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To answer your question about regenerating red oak on your property. First of all you'll need a good seed year. The more acorns that are on the ground the better. You can usually tell on red oak by June or July if you'll have a good seed year or not. If so then you should plan a harvest for that fall or winter so that you can open up the canopy for the germination of the seed the following spring. Red and white oak need a lot of sun and some warm ground in order to germinate and grow. What we did on our family property in NY last year (Winter 2006) was to open up the canopy be taking out all the cull trees as firewood in log form, took out the lower quality hardwood sawlogs that we could sell and took out most of the hemlock but not all of it and left the white pine. Also during the course of harvesting, when wind conditions would not let us cut down sawlog sized trees, we slashed out the mid level understory. Most of these trees were witch hazel, striped maple, ironwood and beech saplings and poles that we had no market for and were better off being converted to woody debris that will rot into the forest soil. This mid level slashing was important because those trees provide a lot of shade that will hinder red oak regen if left standing. What we left behind, on a per acre basis, were several high quality red and white oak trees in the 8"-22" DBH classes along with hard (sugar) maple in the 10"-16" DBH class, a few soft maple in the same class, some black birch in the 8"-10" class and a scattering of well crowned hemlock, eastern white pine and hickory. We opened up the canopy from 100+% closure to around 45% canopy. This opening let the sun and warmth get to the forest floor. When I visted the site back in May of 2006 after finishing the logging at the end of March 2006 we had very good regeneration on the bare ground that was exposed during the logging. Regeneration in areas were we left slash was not evident, but red oak, which was our objective, responded well to the open canopy. I had noted that this was the case on neighboring properties after they were high graded and the canopy was opened up. Also a state forester in the area had walked our property with us a few years before and he'd made to same observation. By opening the canopy up we did have success in getting the red oak to germinate which did not happen in the areas that we did not get to log even though those areas received the same density of acorns from the fall 2005 crop. One problem that we have not solved completely is predation by whitetail deer on the new seedlings. The open areas regenerated better than areas with lots of slash but they are also more accessible to the deer. We do allow and encourage hunting on our property but unfortunately there are still a lot of deer. Our reason for leaving the hemlock was to help train red oak seedlings as they grow so that they will grow straight and tall with no epicormic branching. You may have a pine there in NC that can do the same. We're operating on a north aspect so hemlock is easy to come by. As to what a modified shelterwood is you'd have to ask the TVA. If you want to regenerate red oak though you'll need to open up the canopy beyond what a conventional first cut shelterwood would recommend and be heavier than what a seed tree would leave behind. Welcome to the fourm and good luck on your property.
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