Pre-Commercial Thinning

[Radar67]

Hello All,
    I am just getting started in timber management so I guess a little background is in order.

I purchased 20 acres of land for a homestead site. The land has 12 year old planted pine on it. The paperwork from planting lists the pines as "Super Pines", is it correct to assume that this is some sort of slash pine? Since I won't be building for a couple of years, I want to manage the timber for commercial sale later on. The land is in dire need of thinning (I have seen jungles easier to navigate  :D). What would be a good guideline for spacing between the trees? I plan to do the thinning myself and use the trees for poles on the property (wood sheds, pole sheds and such). In the areas I have been to, the trees are four to six inches bdh, is that a normal size for 12 year old trees? I do have some sporatic trees that measure 10 to 14 inches bdh. The local foresters in my area are not real interested in helping me come up with a management plan for such a small acrerage. Any information on steps to take would be appreciated. My long term goal for the property is to clear two to three acres for a homesite and continue to grow timber on the remaining property.

Thanks,
Stew

[SwampDonkey]

Stew, how tall are the trees? Have the lower branches began to self prune/die-back? If so, how high up before the first live limb? If your talking under brush, then I wouldn't worry to much about cutting them. If they trees that are over topping the pine, that can be a concern. I know hardwood up here grows faster in height than softwood, I suspect the opposite down there. I must say, without knowledge of growth rates down there, that those pine sure did grow fast in 12 years. Red pine up here would be 2-3 inches dbh on a good site after 12 years. Four inch dbh softwood is merchantable pulpwood up here. Although, as far as pine they use jack pine and some red pine for pulp. Jack pine is like Virginia Pine, red pine is kind of like short leaf or loblolly pine. Because of the aggressive growth your seeing and the fact that it is widely planted,  I would guess you have slash pine, my second guess would be loblolly (known as old-field pine).

[Tom]

 Stew,

Super pine is Slash.  I have it planted on my place.  How late a generation you have depends on the speed your Forestry nurserys were working.   I lucked up and got some from a forester in Georgia where they had 3th generation super slash rather than the 2nd generation I would have had to use from a Florida nursery.

The size of your trees sounds about right for 12  years though maybe just a little on the small size.   My super slash is 5 and 6 inches and I planted them in the fall of 1995.

I planted mine on 6 foot centers and in rows 12 feet apart.   Volunteers have filled in the rows (thicker than fleas on a dogs back) but they are way behind the super slash.  Because of the thickness of the trees, the planted pines are growing straight and tall with a lot of self-pruning.  I was concerned about the volunteer trees crowding the super slash but that hasn't turned out to be a worry.  It may have even helped the self-pruning.

I am in need of getting rid of the volunteers now, but, mostly for esthetics.  I plan on a thinning of the super-slash in another 5 years to 12 foot centers  I'll leave the rows intact.  Every other tree I take, at that point,  will be pulp.  The remaining trees, I plan to leave for saw logs.  Being on 12x12 centers they will make my wife a good "park" and she's all excited about that.

I wish I had a chipper.  Everything I take before the pulpwood thinning will be returned to the earth.

[Riles]

I was in a stand of 15 year old loblolly a couple weeks ago that were running 12-15 inches dbh. That's across the state line from you near Calhoun, La. They were part of a study by LSU on the effects of pinestraw harvesting, so the trees were in rows 20 or 24 feet apart and some were being fertilized. I don't know when they were thinned last.

Your mileage may vary.

[Tom]

Riles,

Those Loblolly were probably just put in the ground and the planters ran for their lives.    loblolly puts on girth and height so fast that it will knock you down if you don't get out of the way. 

Had a neighbor not return from the mailbox one year.  He had stuck some Loblolly in the ground on the way back to the house and lolly gagged around putting up his dibble.   His wife got worried and went looking for him when he didn't show for breakfast.   She found him hanging from his back belt loops about even with the gutters on the roof.   she had to chop the fool tree down to get him off of it.  :-\ ......honest! 

[Riles]

Now I seem to recall hearing that story before, 'cept they was talkin 'bout kudzu.

Had a geography professor give a lecture about kudzu once. He was all into this history and what it meant to the south.

He was substituting for his wife, who was the teacher of record for the class. She did her masters research digging soil samples in the middle of the woods. He did his in bars named after kudzu. Honest.

