Tree ID

[Raider Bill]

Here are some Pix I took last week. CAn anyone Id these?

[beenthere]

Raider Bill
Would be nice to get the pics at a better resolution. Any chance?  These are about 10k, and 30 would be much better. 

[Riles]

Eastern redcedar, Juniperus virginiana and loblolly pine, Pinus taeda. At least until the better pictures come in.

[Raider Bill]

MAybe these will be better

[Phorester]

Riles is right.  The last series show loblolly pine in the top 2, eastern red cedar in the middle one, loblolly in the bottom 2.

[Raider Bill]

My 69 acres consists mostly of the loblolly pine. BEsides the cedar I also have popular but the loblolly is the majority.
What can you tell me about this tree? Up to this point I thought it was larch.............

Additionally, they are very thick with briars, vines and brambles everywhere making it very tough to walk through the woods.

This was Bowater property and was replanted in 92 I believe.
I have a arial photo taken at that time and it appears they cut a 34 acre section in what looks like a crop circle to the top of the ridge that almost matches the topo maps lines. . All other cut areas looked to be clear cut any idea why they would do that?
I've been trying to upload tthe 2 pix to show you but still can't seem to get them on.

[Raider Bill]

This is a image taken around 92 right after they logged it off. Notice the crop circles?
First question, why would they cut tlike this?


This is a topo of the same area, notice the elevation rings almost match the crop circles they cut?

What's up with this?

I want to build my house at the highest point which puts me just about at the bullseye.

[WDH]

What you are calling crop circles are likely piles of debris that were pushed up when the tract was site prepared prior to planting.  The forestry best-practice is to push this debris in long piles (called windrows) on the contour to deter erosion.  Then the piles are burned sometimes and sometimes they are not.  If you walk on the property, you should be able to tell if the features on the photo are old windrows.

[SwampDonkey]

What it looks to me, is someone used a grease pencil on that aerial photo. Other than that, I can see the built roads (white lines) and to travel around the contour of the hill would only be done if there where natural benches in the hillside. Most of the time the wood is yarded up hill to an upper road on the height of land or down hill to a lower section of road. The aerial image is a bit fuzzy to see much, try less compression. You may have a section of forest that was harvested plantation because of beetle infestation. The beetles work from centre toward the outer reaches, so maybe they were experimenting with harvesting to see the effect on beetle control. I've been in that same area in 2001 I believe and there were beetle survey plots in those plantations. The folks at V-Tech, in Blacksburgh Entomology department may give you some answers. If member bugboy was here, he could fill you in. I can remember leaving Knoxville with bugboy and going a ways and up in those mountains on our trip.

[SwampDonkey]

WDH has it I think. I couldn't tell nuthin from that image. Have a looksie here.



Cazes & Hepner (C&H) Plough used in reforestation. The area of coverage is approximately 40 acres. This is on a top of a hill, not much slope to it.

[Phorester]

RAIDER BILL, you need a Forester on the ground in your woods for these type questions.  Without seeing it in person and not knowing the management history of the property, all we can do is guess. I'd recommend you contact a Tennessee Forester in that area.  The State of Tenn. will have a local forester assinged to your county.  Look in the governmnent pages of your phone book.  He/she could also do an examination of your property and offer management tips and advice, maybe contract some management services if they're needed.

Or contact Bowaters themselves and see if you can find a Forester with them that can answer your question.

[Riles]

Windrowing has been discredited as a BMP these days. The "windrow effect" became noticeable as you looked across a field and noticed the trees were taller the closer you came to the windrow. You ended up with waves because all the nutrients and topsoil were in the windrows.

My first impression was that the logger was having fun with mazes. Then I figured it was some kind of funky regeneration technique. Seed trees left in a line to make it easier to harvest them.

You said Bowater replanted in '92, can you see rows? You're probably about ready for a thinning.

