White Spruce and Inonotus tomentosus (red butt rot)

[nb_foresttech]

Hello everyone. I am hoping that someone here experience with Inonotus tomentosus and management plans after it has established itself. I am in the process of writing a management plan for 600 - 700 acres of property owned by family. One stand in particular is causing me problems. The stand is approximately 25 acres of 35 - 45 year old white spruce. A small amount of sickly aspen and white birch mixed in. High Basal area and stems per ha. Very little growth during the past 10-12 years. This area was former farm ground and pasture. The old fence rows and surrounding area has some sugar maple, white ash, black cherry and signs that it was a rich site pre clearing and farming. South west aspect and good drainage for the most part.
Problem:
70-80% of spruce stems show signs of Inonotus tomentosus they are 6-10 inches in diameter. some smaller and some larger. Original plan was to do a coommercial thinning and remove lower quality and smaller stems by about 25-30% basal area. Can saw these out on the woodmizer owned by family.
Obviously now that I have discovered that Inonotus tomentosus is on the site this prescription wont work. Should I do a winter clear cut and let the aspen take over the site and attempt to encourage the other hardwood species. Any thoughts?

[vtbuckslayer]

Feller buncher and a couple grapple skidders sound the best for this site.  Theres no sense in trying to manage a stand that in return is going to give no value.  I think you have the best idea for this site.  The butt rot is only going to get worse and profeit is continuously being lost.  I would harvest the site and give some spave for other hardwoods. The poplar stand will give the shade that the sugar maple and black cherry can thrive in and give them a chance to out compete other hardwood species.  Hopefully your plan works out.  Just my two sense. Blake

[SwampDonkey]

Yeah that's the trouble with white spruce, it doesn't get thinned as it developed and soon becomes stagnate and looses volume from stem rot. When you start seeing a lot of  silver dollar-sized scales on the bark it's beyond repair. Healthy young spruce at those sizes are smooth barked. The disease can survive for 30 years after a harvest in the old stumps and under ground material. Unless you like aspen and white birch, they will dominate the new stand pretty much for quite some time. The hardwood always eventually seed in over time because they are more shade tolerant. Black cherry is nothing to brag about up here, but you can sometimes get some small sections for short logs. I've cut a few off the farm here and have a number in the yard, mostly infected with black knot.

Be interesting maybe to get a pale of butternuts and sink them in the ground in the fall after your harvest. They take pretty good to sites coming up in aspen sprouts, but being a rich site is ideal and SW aspect is good to. Sounds like a great location. I've cut some nice butternut from rich hardwood sites dominated by sugar maple, white ash, and yellow birch, some basswood. Of course the butternut is just something to experiment with. I stick some in my plantations once in awhile when my yard tree has a crop. The lawn is sometimes a mini butternut grove with all the sprouted nuts. There is a ridge here that has been pretty much cut off over the years and the butternuts are coming up all over that place. Butternut canker they say is a menace. I've never seen it around here locally, and don't want to. Makes nice furniture, although very soft. If you have sugar maple and white ash you may also have butternut and basswood present if your near the Saint John River. Maiden-hair fern, painted trilium and Dutchman's breeches are often on those sites to.

[nb_foresttech]

Thanks Swamp donkey. Yes this is a river front property between Hartland and Grafton. Butternut and Basswood also grow on the site as do paited trillium and lots of lady slippers. There is also some very nice cedar on the wet sites, with incredible basal area. I think I may try to seed in some more tolerant hardwoods post harvest. I too like Butternut however it certainly is on the decline in the area. Most of the mature Butternut on the Meduxnekeag river is now showing signs of infection also. If you ever travel between Sharpes auto salvage and the old train bridge on route 105 along the st. john river take a look at the butternut trees on the river side of the road. Most of these are infected and have died or are dying with dead crowns.

[SwampDonkey]

Yup, know the area quite well.  There are a few up about the salvage yard to in that wet gully that goes up the hill. A little grove in behind the old government depot in Grafton has some to. I'm wondering if some of those old dead butternut are just from old age, they live a short natural life to begin with, about 70 years. A dead butternut is not necessarily from a  canker. A little brook on the farm here is lined with butternut and no one has ever cut any of those in my life and I don't remember a dead one before we sold the farm. Have not been out there since 2001, no reason to. An old house, long gone now, has an old butternut that is still there after the house was torn down, still looks fine. Getting old though and that is where that butternut ridge pretty much begins and goes north. Not a pure stand, but easy to find a butternut tree up through there without working too hard at it.

But getting away from the jist of the conversation a bit.

Yeah the cedar basal area adds up quick in our Carleton Co sites. We have more cedar around here than most other counties and no trouble to regenerate contrary what DNR says.