Loss of our Tamarack (Eastern Larch)

[Jeff]

I hate the thought of losing just mine.    I think I have a picture of one of the mature ones on here somewhere. I'll look

[SwampDonkey]

The darn things can get quite big to with really long limbs. Some hard to thin them out of spruce with those big limbs, almost like a huge tumble weed. I was thinning plantation one time and they had seeded in. I musta cut two trailer loads of them on 3 acres before I just gave up and worked around them. I was using chain saw and thinning we do is brush saw work, or suppose to be. They get big fast in a plantation and the plantation was only 12 years old.

[Jeff]

The dead ones I have so far are going to be tough. They stand mostly surrounded by other trees and there is not much of a hole for any of them to be felled, and they are the tallest trees pretty much other then some of the spruce aspen and some of the birch.

I felled one this week that I thought I could get down. Wrong, it hung in a dead birch limb I was convinced would have simply broke off. I got it down with the quad and winch. I even took a video of pulling it. First I reached in and clipped off the hinge, then slipped a cable around it and pulled from the other side of some trees.  I have a pic of hauling out one of the logs with my Logrite arch. I don't know how else I would get these individual trees out without it.

 

[Okrafarmer]

The darn things can get quite big to with really long limbs. Some hard to thin them out of spruce with those big limbs, almost like a huge tumble weed. I was thinning plantation one time and they had seeded in. I musta cut two trailer loads of them on 3 acres before I just gave up and worked around them. I was using chain saw and thinning we do is brush saw work, or suppose to be. They get big fast in a plantation and the plantation was only 12 years old.

How big is the biggest one you've seen? I wish I knew the dimensions on the one my dad had, that I grew up under. I know it was over a hundred feet and was the tallest tree around for at least half a mile. In an area that was 90% woods.

[Jeff]

my neighbor Lou has many over 20"dbh and hundred foot tall.

[Okrafarmer]

my neighbor Lou has many over 20"dbh and hundred foot tall.

Yes, that's the size of most of the big ones I saw in Maine. Ours was over 24", nice and straight and had massive (for a conifer) limbs reaching out for at least 20 ft. from the trunk.

[SwampDonkey]

I can't remember the specifics on the heights of any of the big ones I've seen, but I'm pretty sure it tops out around 80 feet as it doesn't get the height of red or white spruce. Sometimes it's deceptive on the  heights if your main stand is cedar or something that only grows about 60 feet. The diameters that I have seen do approach 30 inches like the aspens and those long reaching branches most loggers hate. They seem to be bigger where there are settlements, out in the back country they are not so common because it's mostly shade tolerant species out there with the exception of white birch and aspen. Most aspen out there is road side or around wet areas that were logged. We have larger tamarack up here than in the south, one fellow was looking for some big ones from down south. Wasn't going to be paying much for the timber to make up the trucking so the deal died. He was going to use them for sewage systems I think. I don't think you can build a new house these days on a wooden cesspool sewage system, so it may have been down in northern NS. I guess the tamarack are mostly around the bogs out back. But still any thinning near boggy ground is mostly spruce, fir and cedar. Even on my land I introduced every tamarack there. Moose ravage the things.

[Okrafarmer]

My dad used it for  truck bedding and other tough use application. I think they used to use it, along with hemlock, for railroad ties a lot, if I remember correctly.

[SwampDonkey]

Jeff's tamarack grows a bit straighter than here. A lot of ours is full of spiral grain, far worse it seems on old fields. It's a bit nicer in natural forest floor, don't know why. They have to grow fairly tight here to be anything to rave over.

[Ron Scott]

Jeff,

It looks like a tough job on salvaging just the larch, but it appears to be the primary objective. Can you take out some additional species along with the larch for a possible commercial sale and to make the access and falling easier?

Can a faller buncher get on the area or is it too wet? Have you been able to get in contact with Dr. Hyde yet and discuss your larch situation?

[Jeff]

No contact with Dr. Hyde yet. I'll try again on Monday.

I think my ground is just to sensitive have a commercial logging done in there without changing it forever from what it has been, according to my neighbor, for all of his 80 some years and more.

[SwampDonkey]

You won't want that big equipment in there unless the ground freezes up well in winter. The trouble to, is I can't see the economics of it. With whomever you hired, they'd gut the place just to make it profitable for them to operate. There is a lot of stems but the average is on the small side. We aren't talking high value species either. Cedar, as long as it takes to grow to get to decent size never has been worth much compared to spruce. The black spruce is still pretty small, with a few scattered sizable ones, ones you are just beginning to get more growth due to diameter. However, the overall stand could benefit from a thinning at some point to release the maple and spruce somewhat. Jeff, how's the shoulders? Well, assuming your looking for some work.

