Logging Tactics

[ruskbucks]

I had another forester contact me and walk our property. He seemed to be in the same boat as the first guy but he explained his logic much better. We have very little aspen that is ready for harvest. We have maples, oaks and birch. We have a little over 20 acres that are ready for harvest but he wants to remove everything but the larger oaks. So it would be a cutting to manage the oaks. He said about 1/3 of the trees would be left. It sounds to me like I could still have a good canopy and would have less than ideal ground cover regeneration with this cut. Am I thinking right? I have hunted cut overs like this with a few less oaks in the past and have had good success. Has anyone else had experience with this type of harvest? What I really want is a bedding area, not a wide open oak flat.

What was his reason for only leaving the oaks? The birch I can understand because it is probably mature, due to them not being a long lived tree. I don't know why they wouldn't leave the better maples for future saw logs. Maybe someone can chime in on this.

 

[NWWI]

Sounds a lot better. Can't really ever go wrong opening up the canopy. I'd still have them leave some hinge able trees. It doesn't get any better than a hinge/ select cut combo.

Do you think leaving 1/3 of the oaks would allow enough sunlight in? The logger saw some of our hinge cuts and didn't have much good to say about them, saying they just live for a couple years and die off. But the deer sure like them.

 

[NWWI]

What was his reason for only leaving the oaks? The birch I can understand because it is probably mature, due to them not being a long lived tree. I don't know why they wouldn't leave the better maples for future saw logs. Maybe someone can chime in on this.

I believe he was trying to improve my oak stand for another harvest. I would be good with that but I really want a thicker understory.

 

[dipper]

Do you think leaving 1/3 of the oaks would allow enough sunlight in?

Depends on how many there are. Just make sure he isn't taking all your nice straight oaks. He managing to make those oaks even better in the future.
He's actually removing trees now that don't have high quality potential so the promising trees are left to really get fat and make u more $ in the future.
Oak logs are generally worth more than maple. Mature oaks also have habitat value, mature maple doesn't.
He's a forester his job is to make the forest more profitable in the future....if he isn't a crook.

 

[ruskbucks]

Do you think leaving 1/3 of the oaks would allow enough sunlight in? The logger saw some of our hinge cuts and didn't have much good to say about them, saying they just live for a couple years and die off. But the deer sure like them.

Both the foresters I had out did a count of trees per acre. They did 1/10 acre samples and multiplied 10x to get the basal count of trees. My woods had a count of 140 and after a cutting they said it should be around 85. I guess it depends what your basal count would be after the 1/3 oaks are left. I remember my forester say a couple times how he looks up at the canopy to determine a lot to decide what trees need to be taken out. My woods is mostly maple with 70+ year old red oaks scattered through out. We are leaving all the nice oaks that are not crowded too, but all the maples that will be good for the next cutting in 20 years are going to be left. I'm sure the fact that I have a lot more nice maples than oaks has to do with how the woods is managed. I also told him that I wanted a keep a diverse forest like it is now. I like all the different patches of trees, I believe they almost all have a time and place. Not that your place will be a monoculture of all oaks, but I have hunted open oak flats and pine plantations and would take a place with all kinds of trees, even if they have some"junk" trees. I think your on the right track with your cutting, I would have the same question on leaving the right amount of oaks to thicken it up. A lot of large oaks with wide tops will block out the light needed for a thick forest floor, although this would allow the oaks to thrive with no competition and be worth a lot $.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

FWIW - The foresters we had at our camp in Pa. did the same thing. They looked up at the canopy a lot to determine what and where to cut. We told them up front we wanted to thicken up the forest floor but also manage for some future timber value. They took those goals into account when advising us and making a plan.