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Forestry plan Needed for the County Tax Office - HELP!!!!

Started by submarinesailor, October 02, 2006, 06:47:06 PM

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submarinesailor

Don't know if this should be here in the general section or over in forestry.

This weekend we received our "Land Use Assessment Revalidation Application".  With it we received the following notice:  If your land is in the forestry program, a forest management plan must be on file with our office (the county tax office).  In the past, we have been allowed the just mark the form as "Forest Use", sign it and we were good to go for another year.  But now, I need a forest plan to keep what little tax break they give me.

Do any of you have any suggestions or a "canned" plan I can modify to fit my place?  We have 76.586 areas, according to the county, all of it in woods except around the house and sawmill.

My personal plans are to keep all or as much of it in forest as I can.  I plan to cut only what I need to built my covered bridge and other needed buildings.

I don't have the money to pay a forester for a plan, so any and all help will be greatly appreciated.

Bruce

SwampDonkey

Do you have any knowledge of cruising methods? There are some good threads in the forum on this subject. First and foremost I'de check with your forest extension to see if they subsidize woodlot plans in your area, but maybe there is a long waiting list.  ::)

Ok so here's an inventory and plan on a shoe string budget. ;D

Get a good compass (one you can see through the base of the compass) with local declination set on it and use your pacing for distance in the woods. Take a yard stick out in the yard and mark out 10 yards (30 feet) and then pace off how many steps for ten yards so you can guage your pacing in the woods. I usually walk with a wider stride in the woods so I usually have 100 paces per 100 yards. In the thickets its two paces per yard.

Plan your inventory:
Well for starters you should do an inventory of your woodlot. Can you get an aerial photo, maybe off the USGS website? There is a thread on here awhile back where folks were using it to pinpoint their land. Maybe your forest extension has aerial photos for $5-10 (obtain two copies maybe?), make sure you know the scale and which end is North. A map showing the lines of your property will come in handy. Use it to scale off and draw the property lines on the aerial photo with a grease pencil (rubbing alcohol will clean mistakes), as well as delineate the different homogenious groups of trees (stands). You should do this to plan your cruising (to inventory your tree volumes by species and quality). It is essential in figuring acreage by stand, volume per acre per stand and total wood volumes.

You could make a tally sheet with species listed on the left hand edge of the page, another adjacent column with pulp grade and log grade tally and diameters across the top. 

                                  Diameters (inches)              Stand Area: 10 acres          Plots: 5
Species     Quality     10  12  14  16  18  20
_________________________________
red oak      pulp     
                 _________________________
                 sawlog
_________________________________
white oak  pulp       
                 _________________________
                 sawlog
_________________________________

Cruising
Find the azimuth direction that the property lines are running (270 deg) and use that as your cruising strip azimuth to follow when establishing your plots. Find a starting point you can identify on the photo and on the ground: road intersection, rock pile, elm tree in the pasture (look for a cast shadow on the photo) or edge of field. Determine the distance from the starting point to the first plot using a ruler and the map/photo scale. If your photo scale is 1:10,000 your lucky. ;D 1 inch on the photo is 10,000 inches on the ground (278 yards). This is why I like metric better. ;) Set your compass on north and use as a protractor. Align the left edge with the direction of north on the photo while placing the centre of the compass dial over the starting point. Read the azimuth off the dial that aligns with the path from the starting point to the first plot. This first plot is usually 25 or 50 yards inside a stand boundary. Ok, using the first plot as a reference, mark on your photo the plot centres with a grease pencil, spaced every 100 yards at the same azimuth as determined above.