[Jeff]

That ground never freezes. To much organic action going on below. What ever needs done, I'll be the one doing it.

[Ron Scott]

Yes, I thought that it was inoperable. Nature will have to take its course.

[Clark]

in maine we call it european larch desiese   the story i heard was it came from europe with some hack ... larch....that was used for pillings at the cargo port in eastport. it has killed most of the hack up here

I'm not so sure about that.  I know that when they originally brought the European larch over here they had a problem with continental vs. maritime seeds sources.  One (I can't remember which) did pretty bad over here while the other was fine.  It was a seed source issue that has since been worked out but I think European larch got a bad name in the process.

I don't think tamarack is headed the way of the chestnut.  It's a very fast growing tree on upland sites and does well on the wettest sites also.  It will stand more water than cedar, black spruce or black ash.  I think tag alder tolerates slightly more but not much more water than tamarack.

Unfortunately it has a variety of hosts that tend to kill entire stands.  As has been noted it's a cyclical thing.  It could also be one of those things that once you learn about it you start noticing more and more of it until you think the end is in sight for that species but in reality your perception has just widened.

Jeff it's too bad that you lost a bunch of big ones.  If it's any consolation I don't think that they tend to make it past 100 years in these parts. 

Talking of size I don't think I've seen one hit 90'.  100' is big and over 20" dbh is notable around here.  That's forest grown stuff on pretty wet ground.  On dry ground they can really take off.  I cored one this last spring that was 15" dbh and 32 years old, pretty phenomenal growth for the frozen north.

Clark

[SwampDonkey]

I don't agree with your assessment of white cedar not growing on sites that are very wet compared to tamarack. In my woods the really wet sites are dominated by cedar. I introduced tamarack to cedar sites that were cut because it's a fast growing tree. Those same sites have natural cedar growing back as well. I've seen areas that tamarack grew with the cedar and the tamarack are now stubs, the cedar will live there 3 times as long. I have cored a good many white cedar around 16 cm dbh on the real wet sites and they are between 140-180 years old. Shade tolerant trees are slow growers. Also, any bog, I mean with picture plants and sphagnum, over north are growing with black spruce and tamarack side by side in the moss. I have thinned boggy ground, because it was an island of land in the middle of a site, that had no tamarack, just black spruce and cedar. Now, tamarack will grow quicker than any species on those wet sites for sure. I have 8 year old tamarack on wet ground as tall as 14 year old black spruce on dryer ground. They are 14-18 feet tall. Also, my black ash are in those same wet places with the cedar and tamarack and very slow growing as well, not many amount to much in decades. Black ash will grow slow even on dry land. Also I don't have much alder, but I have willow to no end. We are talking about ground that would be growing just cattails and sedges if wetland trees and shrubs where not present. I call tamarack the tree that will grow on water, but that ain't exactly true now is it?

[Clark]

I don't agree with your assessment of white cedar not growing on sites that are very wet compared to tamarack. In my woods the really wet sites are dominated by cedar.

That's interesting Donk.  My observation comes while fishing and looking at these low areas that extend into the lake.  Invariably the black spruce, black ash and cedar will fade out and the tamarack will continue out towards the lake farther.  Maybe that is a regional difference?  Or I'm viewing something a little bit different than normal next to the lake?  In either case we're definitely splitting hairs!

Clark

[SwampDonkey]

Jeff,

My friend says it looks like dendroctonus simplex, or larch beetle.

What he says is: "Out here it acts as a secondary pest, knocking off stressed trees. Perhaps his trees were under stress from drought or high water table? That's what usually knocks them off!"

Jeff, I have  Forest Insect & Disease Leaflet # 175 he sent. It's 500 kb, so I can email it to you if you wish. Maybe it will come up in Google or on the USFA website if you prefer.

My friend is coming back east to his mom's. Her brother, his uncle, passed away yesterday. I knew him, he worked for father a few years back.

[Jeff]

Yea, email it to me, or attach it to a post yourself if you can, because it comes in under the limit.

I should of, could of, seen this coming. Actually I did notice it clear back to this post in 2007, but did not give it the weight I should have.

http://www.forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,24810.msg354740.html#msg354740

Here are two pics of one of the effected trees back then, and a picture of one of the healthy ones, both from that original thread.

[SwampDonkey]

Ok, I see now. You musta raised the limit from 250 kb or whatever it was. Here's the document.