How much habitat work

[SD51555]

Is the woods just not mature enough or just not enough acres? Is it not enough to make it worth the foresters time to coordinate? I had 13 acres logged on my property and worked directly with the logger. They were working in the area, which helped. If you hear or see some cutting in the area, stop in and inquire.

There's no value to what I have. $10/cord for my ash, $10/cord for my softwood trees. I frankly don't want logging equipment on my property ever again anyway. It got absolutely destroyed last time it was logged. I have spent 8 years trying to fix all the damage to the ground from the forwarder ruts. Also, having only 40 acres and leaving the outside 100 yards un-improved, I can handle the rest by hand. I can surgically remove everything I want without damaging any up and coming trees, like those 10-15' tall next gen bur oaks, 20' tall birch, or a 3' balsam fir, or a nice clump of browsed off ROD.

Frankly, I've gotten way more value out of my trees using them myself anyway. I should probably have been billed $1000 to have my cabin painted, and my neighbor didn't charge me anything. I've been trading him firewood instead. It's ash I was going to take down anyway where my sanctuary is getting thin. My other neighbor, I gave him 30+ aspen logs to mill for his house build. I have buried multiple semi trailer loads of wood on my property. I will bury many more next year. Bill Gates would be proud of me.

 

[SwampCat]

Of separate note I did chainsaw girdle and squirt on about 5 acres 1.5 years ago. Hundreds and hundreds of mature sweetgum. It was fun work in ways, but very very strenuous. I would guess most wouldn’t be up for it.

The trees have all died and broken and fallen over last few months. Looks like a tornado went through. I didn’t lose any of the mast trees I targeted for release.

That said, not sure a deer could walk through the area. Trees down everywhere. It’s god awful ugly too. Area abuts my main gravel road in, and I have to park my truck and walk to barn to get tractor almost every time I’m down because a new tree has fallen over the road.

I have a forty that had been clearcut sometime late nineties. A lot of stump sprout oak 8”-10” diameter with three stems per stump. Then a lot of smaller stuff. Had a hack and squirt contract for everything 6” and down. Contractor used arsenal and there was a fair bit of non target mortality - especially on the steeper slopes. For two years after - it looked exactly as you described. Started looking a little better year three. Year four - this year - a protein feeding site I had right next to it had a bachelor herd of twelve bucks. Biggest bachelor herd I have ever had on my place. To be honest, there are several areas - maybe 1/4 acre - where almost everything died and have a lot of herbaceous growth and the low growing woody browse - like five 1/4 acre clearcuts scattered around the forty acres.

I dont burn anyway, but I would have really been scared to death to burn two years after with all the fuel laying on the ground.

 

[omicron1792]

I have a forty that had been clearcut sometime late nineties. A lot of stump sprout oak 8”-10” diameter with three stems per stump. Then a lot of smaller stuff. Had a hack and squirt contract for everything 6” and down. Contractor used arsenal and there was a fair bit of non target mortality - especially on the steeper slopes. For two years after - it looked exactly as you described. Started looking a little better year three. Year four - this year - a protein feeding site I had right next to it had a bachelor herd of twelve bucks. Biggest bachelor herd I have ever had on my place. To be honest, there are several areas - maybe 1/4 acre - where almost everything died and have a lot of herbaceous growth and the low growing woody browse - like five 1/4 acre clearcuts scattered around the forty acres.

I dont burn anyway, but I would have really been scared to death to burn two years after with all the fuel laying on the ground.

Thanks. I have faith it will be great. I’ve had about half my land professionally clear cut and it is great for wildlife. This area would be an inferno if it burned well!

 

[GMan5465]

There's no value to what I have. $10/cord for my ash, $10/cord for my softwood trees. I frankly don't want logging equipment on my property ever again anyway. It got absolutely destroyed last time it was logged. I have spent 8 years trying to fix all the damage to the ground from the forwarder ruts. Also, having only 40 acres and leaving the outside 100 yards un-improved, I can handle the rest by hand. I can surgically remove everything I want without damaging any up and coming trees, like those 10-15' tall next gen bur oaks, 20' tall birch, or a 3' balsam fir, or a nice clump of browsed off ROD.