[Radar67]

Swamp Donkey

how tall are the trees? The trees are about 12 to 18 feet (the small ones, the larger trees are closer to 40 feet) My estimating may not be that good though. ;)

Have the lower branches began to self prune/die-back? Some of the branches have started to self prune, first live limb is 6 to 8 feet.

If they trees that are over topping the pine, that can be a concern. Some of the underbrush is starting to overtake the trees, ie wild sumac, what I call hedgerow bush(not a bush at all when left to prosper ;D).

My local forester informed me that the mills are not taking pine for pulp until it is 13+ years old.


Tom

I think the trees are "on the small size" due to the underbrush. I have been thinning some of it out. Mainly making trails through to get a better picture of the land. (Cutting the "junk", not the pines) I am concerned some of the pines are too close. (less than a foot apart.) I can make out rows, seems to be 3 foot by 3 foot spacing, is that too close?

Speaking of Loblolly, my step-dad has six in his yard. When I first saw them, they were no more than eight inches across, now they are close to 24. It's only been 14 years, honest. If I keep eyeing them, he is gonna bar me from coming to see him.  ;D

Stew

[Tom]

Stew,

3 foot is awful close, especially if there is no row.   Planted close they will develop some height and a clear trunk.  I'd let them do that before I took out too many trees.  If you wait too long though you will suffer from wind throw.  Trees begin to depend on one another to combat the wind.  When you thin later, you may find that they can't withstand the wind on their own and you will lose them to even a small squall. 

I was told to put mine on 5 or 6 foot centers in rows of 10 to twelve feet.  That's what I did.   I like the idea of having the rows because the give me a  passage to drive the tractor in as well as let in some light.

Something I was told that you may find helpful.  Don't judge your trees by DBH or crowding alone.  Look up as you thin.   You are looking to get rid of malformed trunks, double leaders, fuciform rust, mechanical damage, insect damage, etc.  If you don't look up, you won't see it and may take a good tree down when the one two feet away is not worth keeping.

[Radar67]

I've also heard to look up, or read it somewhere. I have a few trees bent over on my place from the recent storm. Most of the trees I am seeing do had straight trunks. I too, want to be able to drive a tractor through the trees to keep the underbrush in check. You know how the south is, you cut it down in May and it's back up by July :D.

[SwampDonkey]

I read that if you have loblolly pine volunteering on an old field, that are 3 or 4 years old, and you cut them off leaving a bit of a stump, they will sprout back.

I would say 3 x 3 foot spacing of your pine is way too close for a fast growing tree. The trees that your describing (size) would be spaced well at 8-12 feet.

Sumac (staghorn) here is a shrub, and wouldn't touch a 12 year old pine. What kind of sumac?? Beware than continually running up and down those row planted pine with a tractor can cause damage to the root mat and subject the trees to windthrow also. ;)

I would take and prune them dead limbs and space them now since they're about 18 feet. As Tom says, look up sometimes. ;) Our jack pine up here grows as crooked as a cane unless its 10,000 trees/acre and you literally can't even get off the road to walk in through it. :D I've seen some "%^%^&" plant black spruce on fire ravaged jack pine stands. After about 3 years..... where's all the spruce??? They have about 10,000 natural jack pine per acre. :D :D Man, some people in management just don't know the silvics of the species they're managing.  :

[Radar67]

Winged Sumac is what I have. I've never seen a pine sprout back after cutting regardless of the type.

As for running a tractor through, that would only be a once or twice a year thing, just to keep the underbrush in check. And, I'm talking about a small tractor, 30 HP Yanmar. I'll get some pictures of the various trees to post on my next day off.

I have been cutting the dead limbs on the trees next to the trails I am hand cutting. It is so thick that I only get about 300 feet every four hours. I have noticed that the deeper in I get, the underbrush starts to thin out a little. I guess the best way to prune and remove the bad trees is to take it one row at a time? Once the bad trees are removed, I should be able to get a better perspective for spacing? As Tom said in an earlier post, I have a small chipper and I try to put as much back to the land as possible when cleaning up. Although some species, such as the hedge row bush I mentioned, I like to compost first to kill the seed.

[Furby]

Here, if you cut a christmas tree and leave a branch on the stump, it will turn into a new trunk. :

[Tom]

The only pine that I'm aware of stump sprouting around here is Pocosin.  It's also called Pond PIne and Black Pine.   Loblolly is sometimes called Black Pine too and that leads to some confusions.   You can identify Pond PIne because it will  have pine needles growing right out of the trunk of the tree.  When you saw it, it has a peculiar smell in comparison to the SYP's.   In my opinion Pond Pine has kind of a lemon smell.

