest growth rate. 

[Gary_C]

That looks just like a young aspen stand that will thin itself better than you can. I don't think it is advisable to thin right now. If you open it up now you will promote bushy growth and get more undergrowth a chance to start.

If you do not have the right species there, it's probably too late to try to alter the mix now unless you start over. If there are just a few undesirables, go ahead and remove them. If there is a lot of undesirables and you remove them, you will just invite more by opening up the stand right now.

[Ron Wenrich]

I had goats to clean off my multiflora rose.  They will strip bark, especially if the goats have horns.  They love that inner bark.  And it didn't matter if there was other stuff to eat, they would strip bark, especially in the spring.  And, they will eat pine before they eat grass.  At least, that's been my experience.

[darkbyrd]

Yup. Today, while attacking a patch of virginia pine, they finished the rose and honeysuckle and started in on the poplar bark. Time to move on! Had to find somewhere else to work.

Thanks everyone for your input, and I will be keeping a close eye on those goats out there!

[Phorester]

20' x 20' as Clark suggested.  Pick the best quality tree of a high value species closest to that spot.  One good thing about these projects is that it doesn't have to be done all at once.  You can work on this a little at a time over a few years if you want. 

I just finished a similiar thinning in a 3 year old planted loblolly pine stand.  Trees were only 1/2" to 1-1/2" diameter though. I used a sharp brush ax, and most times only one swing would be needed.  There was one 1-acre spot where the trees were 2" - 2-1/2" diameter, I used a chainsaw there. Took me 11 hours to thin 10 acres. Wore steel toed boots, chainsaw chaps, even when using the brush ax, gloves, eye protection (sunglasses).

I would caution anybody who wants to do this, however, to actually measure 20 feet, or whatever spacing you are thinning to, out on the ground first and see what it looks like. It'll probably be longer than you think.   Then pace that measured distance so you know how many steps it is, and then count your steps from one "leave" tree to the next as you thin. I've had landowners who simply estimated that distance without measuring it and they were only putting 10' - 15' between trees.

[DrewS]

You need a clearing saw.  They work like a weedwhacker but with more power and utilize a circular saw blade.  You can cover a good amount of ground and you're not bending over all the time...i.e. chainsaw.  I have a Husky 245 and it cuts thru 4" beech after two hits with the blade.  Type "clearing saw" into youtube and watch the vids.

[Just Me]

 I have one of these with a 65cc motor and I will vouch for them being a lot easier. It can't bite you if you always wear the harness, so wear the harness. You may be able to rent one for a day and do a big chunk if you have it marked out.

Not your garandma's weedwacker! :D

[banksiana]

I think your first step is to get some on the ground advice from a consulting forester.  Then I recommend flagging potential crop trees without regard for spacing.  Avoid any nice looking trees that are stump sprouted as these usually can have problems later in life.  You want tall, straight, non-forked trees for crop trees.  I am not sure about spacing, so before choosing 20 feet, consult a forester or try to find some literature.  Then go ahead and release.  If you have more crop trees flagged than you need, oh well, some will have to go.  But you will not get confused when whacking away and take down trees you wanted to save.

[woodtroll]

A lot of advice.
Your pics. look like a stand that needs to be left to grow. You can spend alot of energy thinning a stand that will need to be thinned again. Yellow Poplar handle side competition by growing taller, shedding lower branches as they go. Self pruning. Later as they grow, thin them, selecting the best "crop trees". Watch their growth rates they can grow fast.

You can release other trees now, select your best trees and release them from side competition, You do not need to cut every tree down on a 20X20 spacing. The time and herbicide involved would be costly. With your hardwoods and their size, think about 8-10 feet around the crown for your bigger trees.  Less for smaller trees.
Keep your goats eating the honey suckle, rose, and re-sprouts.  Cut any vines growing into your.
Lastly if you do not have 100 crop trees per acre, no problem let the lower value species hash it out, then in a few years pick the best ones. Some times even "low value sp." can produce beautiful boards in the right situation.
That's my 2 cents.
Oh yeah, enjoy the process. To many of use get caught up in what it has to be and for get that it can be interesting and fun.

[WDH]

I will reiterate.  Leaves grow wood.  Don't let the crown ratio of the crop trees drop below about 40% (crown ratio is the # of feet in the stem of live crown ( with living leaves) to the total height of the tree.  Thin to maintain crown ratio to get the best growth.

[SwampDonkey]

On saplings that size, a pre-commercial thinning is done with a clearing saw. 15' would be the minimum height, before that it's too short.  Up here we space trees 6-7' at this stage. Any wider spacing or shorter height and it's like Gary says, a lot of resuckering. You will get some initial suckering after a thinning, but it slows and eventually the suckers die out. The goats can feed on the suckers to. ;)









What Clark is suggesting is a later stage of thinning, it is a crop tree release and done in pole stage. Around here we do 50-80 released per acre, if the quality is there. It isn't really based on spacing of stems as it is crowns. The rule of thumb was 3 sides of crowns released. We don't do much of this any longer. It was a treatment most always applied to shade tolerant hardwood only.