[SwampDonkey]

Riles, your probably right there. Usually a result of improper scarification. Only the brush and large woody debris should by windrowed and the top soil should be in tact. For some reason some folks (usually planting contractors) thought that those sites should be almost as clean as a cleared field and a lot of good top soil got shoved into piles. Also, in the case of the C&H plow, seedlings are very much prone to frost heaving in cold climates and often the dozer went too deep and almost into sub soil as the nose of the plow went up and down as the dozer rolled over terrain. Some wet sites were also plowed and should never been anywhere near them, about all they accomplished on wet sites was making ditches for breeding mosquitos and black flies. 

[WDH]

Back in 1992, shearing and raking debris into windrows was still standard pactice for many companies in the Southern US.  Swamp D. is right in that many times topsoil was pushed into windrows, negatively impacting the site.  That is one reason it is not seen much these days.  From the photo, it seems that the site hase been cleared and readied for planting; that is why I suspect the lines might be windrows.  Today, there is much less intensive site preparation compared to the old days.  Many companies plow strips across the site along the contour to create a planting bed and then come back a year or two later after planting and spray herbicide to control the hardwood competition if the site is being managed as a pine plantation.  There is not much shearing and raking into windrows anymore.

[WDH]

I'm was in error on my previous post.  It was Riles that pointed out that pushing topsoil into windrows created the accumulation of nutrients into the windrow creating better growth in the windrow resulting in the wave effect.  Like Phorester said, the only way to know for sure is to do a ground inspection.

[Phorester]

RAIDER BILL , try this link to find out the State Forester who covers your county. Get him/her out to your property and pick their brain.

http://www.state.tn.us/agriculture/forestry/tdffo.html

We've never done shearing and piling in my end of  Virginia.  Never been cost effective on the smaller projects here.  Some of the forest industries used to do that a lot in the coastal plain.  A related site prep measure....., Bulldozing a tree planting site is a last resort for me.  I use it only when no other method will work on a particular site.  In addition to stirring around the topsoil as already mentioned, the compaction of heavy equipment running over about every square foot of ground really cuts into the productivity of the site.  I read one research paper that stated bulldozing reduced the Site Index of the site by 10 points.

I wonder if compaction is part of what ya'll are seeing with the shearing and piling, where the trees grow taller next to the windrows. There is little compaction right in the pile or windrow since the equipment is not traveling over that spot/windrow.

[SwampDonkey]

Soil compaction wasn't a major concern on C&H. Micro site selection was more of a concern, keeping the trees out of the dips that may pool water and making sure you didn't plant in topsoil that had buried brush underneath, thus drying out the seedling. And then the frost heavy because of bare mineral soil. You take the duff (L&H) and F layers off and your setting yourself up for problems in cold climates. The trees were usually planted to the outside edge of the dozer track, next to the windrow. If they went to wide you fill planted in the windrow. Most sites unless its heavy slash should just be hot planted. The problem areas of hot planting are often heavy thick layers of slash on the machine trails or roadside, so it can take a bit of rooting around to get to the mineral soil or just work around it. I've done it myself, but it cuts production a bit. Planting contractors should be able to factor this in the planting rate for their workers on that site. If you have a little 'break away' in planting difficulty, then bonus.

We gave up on brush raking before it even took off in my area, too costly and too damaging to the site. However what I found effective was using just a dozer and angle the blade. Just skim over the ground so you can make paths for planting, don't set the blade in the soil. You can use it to bust up slash in trails and roadside also. Don't travel back and forth over the ground , just move straight ahead. It doesn't have to be perfectly clean. On some dry sites you'll be very surprised not to see white spruce regenerating naturally on those strips from seed. Some sections of my ground have done just that. If you want jack pine, just do the same on fresh (low-mod intensity) fire ground. You won't be able to begin to count the new seedlings in a couple years. To remove alder, wait for the ground to freeze up and hover the blade over the topsoil and cut them off in strips 6-7 feet apart. Again move straight ahead, no back and forth. Spray the site when seedlings harden off that season as the weeds on those sites are thick, may have to spray again in the next season because often times the weeds are layered. Killing the top layer of taller weeds, often releases the lower herbs.