Frankly, I've gotten way more value out of my trees using them myself anyway. I should probably have been billed $1000 to have my cabin painted, and my neighbor didn't charge me anything. I've been trading him firewood instead. It's ash I was going to take down anyway where my sanctuary is getting thin. My other neighbor, I gave him 30+ aspen logs to mill for his house build. I have buried multiple semi trailer loads of wood on my property. I will bury many more next year. Bill Gates would be proud of me.

Yep, I’ve used quite a few for my own corduroy roads.

 

[bigboreblr]

SD,

you got a skidder for your tractor. IF not, maybe a log arch. Looking around for an ATV log arch myself.

 

[Turkish]

Pre commercial thinning is not what I was thinking for tsi. I guess that could be called that, but not really what this thread was addressing IMO.

Maybe it’s semantics, but pre-commercial thinning is TSI, at least in today’s timber market where it’s hard to move anything smaller than CNS (chip and saw). They cut the tree (terminated it) and walked to the next one, same as I do with the arsenal/hatchet.

 

[Brian662]

When I think of TSI I guess it means anything timber related. Could be invasive control, select cuts, bedding cuts, removing undesirable mid story trees, etc.

In my area, it would include patch clear cuts post logging, chop and drop aspen, hinge cut box elders, coppice cut or hack and squirt ironwood. Lots of options out there.

 

[omicron1792]

When I think of TSI I guess it means anything timber related. Could be invasive control, select cuts, bedding cuts, removing undesirable mid story trees, etc.

In my area, it would include patch clear cuts post logging, chop and drop aspen, hinge cut box elders, coppice cut or hack and squirt ironwood. Lots of options out there.

South is pine pine pine. I haven’t met a logger yet that would do any of things you are saying. I wish I could find one.

 

[Brian662]

South is pine pine pine. I haven’t met a logger yet that would do any of things you are saying. I wish I could find one.

None of what I mentioned would be done by a logger except select cut harvesting. We do have cost share money available (state or fed) for just about the rest of the activities I mentioned other than hinge cutting box elders.

 

[omicron1792]

None of what I mentioned would be done by a logger except select cut harvesting. We do have cost share money available (state or fed) for just about the rest of the activities I mentioned other than hinge cutting box elders.

I see. I misread your post and thought you were agreeing with post calling logging a tsi project.

While I agree that logging is a form of tsi, most of the time tsi or fsi in relation to this habitat board is done with a single chainsaw and chemicals and not a skid row cutter.

 

[Foggy47]

There's no value to what I have. $10/cord for my ash, $10/cord for my softwood trees. I frankly don't want logging equipment on my property ever again anyway. It got absolutely destroyed last time it was logged. I have spent 8 years trying to fix all the damage to the ground from the forwarder ruts. Also, having only 40 acres and leaving the outside 100 yards un-improved, I can handle the rest by hand. I can surgically remove everything I want without damaging any up and coming trees, like those 10-15' tall next gen bur oaks, 20' tall birch, or a 3' balsam fir, or a nice clump of browsed off ROD.

Frankly, I've gotten way more value out of my trees using them myself anyway. I should probably have been billed $1000 to have my cabin painted, and my neighbor didn't charge me anything. I've been trading him firewood instead. It's ash I was going to take down anyway where my sanctuary is getting thin. My other neighbor, I gave him 30+ aspen logs to mill for his house build. I have buried multiple semi trailer loads of wood on my property. I will bury many more next year. Bill Gates would be proud of me.

The only time I would allow logging on my land......is in the winter when the ground is frozen solid. When done as such, there are no ruts and repair to the ground from those heavy machines and trucks. I got 110 acres.....and there is no way I could tackle that with a chain saw......nor do I know what I would do with a small quantity of pine logs.

I was able to find a logger that chipped a huge amount of my slash. Maybe 75++ trailer loads of chips was sent to Duluth....where they use it to burn for electric power. Pretty good payout for those chips too. The rest of mine went to a large saw mill south of Bemidji. Not many large saw mills around here anymore. Could spell trouble in the time to come.

 

[SD51555]

The only time I would allow logging on my land......is in the winter when the ground is frozen solid. When done as such, there are no ruts and repair to the ground from those heavy machines and trucks. I got 110 acres.....and there is no way I could tackle that with a chain saw......nor do I know what I would do with a small quantity of pine logs.

