Should I plant Pines or Hardwoods?

[Bro. Noble]

We have two remote hillside pastures that we no longer run cattle on.  They had been dozed before we bought the land and probably shouldn't have been.  We are planning to plant them back to trees.
 
I first thought We would plant them to Southern Yellow Pine since it is native here.  We could use an off-set disc to work up strips (on the contour) and broadcast seed.  Pine seedlings would grow like hair on a dogs back.  What discouraged me was the lack of a good market for Pine in our area,  especially the small stuff you get in thinning.

I talked to a fellow from the local farm foresters office.  We decided to try a mixtures of hardwoods.  Mo. Conservation  has an excellent nursery with a wide variety of seedlings available at a reasonable price.  The local district has a hardwood seedling planter that I can use at no cost.  The only reservations I had were various problems we have been having with red oaks.  

Then I read the thread about the devestation caused by deer on hardwood plantings.  We have lots of deer!

The Forestry fellow never suggested that deer might be a problem.  I don't think anyone has planted hardwoods in our area except for a few Walnut.  

We bought some land that had SYP plantings as well as Walnut.  The Walnut was planted on sites not suitable and hasn't done well.  The pine did extremely well but wasn't thinned soon enough because of lack of markets.  It came close to stagnating but I think is coming out of it alright after thinning.

I can leave the patches alone and have a stand of Persimmon, Hickory, Red Cedar, and Pine. It would be uneven and of poor quality.  We have a lot of such patches in the area.  They are an eyesore to me, but I suppose the deer and turkey think their lovely.

What had I orter do?

Noble

[Ron Scott]

Noble,

What are the highest valued and best growing hardwoods in your area? Also, how many acres are to be reforested?The recommendations of your local conservation District forester should be appropriate, but then you might want to go with the native yellow pine for vegetative diversity if you  don't have any on your property.

How steep are the hillsides? Are they economical for future timber harvests without erosion control needs, aesthetic concerns within the landscape etc?

Determine your management objectives for your entire property on a landscape basis considering the geology, soil types, topography, existing vegetation, wildlife, aesthetics, water, economics, etc.

One never knows when that yellow pine market will take off, so it might be worth some management. I can remember when we couldn't give red pine away here, now it's in high demand at good prices.

[Bro. Noble]

Ron,

We have about 400 acres of native timber that is either predominately SYP or mixed with Hardwood.  We have 100 acres that were planted to SYP in 1958. Diversification isn't an issue.

Northern Red Oak and Walnut are our most valuable trees and both grow well on these sites as does pine.

The land is level enough that we have brushogged them and run a fertilizer truck on them, but too steep and rough to hay.

As far as ascetics and erosion,  These patches are where they are never seen by anyone but hunters.  They are much more level than the native timber on our place.  Its all on hillsides.

As you point out, the markets in 50 years are unknown.

I guess the question is wheter I should take the easy out with pine or put in much more expense and labor and take a chance on hardwoods.  Sounds like an awful gamble with the deer.

Thanks Noble

[Tarm]

Noble;
Do the deer eat Southern Yellow Pine seedlings? If not maybe you could just mix some Red Oak acorns with the pine seed when you broadcast seed them. The pine seedlings might hide the young oaks.  Here (WI) the deer will mow down our White Pine, munch a little on the Red Pine and ignore the spruce. I've tried planting hardwood seedlings many times-always had a total failure. I find I need to use tree shelters to have any hope of success. The shelters add to the cost and need yearly maintenance. The problem of poor markets for small stems can be solved by heavy precommercial thinning. When the pines are six feet tall or so thin them to 8 - 10 feet apart.  At 500 trees per acre you should have some decent sized stems by the time you need to thin.  Good luck and JUST DO IT.

[Ron Wenrich]

On the better sites, I would probably opt for the walnut.  Although the markets for walnut has changed in the past 20 years, it still remains pretty stable in the marketplace.  I don't think deer impact them as hard as the other hardwoods.

On the poorer sites, I would opt for pine.  Although the market isn't as good, you will get better yield per acre than with the hardwoods.  

It's pretty hard to predict market values into the future in hardwoods.  One buyer told me that it goes through a cycle and it lasts about 30 years.  When open grained species like oak and ash are up, closed grain species like maple and birch are down.  

5 years ago, oak peaked and has since remained stable or declined somewhat.  Maple and birch have come up in price and hard maple is much better than red oak.  

[Ron Scott]

Previous comments are are on track. Based on economics, reforest most of the area with southern yellow pine but plant the better sites with walnut and maybe some oak.

Also let hardwoods regenerate naturally. Deer protection will be needed on the hardwoods for good stocking levels and to maintain tree quality.

The pine should be maintained with scheduled noncommercial weedings and commercial thinnings as possible until sawlog product size is reached.  

[Texas Ranger]

I agree with Ron and Ron.  Plant pine so there wont be as many Lonesome Pines, and walnut for the crop tree of the future.  Buy a good prunning saw.  Walnut in Missouri do wierd things in a years time and somewhere along the line you will have to select which fork to make the main stem.  Mo has a real good Walnut advizory bunch, so take advantage of 'em.  Before we sold the farm I prunned walnut every year, either on the young ones for straight, or the older ones for clean.