[Raider Bill]

I tried to upload a better pix but there were too many pixils. I will try again today.
I have not been able to get up on to this area. The brambles, briares and trees are too thick.
I do not see any evidence of them planting in rows. It appears that the trees were just haphazzardly planted and very close together in my opinion.
Probaley in January I will rent a dozer and make my way to the top where I plan on building.
I had thought of bush hogging up there but the only tractor that would fit is a lawn tractor. I bought a old s-10 4wd with this in mind but couldn't get more than 10 feet off the trail.
And here I thought if I build dead center in the crop circle I would be first to be picked up by extraterrestrials

[Phorester]

SWAMP, to clarify our bulldozing here, we actually use a frontend loader.  With their higher lift, they can get a better angle for pushing over residual trees. Rarely is this needed in a planting site, standing trees can usually be left, but if they need to come down a frontend loader lifting it's bucket 10 - 15 feet above the ground can get better leverage and can usually do it with one push, back up and push out the stump and go on.  Since a bulldozer can't get his blade up very high, sometimes he has to dig, dig, dig, a big hole around the stump to break enough roots to get the tree to fall.  Moves a tremendous amount of dirt and takes much more time to accomplish the same thing.

Also, what I like best about a frontend loader is their toothed bucket.  They can just run along with these teeth barely above ground or just into the ground and scrape up the logging debris without having to actually take a swath of dirt with it as a bulldozer blade has too.  Even angling the dozer blade is not as effective as the toothed bucket.

Biggest problem I have is that the contractors want to do too much.  They are used to removing every twig and stump for construction jobs, their normal work, and they want to do the same for a tree planting site.  Hard to get them to just leave the stumps and not scrape up every twig they see on the ground.

[SwampDonkey]

At one time, we had to remove all standing trees on the block to be planted. No longer required for the planting program we have now. But, rarely are there big residuals standing and we work around any that are. Most loggers want every stick they can cut. Sometimes a patch of advanced regen is worked around as well. Some people think by running a dozer through those thick patches it thins them out. Well, yes if you take top soil with them and no if you just maul over them, it just creates j-shaped (pistol grip) stems as they recover. Best to segregate the ground if there are patches of significant sized area.

I don't follow on the use of a loader, it can get full quick and soon your pushing a lot of stuff. Are you using just a blade or bucket? With a dozer blade angled as you pass over the ground, stuff gets deflected to the side. Use a D8 and those stumps aren't a problem. Of course we don't have great big hardwood stumps like you guys. A 24 inch stump is pretty big and not common unless your on old growth softwood land. A spruce stump is moved easily since the roots are shallow. If the blade gets propped up, so what, just keep the forward momentum going.

As you say, some of those operators think they are clearing pasture or something. Some have not grasped the concept of $$/ha and are always thinking $$/hr. That don't work in forestry up here. Can't afford to have a guy putter'n around, when ground coverage (production) is what is most important. Sometimes you have to work with the guy so he knows what is required and what is the most effect method of getting the job done. I've seen a lot of guys set loose and the supervisor gone off somewhere, then come back and give the guy a hard time. Mind readers I guess.  Ok, beginning to ramble a bit. 

Most operations here are using barrel and chain or power disk trenchers on dozers or skidder. One outfit had a huge big crusher for years that rolled over the ground.

[Raider Bill]

I am assuming that the briars and bramble thickets are going to be there until the trees grow to the point they limit the sunlight?

What about thinning? I really have no intention of logging the property but would like to enjoy being able to take a stroll.
On that note, is there something better than a pair of brush pants to wade through these razor blades? I am not familer with loggers chaps, would a pair of them kill 2 needs? One being the thorns and the other for safe chainsaw operation. LAst trek I wore a old pair of leather riding chaps, way too hot even a week ago.

[Tom]

Raider Bill
It's a lot of work, but the best thing I found to get onto my property back in the beginning was machetes and ditch bank blades.  Eventually I got paths cleared that allowed me to pass unheeded.

