Harvesting dilemma. Advice needed.

[adirondack harvester]

I'm currently in the process of marking trees in an eastern white pine stand for harvest this winter.  This area is about 10 acres in size and has been unmanaged and pretty much untouched for 60+ years.  The problem I have is that there are several trees that are well past maturity 25" plus DBH (that should have been harvested long ago) while there are some smaller trees (10"-15" DBH) around the larger trees that have suffered some bad crown damage from the ice storm we had back in 1998.  My question is when I come into a situation where there is a over mature tree near a couple of the smaller trees with crown damaged which should be harvested?  I don't really want to leave a 25" tree to dominate the area, yet on the other hand, I would hate to leave the smaller trees and have them possibly die off.  I know it's been 8 years since the storm and these smaller trees are still here , but I'm still concerned for future growth.  Your advice would be appreciated.

[beenthere]

bradstr
What are your indicators that the 25"+ dbh trees are "well past maturity", other than their diameter ?  ??? 

Did the larger trees not suffer from the ice storm in '98?

[Ianab]

Option 3 is to take them both.
I'd suggest you dont want to leave damaged trees, and if the large ones are not going to grow any more you may be best to do a mini-clearcut and let a new crop of trees regenerate in the resulting clearing. I'm assuming this is just part of the whole 10 acres and there are plenty of other good 1/2 grown trees you are planning to leave.


Just did some refresher reading and a small area of clear cut is known as a coupe, and is an accepted forest managent method  ;)

Cheers

Ian

[adirondack harvester]

I would say the other indicator why they are past maturity is because the majority of the trees are next to a wet area and I have seen where the larger trees have fallen over under there own weight.  To answer your second question beenthere, yes, the larger trees have suffered crown damage as well and there are some large as well as small trees standing dead---  a real shame.

Is cutting all of them really the best option Ianab?

Also, there are a lot of small pine saplings (4-5' high) coming up and they are quite dense (every foot or so).  Should I let them all grow or cull some at this point?

[Ron Scott]

If you have a good understory of regeneration, then all the damaged and low quality trees in the overstory can be removed. Use as much care as possible when removing the overstory so as to minimize damage to the understory saplings.