Hardwood even-aged/un-even aged

[WDH]

Uneven aged management is a lofty goal on private lands.  I have seen it fail more times than it has been successful.  The largest problem is that the forest is longer lived than the owners.  Land ownership changes pretty often in this country.  Rarely do you see ownership last longer than a few generations.  Even if it does, the thinking keeps on changing.  More than once did I see a potential landowner sit back and wait until he was the owner of a tract of land.  Then, it was cleared to make more lines in the bank book.

This is a very astute point made by Ron.  Unevenaged management can be a romantic notion unless you are thinking and behaving in terms of decades or even a century or two.  Nature does it, but nature has unlimited time.  In the old growth forests where nature did it, the maturity of the cycle was in centuries, not a couple of thinnings. 

A forester or landowner cannot expect to bring this process to fruition, especially in hardwood management, in the course of their timeframe.  However, what you can do is start the process.  You can create different mini-stands.  You can create openings for regeneration.  You can select for crop trees.  You can improve the stand composition and vigor with harvest.  Then, you have to persevere for several generations. 

When I see hardwood stands, my first management thought is, "How can this stand be improved to produce more value?".  Rarely is a clearcut the way to increase stand value.  What really disappoints me is when hardwood stands are harvested and the 10" to 12" trees of the desired species are cut for pulpwood at very low stumpage value.  Those trees just spent 20 - 30 years to be on the verge of becoming sawlogs, and they are taken down.  Now, you have to wait 20 - 30 more years to get to the same place.  That is what a clearcut can do for you unless the whole stand is a high-graded piece of junk.

That said, I am no Hardwood Silviculturist.  I always enjoy the discussions on hardwood management because I always learn something more.  Makes me want to go work in my hardwood stands .

[beenthere]

Ron
Very well said, from many standpoints...be it landowner, logger, or the third party advice-giver/planner.

I've had my woods under "my" management plan for 40 years now, and have enjoyed working with the thinning of old, mature low-quality trees left by a white oak stave cut some 50 years ago. Because the white ash were so prolific, and I like ash, I managed the stand in favor of ash, along with walnut, white and red oak and hickory if it was there. Now, the looming EAB problem leaves me in a dilema, as to what to do with the ash.  I'm thinking removing the 4-10" dbh ash trees for firewood, and leaving the remaining ash to hopefully last long enough for sawtimber. The smaller ash to hopefully survive the EAB predictions.

Managing a forest seems similar to a teacher in school having a new set of pupils each year, and trying to adapt to their needs and feed them knowledge..not knowing how they will fare after they move on from this point in their life (just that the teacher can't remove the bad actors as easy as the forester can weed them out  ).

[Ron Wenrich]

Tonich

The upper limits that we used 26" on was for good sites and for red and white oak, ash and tulip poplar.  Those were in good supply on most good sites.  If there were any white pine or walnut, we would include that for the upper limits.  Species is very area specific.  As site decreases, upper dbh limits get lower.

In my opinion, the upper limits can be higher if tree quality merits it.  Just because you hit a certain size doesn't mean the tree has reached a point where it is getting less valuable.  We had one job where our red oak averaged 36" and we left 28" trees for stocking.

Since you are planning on coming back onto the area in 15-20 years, residual stocking is pretty important.  Cut too much an you'll have epicormic branching and that effects lumber quality.  I see it when I'm running the head rig.  I can tell stands that have been skinned at a previous time.  We would try to leave a residual stand of 70 BA, with higher stocking in stands like white pine or tulip poplar.  Our goal was to leave crop trees and open up their crowns.

Most of the stands I worked in had been high graded in the past in some form, and our goal was to convert to uneven aged management.  The first trees to go were the obvious over mature stuff.  This was usually red oak, since in prior years, red oak wasn't worth much and was left behind.  Wolf trees of poor quality or species was marked to be girdled and left as den trees.

The next step was to make a hole to drop the big trees, especially if there were other good trees that we were going to keep.  We would find an area where there were trees of the poorest quality.  Species wasn't that important.  A good maple would be kept rather than a poor oak.  These were the areas we were hoping for regeneration and quite often got it in tulip poplar or ash, if not oak.

If we found an area that had a bunch of poor quality stuff, we just made a mini clearcut.  The stand told us where to put in a hole for our regeneration.  We didn't try to map out anything, as that is a waste of time.  We rarely had the luxury of an inventory.  Our inventory was taken on the spot using a prism or angle gauge. 

We weren't out to get new growth in every corner of the woodlot.  Just in those areas where the current forest was no longer a good one to take forward for another 15 years.  The next time around, we hoped we could find other areas to introduce new growth.  So, it would take a long time until you covered the whole area.

Out of all the jobs that we did, I can only think of one that has survived the next generation of foresters.  Some were logged again within 10 years.  One was highgraded within weeks after the job.  All those 16-24" trees we left were put on a truck and moved down the road.  The only thing left were 12-14" trees. 

I've been on some of those heavily logged stands.  Most come back in weeds and vines.  One guy asked me how long to expect his next forest to come back after a real heavy logging.  I told him not in his lifetime.  Its been 15 years and I'm starting to see a few trees.  Mostly it came back in goldenrod and multiflora rose.  Even the residual stand died.

[tonich]

Out of all the jobs that we did, I can only think of one that has survived the next generation of foresters.  Some were logged again within 10 years.  One was highgraded within weeks after the job.  All those 16-24" trees we left were put on a truck and moved down the road.  The only thing left were 12-14" trees. 

I've been on some of those heavily logged stands.  Most come back in weeds and vines.  One guy asked me how long to expect his next forest to come back after a real heavy logging.  I told him not in his lifetime.  Its been 15 years and I'm starting to see a few trees.  Mostly it came back in goldenrod and multiflora rose.  Even the residual stand died.

What a huge disappointment, isn’t it!?
All efforts and knowledge applied, went down the road. At the drop of a hat.
Pity, they must have been the best possible forester’s intentions…

Ron,
Thank you for your detailed replay!
Thank you for being so dedicated!
I do hope, you have some good followers down there.

Toni