Machetes can be dangerous propositions though.  If you take this route, be careful and wear gloves. You will soon find that there are some really crummy excuses for machetes sold out there.  A call to a local surveyor may help you find a good blade and a good outlet.

If there is a path created that wildlife can pass, like deer, they will help to clear more as they browse.  An herbicide will help to keep the path clear also.

[Phorester]

SWAMP, This is a good example of different areas of the world and different experiences putting different perspectives on what's said.

The sites where we doze here are junk eastern mixed hardwoods. Most times it's areas that were pretty much clearcut and not replanted 10-20 years before, now mostly impenetrable head high and taller hardwood brush (all that biodiversity that comes in after a clearcut.  Hmmmm....).  Maybe big stumps left from the clearcut (we instruct the operators to just go around them), big crappy no-value wolf trees left. Not enough good stuff  to leave for a future forest, but too much to plant through.  (That's why we're dozing them, getting rid of the junk to plant better trees). No conifers are being pushed, most times there's none there at all. The residual trees we push down are the great big widespreading hardwood wolfs which would shade out a bunch of ground underneath, and thus a bunch of new tree seedlings, if left.  Or maybe small clumps of polesized hardwood junk.  If it is just a 'normal' tree with a slim trunk and crown out all by itself, we ask the operator to just leave them, don't waste time pushing them down because they won't interfere with the new forest we plant afterward. But heavy equipment operators like to push things down...........

The loader doesn't scoop up the debris in their bucket and carry it to a pile.  They tilt the bucket down until the teeth are vertical to the ground and just skim along with the teeth just above or barely into the dirt.  They just push it along to the pile or windrow just as a dozer would. Similiar to what is called a root rake in these parts, but roots rakes aren't readily available, so we use frontend loaders.  The narrow bucket also gets around and between stumps better and faster than the wider dozer blades and root rakes.

[Phorester]

Yeah, RAIDER BILL,  use the logger chaps for brush busting.  They are excellent safety gear for machetes too.  Like Tom says these can be pretty dangerous to legs, dangling arms and other body parts.  But a lot of briars will eat'em quicker than normal tree-cutting use.

Correct on the trees eventually shading out briars and other brush.  This could take a couple decades though.

[Raider Bill]

Uncle Sam saw fit to issue me one of these 30 years, and then forget about it.
http://www.woodmanspal.com/
Mines got a wrap around steel hand guard. So far so good. What do you guys use?


Is there a preferred brand or type of chaps?

That DR field/brush remover looks interesting.

[PineNut]

The lower story (briars and bushes) is well on the way to being shaded out on my pines at ten years. Some places that were problem areas were worked on with a  DR mower. This machine will cut the small stuff (1” diameter easy, will cut 2”) but it is not as easy as the advertisements make it out to be.

[Raider Bill]

I got their DVD, they sure make it look easy chopping up almost 3 inchers. Did you would you buy one again?

[SwampDonkey]

Just walked thru some plantation red pine we planted on dad's farm. Planted in 1996. The pine are starting to nuke the raspberry. Most of the plantation is spruce on the front 2/3'rds. The pine is 1-2 meters taller than the spruce. But, man oh man, do the Dang moose give them pine a going over, breaking the tops off. Darn things.  I'de like to use a few other words. 

[PineNut]

Yes, I would buy a DR mower again. Cutting one inch is easy, 2 inch you know it is working, 3 inch you have to nibble at it but will cut. It will take the briars down but you have to be dressed for it, like gloves and tough clothes. It is not as easy as they make it look but it appears to be the best alternative (other than getting someone else to do it.)

[Tom]

That Woodsman's Pal is just the ticket.  The hook is good for briars and grape vines when you have to reach inside of a shrub to get them.  The heft is good, though you don't have the length of a machete, there are attributes to both.  Severing the vines from the ground is the best killer, then cutting them high enough that the rest is out of the way.  The tops in the trees will die.

