Can you cut timber too hard?

[Rockon]

Im going to start cutting the timber off my property after the gun season this winter. I have 50 acres of hunting land in heavy ag that needs the trim. My goals are create a great hunting property, but keep the market value if I ever needed to sell it. It is already a deer cover magnet but I want to keep it that way. Thankfully, the neighbors are getting smarter about their habitat management but I still want my land to be the go-to location for the deer. There is a lot of pulp wood, popple, red maple, some big and some small that the forester said should go. The forester also wants me to cut and kill any iron wood so that after the cut that doesn't take over. My plan is to get a lot of these species out. I also have plans to put in a small hidden foodplot to serve as a travel destination and provide a low stress staging area.

That being said, I have some good pockets of oak, hard maple, hickory that are marketable and the logger wants them as well. Many of these are large and ready for harvest but I'm nervous that if I take all of this I'll be left with nothing and my beautiful property will never be the same. In my pursuit for whitetail heaven could I cut too hard and lose the aesthetic value that would fetch top dollar if I ever needed to sell? Getting cold feet before the cut. I need some support from those that have been there.

 

[MoLandOwner]

Don't get cold feet, get a plan! A good well thought out plan if it is going to be for hunting.

50 acres of trees to cut? Man I would be excited!

 

[MoLandOwner]

If he ain't selling, he loses nothing, and puts cash in his pocket for the marketable timber. If he is going to sell in the future I would not touch it.

 

[MoLandOwner]

If the track holds deer now, and you think there is a chance you may have to sell. Again, I would not take a saw to the place. JMO!

 

[Rockon]

I don't plan to sell so realistically it may be 10 or more years, or never. But if for some unforeseen reason I ever had to...I want to be able to. So maybe cut, but be a lot more selective?

 

[MoLandOwner]

I don't plan to sell so realistically it may be 10 or more years, or never. But if for some unforeseen reason I ever had to...I want to be able to. So maybe cut, but be a lot more selective?

So you want your cake and you want to eat it as well.......:D

 

[huntall]

I would cut it without any other thought or regret. And think about it......think of all the nut and fruit producing trees you could plant.lol

 

[Rockon]

So you want your cake and you want to eat it as well.......:D

You got it. Of course, cake never lasts long around me.:D

 

[j-bird]

Cutting was the best thing I did on my place. I agree it will reduce the value and potentially reduce the appeal if you had to sell but it is the best thing you can do for habitat for deer.

 

[j-bird]

I think you can cut too hard. You need to retain some trees to provide the species you want to grow. Remove all the mature trees of the lower wildlife value trees and those of minimal timber value. If you have trees that are not in prime size you can wait on those to mature IF you will have enough to make it worthwhile. Also keep in mind that without some sort of significant intervention your woods will more than likely grow more of the same species you just cut. That might be good that might be bad - you need to make that decision and plan accordingly.

 

[dipper]

Never take forestry advice from a logger! He wants easy $.
Removing ironwood is a great idea. Clear cutting popple is a great idea. Some select cut of maple is good.
Leave your large oaks!
I know nothing of your property, but I would do a combination. Clear cut popple if it's marketable. Release oaks, so they grow better. I don't know what your gonna get for the ironwood, but it is a great hinge cutting tree.

 

[sandbur]

Leave some oaks for mast trees and clear cut a good portion of it.

 

[dipper]

Imo-for future hunting and habitat, don't clear cut all. Deer love edge, and don't require one solid block of jungle. Especially since u are already getting bedding behavior. I'd remove popple like I said, maybe clear cut smaller areas, hinge low value species in acre blocks and repeat 15-20 years from now so u always have the edge effect

 

[bwoods11]

Leave some oaks for mast trees and clear cut a good portion of it.

I'd take out very few oaks if it were my property.

 

[wiscwhip]

I'd take out very few oaks if it were my property.