[Riles]

I can't imagine anyone intentionally planting 3 X 3. My loblollys in NC were planted 8 X 10, about 550 to an acre. A close stand would be about 1100 an acre. By the way, one technique for thinning is to just remove rows (and culls), but that assumes you can find the rows...

If you have that much undergrowth, it sounds like the canopy hasn't closed in yet.

[SwampDonkey]

We had a contractor a few years back, that jumped the gun and thinned a site too early. It was a mix of black spruce and balsam fir. The trees weren't 2 meters tall. The fir was cut out, but not quite. The thinning crew left live whorls on the cut stems and in 10 years you couldn't tell the stand was thinned, just as thick as ever. The balsam fir grows twice as fast as black spruce, so it has almost caught up in height.

[SwampDonkey]

I've seen our red pine, planted on bare fields, be over taken by birch and poplar from wind born seed. I don't find pine casts shade like spruce and fir.

[SwampDonkey]

Tom, the dendro book says it only occurs in loblolly seedling stage, when they get 10 years or older they don't sprout. It was describing loblolly pioneering fields and trying to keep them brushed out encouraged sprouting. That's why they are also called 'old-field pine' by some folks.

[Radar67]

Riles, I have no clue who planted it, I just know what I've got. Until I started researching and reading, I figured 6 x 6 would be as close as you wanted to plant. I based this assumption on what I had observed in Germany in the Black Forest.

I can distinguish the rows pretty easily. Removing odd rows sounds like the thing to do once I get a better overall idea of all the land. I'll continue culling as I work my way through. One of the problems I have is the creek crossing the front couple of acre, hard to get to the back. This may be one reason it is so thick, no one has been able to get back there. I built a foot bridge to make it easier.

Below are some pictures of the big pines on my step dad's place. I am dreaming of seeing this at my place.  ;)


26"


23"


25"


28"

I call these trees "Hosses"!! (meaning Hugh)

Thanks,
Stew

[bcraw98]

We do the thinning of our loblolly plantations and generally cut every 10th row and thin in between by taking the culls(multiple top, crooked, sick, runt) and shoot for a basal area between 70 and 100.  Most commercial thins in our area cut every 5th row, but that is mainly due to the size of their equipment. My skid steer allows me to manage with less taking of rows, and gives me a greater  selection of quality trees to leave.




http://msucares.com/pubs/publications/p2260.html

Will give you some thinning guidlines

Barry

[SwampDonkey]

Feels like I'm out there cutting down candy canes when I'm spacing yellow birch. The wintergreen smell is some strong in young saplings.  ;D

[WDH]

Stew,

Next time that I am over we will take some plots and develop a plan.  But, we have to wait until it is so hot that it will be a thing we will always remember .  (Just kidding ;D.  I already have enough memories like that !).

[SwampDonkey]

Especially after it has been thinned. The hot sun beaming down and the heat radiating off the cut stems. Doubly hot! 

[Radar67]

Danny, that sounds good. It is already hot enough to remember, I know I won't soon forget my culvert installation. I've been seeing lots of mudbugs in my creek.  , along with Jake. >:(

SD, the humidity here does not need the sun to make it miserable in the woods, but the sun does add to the misery.  ;)

[SwampDonkey]

The jet stream has kept that mostly to the south so far this year. Makes for nice cool working weather for bush whacking. ;D I think 75 F with a dew point  of 56 has been about the hottest here this spring. It's been 50's and 60's mostly, which is fine by me. Not so good for growing corn maybe. ;) Don't think it got to 65 today and yesterday, not quite 50 F. :D

[Clark]

Since the evils of row-thinning haven't been mentioned, I feel obligated to do so.  And maybe your plan has changed, but a simple view of row-thinning is this:

If you plan on taking every third row (very common way to perform the first thinning of red pine in the Lake States) you are going to be taking 1/3 of all the good trees, 1/3 of the bad trees and 1/3 of the mediocre trees.  Bcraw's method of every 5th or 10th row is better down the road as you can decrease the % of good trees taken and increase the % of damaged, poor form, etc bad trees taken.  20 years down the road this will pay for itself.

IMO, you want to row thin only as much as you need to, which usually equates to giving the equipment enough room to access the entire stand.

Clark