Heavy population of Shagbark Hickory, Why?

[HORSELOGGER]

 Hey all!   I  have recently looked at 2 logging jobs here in Illinois that both had an extremely heavy hickory population, 5 acres and 12 acres, the Hickory was the obvious dominant species, with white and red oak way smaller in number. The 12 acre stand has a nice young crop of cherry in the understory, while the 5 acre piece has a lot of hard maple saplings .  Questions.... What if any thing caused this heavy amount of hickory on these 2 unrelated sites, 45 miles apart? past logging practices ( high grading off the oak?) what is hickory an indicator of if anything?  what is the best approach to begin restorative forestry on these type of sites?  ( I know these are tough questions to answer with out seeing the site,  just lookinf for some insights)   Thanks   Mike

[Tom]

Mike,

I can't speak for up there, but, Hickory is making a comeback or at least is beginning to make it.  It is becoming popular as cabinet wood for kitchen cabinets and other related types of furniture.  If the logs are sawable you may find a market where it would have been diifficult to say the least. a couple of years ago.

Hickory here likes wet sites and the loggers selectively left them because of no market but pulp in favor of  the cypress, oak, and bay.  perhaps he same thing has happened there.

[Ron Wenrich]

It depends on how old the stand is.  I would probably go along with the high-grading end.  Hickory is intermediate in tolerance, and can develop under some shade.  Another factor could have been that during the last cut, the hickory had a good nut year and the oaks didn't, but that's a long shot.

It is really hard to give recommendations on the stands, since I can't see them.  How large are the trees in the understory?  If you are looking at seedlings, there should be at least 1000 seedlings per acre.

For the hard maple, you could thin the stand and allow the hard maple to fill in.  Then go back and keep on thinning the stand until the maple take over.  Good hard maple fetches good prices when the markets are in their favor.  Residual stocking should be no less than 60 BA.  

You could also thin out the cherry, or you could remove the overstory, depending on the stocking levels.  

Another thing that factors in is what type of asthetics the landowners expect.  They might not be too appreciative of a clearcut just to release saplings.

[HORSELOGGER]

Thanks for the help!   I think the  guess of previous high grade logging is what makes the most sense to me. When you say that hickory is a little shade tolerant, it probably was the only species left that took off with all the sun available after a hard cut.  The 12 acre site with all the small cherry has 42 hickorys from 18" -26" dbh that I am looking at removing. Trying to favor the young cherry and smaller white oaks with out creating wind tunnels in the overstory. The small stand , with the young maple is full of smaller 14" - 19" dbh hickorys and clumps of osage orange. There are not alot of intermediate age trees to take over so releasing and favoring the maple would probably be  best.    The bigger site has approx 12,000 bft of Hickory to remove. Anybody need some logs?  

[Don P]

Hmmm, I dunno. Kiln available around there? We're up to 2 houses in the neighborhood next year . I bumped into a millwork shop somewhere around Pec last year. If you know of a way to dry it I'll check with our clients, makes fine cabinets and floors.
This was a hickory set a cabinetmaker outside Madison made for a house 3 years ago.

I hadn't realized until the other day, Mike lives about 15 minutes from where we built all last summer .
One client had talked earlier about some extra interior white pine log accents.

[Ron Wenrich]

We've been selling hickory veneer and lumber in the recent months.  Before that, we were sending logs to the handle factory.  

I really like hickory cabinets.  I'm not sure if I want to redo my knotty pine and replace with hickory.

[woodmills1]

hickory cuts tough and tens to benddddddddddddddddddddddddddd  did i put in enough ddddddddddddddddddddds on the word bend?

[Ron Scott]

I'd say that past forest mangement practices on the areas set the stage for shagbark hickory to now be the dominant species. It grows with oak and other hardwoods and  produces large crops of seed nearly every other year, especially by trees in the open.

If the oak and other hardwoods were favored and heavily cut by past logging practices and the area opened up with shagbark hickory seed trees left, it set the stage for shagbark hickory to be the predominant species for the next timber stand which you are seeing now.

[Bud Man]

Hickory is climax species result of shade tolerance and as already said product of previous oak select cutting.

[L. Wakefield]

   One thing to think about in the domain of non-timber forestry products and landowner preferences is- NUTS. If these are the scions of one or more heavily producing trees (one theory above) they likely will carry that tendency. And shagbark is way better than the other hickories for nuts- try opening what they called a 'mockernut' in WV and you'll see what I mean. Not to avoid cutting them at all, but to consult with the landowners and leave a compromise amount for nuts for now and nuts for later (I'm part rabbit and part squirrel I guess)  lw