If you run into a lot of 2 or 3 inch stuff, you might also shop for a ditch bank blade.  It is a short machete looking blade affixed to a 4 foot handle.  Most hardware stores have them.  If kept sharp they make clearing a lot easier because you don't have to bend or get so close.

Always keep a good file with you while you work too.  Put it in your pocket or in a tool kit and give your blades a stroke or two everytime you take a little breather.   .....and don't chop the ground. 

[WDH]

You might think about a contolled burn to reduce the underbrush when the pines get old enough.  If the property was harvested in 1992, then the pine trees are at least 12 years old.  If you could get one of the State Forestry foresters to come out, they could advise you on whether it can be burned safely or not.

[SwampDonkey]

I've used what tom mentioned, I think. Has a curve on the tip? I used one to clear salmon berries that were 9 feet high and red alder at a camp that was getting over grown. After I cleared it, I discovered why they were left to grow up. To cover up the scar behind the camp by someone making it their private dump. 

[Raider Bill]

Yep got a nice hook for getting in and under the brush. Mine came with a sharpening stone but that got lost years ago. I do carry a file with it though.
When Issued by Uncle Sam, I carried it once, decided I didn't need the extra weight, somehow it got lost in my sea locker. I used it a lot when Shark fishing, even dropped it overboard once and had to scuba down to retrieve.

There sure are a bunch of logging chaps out there, Some even have "exploding" fabric for protection. I guess this is low impact like the reactive armor they have on main battle tanks now.

[Phorester]

If you're just gonna use the chaps for brushbusting and with a hand held cutting blade, I'd go for a cheaper pair.  If you're gonna use them also for chainsaw use, I'd go for a more expensive/higher quality set. I figure even the most expensive brand available is still cheaper than a trip to the hospital.

Reminds me, a friend of mine cut himself badly in the leg with a chainsaw a year or so ago.  Fortunately it wasn't too deep, no permanent damage, but bled a lot. Was by himself, had to crawl back to his truck, painfully drive himself to the emergency room (fortunately it was an automatic, didn't have to push in a clutch), truck seat and floorboard covered in blood, several weeks recovering.  He then went out and bought a pair of chaps. Better late than never, I reckon.  A few months after that, he came up one day where I was cutting up firewood to help out.  Didn't use his chaps.  He said, "oh, I forgot them.  I don't wear them much anymore anyway."  Did I mention that he was a dumb friend?

[Raider Bill]

I'll be using them for both so will get a good pair. I got a lot of work ahead of me and sure don't want a chain saw or machete accident to get in the way.

Trying to stay within the forums sponsers, Bailey's online have a set but have seen more expensive ones elsewhere. Just want to get the right ones.

[Phorester]

I'd say the right chainsaw chaps are the ones that a person actually wears. 

My dumb friend I was telling about bought a nice pair of chaps, but leaving them home does no good.

I expect all the moderate to high end chaps would be not only as safe as they can be made, but also the most comfortable, which means they would have a better chance of being be worn. Trying to find the "most right" ones is probably like trying to find the "right" anything, it's easy to get bogged down in the details and not be able to make a decision. 

[Raider Bill]

Well I ordered a set of chaps, vest and head gear. I'll probley look like a city dude in the woods but I've grown to like my extremities and red body fluids.

[beenthere]

The 'city dude' in the woods is one without the protective gear, believe it or not. 

Now it will look a whole lot better when it has some dirt and debris on it from being used, and not look 'brand new'.

[Ron Scott]

It shouldn't take long to "break them in".

[Phorester]

This stuff has been standard wear for loggers in my area for several years. As BEENTHERE says, it's the new or casual chainsaw user that I don't see wearing it.

[Raider Bill]

Well when this gear gets delivered you will see me in my bright orange apparral glowing in the woods.
I am a casual chainsaw user. Never wore anything but gloves. You real loggers would sure laugh at a us down here. Tree climbers wearing shorts, tank tops, sandels and a climbing belt.