I was able to find a logger that chipped a huge amount of my slash. Maybe 75++ trailer loads of chips was sent to Duluth....where they use it to burn for electric power. Pretty good payout for those chips too. The rest of mine went to a large saw mill south of Bemidji. Not many large saw mills around here anymore. Could spell trouble in the time to come.

We could use another mill. That one by Cohasset got thwarted by the anti-business mafia that wants to keep northern MN a park for southern MN. The way it sits now, the mills are the pinch point. After being dry for so many years, and having another dry summer, the loggers never missed a day of work, and they hit their quotas ahead of time and had to stop hauling until the mills could catch up. That new mill could have changed deer hunting permanently for the better.

Huber ends plans for proposed Cohasset mill

Huber Engineered Wood leaders announced Thursday they have ended their plans to build a nearly $450 million mill in Cohasset.

www.northernnewsnow.com

I've talked to the state and federal foresters up in my area, and they've admitted they are way behind in logging, and they're working to catch up now. And they're trying. I've been quite pleased with the number of acres they're finally getting cut by me. Should help quite a bit with winter browse and fawn protection. If we get through this winter without high mortality, we could really have something next fall.

 

[Foggy47]

We could use another mill. That one by Cohasset got thwarted by the anti-business mafia that wants to keep northern MN a park for southern MN. The way it sits now, the mills are the pinch point. After being dry for so many years, and having another dry summer, the loggers never missed a day of work, and they hit their quotas ahead of time and had to stop hauling until the mills could catch up. That new mill could have changed deer hunting permanently for the better.

Huber ends plans for proposed Cohasset mill

Huber Engineered Wood leaders announced Thursday they have ended their plans to build a nearly $450 million mill in Cohasset.

www.northernnewsnow.com

I've talked to the state and federal foresters up in my area, and they've admitted they are way behind in logging, and they're working to catch up now. And they're trying. I've been quite pleased with the number of acres they're finally getting cut by me. Should help quite a bit with winter browse and fawn protection. If we get through this winter without high mortality, we could really have something next fall.

I cannot bring myself to read it all....much less understand the views of the Democrats involved here. Typical MN and typical Waltz. Sad.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

I plant tree & shrub seedlings every spring at camp, as well as plant food plots, prune & maintain apple, crab apple, and pear trees, spray weeds and invasives as needed, and cut down trees as needed to release other desired trees.

 

[Foggy47]

I cannot bring myself to read it all....much less understand the views of the Democrats involved here. Typical MN and typical Waltz. Sad.

One thing for sure.....is that if we do not log the northland periodically......we will be making a fire hazard like much of the west coast states and Canada. You can log it....or nature will eventually burn it or "disease it". One makes more sense than the other. Somehow....MN always makes the wrong choices on such matters. Some environmentalists want to leave the northland "unchanged".....meanwhile lots of people and changes happen that they don't seem to recognize that will require our management differently from the past. Dumb.

 

[SD51555]

One thing for sure.....is that if we do not log the northland periodically......we will be making a fire hazard like much of the west coast states and Canada. You can log it....or nature will eventually burn it or "disease it". One makes more sense than the other. Somehow....MN always makes the wrong choices on such matters. Some environmentalists want to leave the northland "unchanged".....meanwhile lots of people and changes happen that they don't seem to recognize that will require our management differently from the past. Dumb.

Organized opposition that gets media coverage is never real. They are just there to stop progress.

 

[Brian662]

One thing for sure.....is that if we do not log the northland periodically......we will be making a fire hazard like much of the west coast states and Canada. You can log it....or nature will eventually burn it or "disease it". One makes more sense than the other. Somehow....MN always makes the wrong choices on such matters. Some environmentalists want to leave the northland "unchanged".....meanwhile lots of people and changes happen that they don't seem to recognize that will require our management differently from the past. Dumb.

Didnt that just happen a few years ago? Pretty sure the fires near the boundary waters were massive.

 

[omicron1792]

 

[BuckSutherland]

Didnt that just happen a few years ago? Pretty sure the fires near the boundary waters were massive.

I have fished the BWCA the last 2 years. We paddle through an are that had about 92,000 acres burn. Pagami Creek Fire went through in August of 2011. Caused by a lightening strike. Still plenty of old skeletons visible after more than a decade. I would never ever support any logging or mining anywhere close to that place. Mother nature is doing a fine job of regen and TSI.

 

[TreeDaddy]

Yes,she will

Sometimes its best just to leave s**t alone

bill