I would likely suggest this ^^^ as well, BUT, you have to be mindful of oak wilt in your area and if it is affecting or will be affecting your property any time soon. If it is already present or imminent in the near future, you might as well have them take at least the red oak species(which are harder hit by wilt) while they are still worth something. I didn't see any mention of a visit from your county forester? Get your county forester out there to evaluate the situation before you cut ANYTHING! Don't tell him you are cutting for sure, tell him you would like his opinion on what should be cut and mention that you would like to know if oak wilt is in the area because you were considering whether or not to harvest your oaks.

 

[Jim Timber]

Never take forestry advice from a logger! He wants easy $.
Removing ironwood is a great idea. Clear cutting popple is a great idea. Some select cut of maple is good.
Leave your large oaks!
I know nothing of your property, but I would do a combination. Clear cut popple if it's marketable. Release oaks, so they grow better. I don't know what your gonna get for the ironwood, but it is a great hinge cutting tree.

Ironwood is worth exactly $1-2 a ton if you chip it on site and haul it to the power plant for biomass with all your other slash. It's not worth a darn thing to anyone else unless you have remarkably large trees and know someone who makes hammers. It does make a very hot fire too, but too much of it in a woodstove can lead to melting the bottom out of it (seriously). Mine goes in the burn pile - too hard on chains to buck it up for kindling.

Everything else is impossible to give advice on without knowing what kind of stand you have, what the wood classes are (diameters), and what the local market wants. Making sweeping generalizations of "leave this, and wipe this out" isn't helpful at all. Neither is saying hinge something and come back 20 years later. You want different sections at different age classes for a mixed class stand. You wouldn't want the whole property going through it's regeneration cycle at the same time because you'd miss out on the edge after 5 years and would be left with unhuntable bush.

We need to know more about your trees to give you any real advice. Poles, saw logs, veneer? What do you have in each species?

 

[deepsleep]

In my mind, it comes down to why you bought the property, the size of the property and your financial situation. I personally bought my property for hunting, got a good price on it, and don't need the money from timber now or in the future. I also have no plans to ever sell. I have zero guilt about cutting anything out there and try to optimize it for wildlife, specifically deer., as I feel I need every acre optimized for this pursuit. If I had a very large property, I would manage it much more toward timber production, knowing that the extra acreage would allow for more mistakes in hunting, and more opportunity. Initially, friends and family thought I was nuts and destroying my property. After a few years of observing and hunting it, they understand. Mo mentioned the most important thing above, and that is have a plan before you start. You can't really uncut that 60 year old Maple that would have been a perfect stand tree.

 

[bryant]

We started planning to cut 2 years ago and one of the first steps was meeting with county forestry agent. With the information we got from him, we began laying out a cut plan. We broke up all of the timbered ground into compartments with the plan to do an improvement cut through roughly one third of each compartment. We then looked at the topography and other features that we could plan around to most improve huntability of each compartment as well as the whole property while keeping in mind how and where the second round of cutting would come in to play.

It took some time as well to find the right logger to work with. They just got started a couple weeks ago and will cut 4 of 9 areas before we have them pull off for the season.

For us the overwhelming largest hole in the bucket was cover followed by more strategic food and access. We feel very confident that we will accomplish addressing all of those things as well as improve the future value of the timber stand. Like others have mentioned, don't rush to cut. Think through and plan out exactly what you want to accomplish on your property and don't let a saw crank until that point. But at that point, let em eat.

 

[Rockon]

Thanks for all the advice. I did have the county forester walk the property last year. The advice I received was...if I can find someone who will do it, cut all the popple out before they die. Cut the iron wood and spray the stumps. Kill any buckthorn and a few other invasives. I also received some info on MFL.
I called a consulting forester today and think I'll go that route to develope a more specific plan. I'm in no hurry to cut, I'm in a hurry to create better habitat. Like many of you my primary goals are the deer habitat and setting the property up for low impact hunting.