A general Selective Cutting question, kind sirs...

[Phorester]

GREG,
Swamp has the answer for your first question.  When you look at his photo and read his explanation, I'm sure you can already pick out young forest stands from mature ones.  Each "splotch' is a different stand.  Without his species labels, you might not yet know what trees are in each area. That's when you take the photo into the woods and match what you see on the ground with what you see on the phot.  A Forester who has worked in a locality for awhile can then have a pretty good idea of what trees he will find even befroe he goes into the woods.

To a landowner, it appears I'm walking randomly through his woods with him.  But I'm deliberately going into each stand as I saw them on the photo. If the trees are big enough to get a core sample, I will look until I see what appears to be a representative tree for that stand, then bore it to determine age and growth rates.  I might bore another one or two in each stand.  I'll also investigate unusual features I see on the photo just to see what it is.

A normal management plan to me is a timber type map, a cover letter, and a description of each stand and recommendations for its management.  Each Forester does this different, depending on what the landowner wants him to do. 

Whoops, gotta go.  I'll finish this later.

[Phorester]

After 2 prescribed burns, 2 forest fires, and the tree planting crew moving in, I'm finally back.

A comprehensive management plan, to me, is a Forest Stewardship Plan (FSP).  The Forest Stewardship Program has to be applied for by a landowner.  It is designed to provide more detailed information, and that's what I try to do. On the application for this program the landowner has to list his top 5 management objectives.  If he lists wildlife as one of those, he is asked to list what species he's interested in. So in those plans I provide much more detailed info on what is found in each Stand, and more detailed management recommendations based on his prioirties.  The "Stew" Plan is included in a looseleaf notebook with numerous resource sheets on the topics he has indicated he is interested in.  The time it took me to do this 167 acre FSP plan is typical for me.  A normal management plan would have taken me probably 1/4 the time to write.

I don't know of any sample plans on the 'net myself, although I suspect there are some out there.  But I don't recommend them.  I've found that there is a great tendency of landowners to simply revise such sample plans themselves, trying to fit them to their own forestland with little to no knowledge of forestry. Unless the landowner is a Forester, such a plan is worthless at best, and dangerous at worst.  Like writing a plan for your own health care for the rest of your life without first consulting a doctor.

In Virginia, plans from us (the State) are free up to 200 forested acres.  In other words, if a tract is 400 acres, with 100 acres of forest and 300 acres of farmland, it's free. After the initial 200 acres, it's $5.00 per acre. 

So if the tract is 190 woodsy acres, it's free. If it's 390, the landowners pays $5.00 per acre for the 190 acres above 200.  The consultant Foresters I'm familiar with charge $3 - $5 per acre for a management plan, usually with a minimum of $150 -$200. Here each State is different.  In Virginia, we chose to pay the consultant forester for writing the FSP.  So we pay him and he does not charge the landowner for the plan, unless his fee is above what we pay him. Then he charges the landowner the  difference.

I'd suggest the first contact for your family members is the local State Forester that covers the county where their property is located.  Their taxes are paying his/her salary......, take advantage of it.

[Raider Bill]

 I just finished a management plan Friday for a 167 acre tract.  Before going into these woods I pulled my aerial photo for this part of the county and marked the property lines on it. I then divided it into 4 different stands that I could discern from the photo, based on timber type.  I walked over each of these stands and scanned about every tree. 

How up to date are your aerial photos? Are they available to the public? I'd like to get a more up to date one than I can get on Google earth.

[SwampDonkey]

A lot of the data Google and other freebies provide are 20 years out of date and more or less public domain. The Streets and Maps CD's with these new GPS's are a least that far out of date. Where my folks live now the new map software with those consumer GPS units only shows a couple dead end streets and now that whole side hill of a 200 acre farm is all developed with several paved streets since the mid-80's. My aerials I use are 5 or 6 years old of the government website. They are as up to date as they come, but some newer photos are done through Ag Canada where farms are being cleared. The farmer isn't paying for them to be done as they cost several thousand dollars to have a flight plan drawn up, fly the photos and develop them. Somebody has to be paid, but it's governments paying the bills to get those photos. I know from receiving Bid notices on government contracts that the Upsulquitch area cost the Government about $400,000 to do just the digitizing and photo interp from new photos. And that is just a few thousand ha of coverage. By the end of the year I'll probably be able to get the digitized aerials and cover type maps.

[Riles]

What county in TN are you in? Tax assessors are using aerial photos more and more to find structures on the property. Try googling "{your county} online mapping" and see what pops up. The Gaston County (NC) online mapping pictures are updated every couple of years, I've got good ones from last October.

http://egov1.co.gaston.nc.us/website/ParcelDataSite/viewer.htm

[Phorester]

My hard copy photos are 1997.  We have a new inhouse online mapping system that uses 2002 photos, I believe, but I rarely use it due to the undependability and frustration factors. Neither of these are available to the public.

Like Riles describes, one of the counties I cover also has an online mapping system with 2001 aerial photos.  You can search by landowner name, tax map number, or 911 address. It pulls up a b&w photo with the property lines in red.  But these are tax maps, not surveyed plats, so they are not always accurate.  There is also a rudimentary mappng system so you can map individual fields, woods, etc.  You can also print off a copy.  But not all counties offer this sophisticated a service.  The other county I cover, you still have to go to the courthouse and physically search their tax maps and deed books.  No aerial photos available.

But, check with your local FSA office (Farm Service Agency).  This is a federal agency set up to help farmers with ag costshare programs, ag loans, etc. But anybody can order aerial photos from them.  You can even order photos decades old if you're interested.  Their most recent photos will depend on each individual office and when their last photos for a particular county were flown. Their number will be in the federal govt. pages of your phone book.

[Raider Bill]

The property is in MC Minn County Tn. I've looked at their website not much going on there. With only 58k Pop I don't expect too much from them.
I will add to my list of things to do on the next trip going to Farm Service Agency and see what thyey have.
I have a 92 fly over photo and whatever googles are.

[SwampDonkey]

We've probably had access to property boundaries and orthophoto maps since 1980'ish. They were hard copy maps then on paper and vellum and microfiche. Since 1998 when 911 came about with new address they have digitized everything and we get new photos every 10 year typically, but I have some newer photos that were done within 5 years as well. We use ArcGIS and get the property layer, streams, roads, counties, covertypes from DNR and Service NB. Photos are done by DNR and made available thru service NB's website. I like to load the aerials onto my GPS so I can pin point thinning or whatever and go to that area to investigate. Nice.