    North  Cruise Plan

               <-- 270 deg Azimuth
         o---------o---------o---------o <---- first plot
          |                                               
          |                                                                                 X <--starting point at rock pile
         o---------o---------o---------o
                                                     |
                                                     |
         o---------o---------o---------o
          |
          |
          o---------o---------o---------o <---- last plot


Without investing in cruising equipment just get a family member to help make circular plots with a walking stick. Make the walking stick 5 feet long and use it for measuring plot radius. To do this, mark the centre with a stake and tie a ribbon on it. Measure 30 feet (using the 5 foot stick) in the north, south, west and east directions from plot centre (compass used here) and tie ribbons. Once the plot is established measure trees at 4.5 above ground level with a tape measure and divide by 3.14 for diameters. To tally the resulting diameter mark a pencil 'o' dot in the correct column and row by species on your tally sheet. A tree measured 10.6 inches is a '10', and a tree measured 11.1 inches is a '12'. So 9.1 - 11 inch is a '10'. Remember to establish a plot away from edges of stand boundaries, you may have to offset a few yards (usually 25 yards). Keep a separate tally sheet for each different stand and mark a dot for each plot per stand.

Tally method

  o = 1 tree      o-o = 10 trees   o o = 4 trees  o-o = 5 trees
                        |X|                    o o                 o o
                        o-o

Maybe Ron or Virginia Forester can help you set up a spreadsheet to use the tally to calculate volumes. I have one but it's for metric (10 m radius plots) and NB localized volume tables. They might even use another tally method in your kneck of the woods. You could use the forum calculators to figure sawlog volumes, you'd need tree length tables or volume tables that account for taper for your area to figure total volumes. I use standard or local volume tables and I usually figure 60 % of the sawlog trees are pulp or firewood in my area. You can ask folks with cruising experience for a ball bark figure for your area. Usually we have 3 or 4 plots minimum per stand and you can adjust your spacing to increase or decrease your sample intensity.

I have a sample plan on my website in PDF format and I could send a sample as a Word document you could modify for your needs.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

SwampDonkey

Just a note: There is alot more than an inventory of merchantable trees that goes into a plan as you can see from a sample plan. Just thought it should be mentioned. ;)
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Tom

We have to have a management plan to qualify for "green belt" in Florida too.  

Go see your county forester.  Here, that is the first place we go.  They will help small landowners with a management plan and even create one for you.  That is one department that it behooves you to be on the good side of.

Here, they are the ones that report that I, the landowner, am following the plan.  it takes a great burden off of a small landowner.  

While this is a benefit today, it looks like the State Foresters are going big business.  They don't get to the small fellows like they used to.  Best try to get some of that help while it is still available.  :)

For everyone else.  You should take the time out of your schedule once in a while to drop in on your Forestry office and visit with your forester for a  few minutes.  Take him/her to lunch or buy them a cup of coffee.  They are one of the occupations that get very little positive feedback from the population and even less praise.  You don't have to bug them, just let them know that you know that they exist.

They generally enjoy helping to identify stuff you find on your farm too.  That's another excuse to go visiting.
:)

Corley5

Try your local Natural Resource Conseravtion office or Farm Service Agency.  There may even be some funding to help for drawing one up 8) :)
Burnt Gunpowder is the Smell Of Freedom

brdmkr

Either your state forestry association or your state DNR should be able to provide you a plan.  It sounds like your goals for the land are really pretty simple.  I would think that minimal effort would be involved with writing a plan for you.  I don't know how long you will have to wait, but I doubt that there would be little if any charge for this service. 

Lucas 618  Mahindra 4110, FEL and pallet forks, some cant hooks, and a dose of want-to

Ron Wenrich

You should find out what qualifies as a plan and who has to write it.  If they want specifics, then you're either going to have to hire someone, or pay the higher taxes.  If they want a qualified forester, you might have to wait. 

If you can write the plan, then it might only need to be something short and sweet.  You can state long term plan of keeping the forest in an ongoing state of production.  Short term could be to thin out trees that are in the understory or of poor quality.  Use would be for firewood and local construction lumber. 

Of course you could go and tell them that you are putting it into a timber preserve, and that there are no plans for cutting.  Preservation is a form of management. 
Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

Wudman

Bruce,

Google "Virginia forest stewardship plan" and you should get a hit from the Virginia Dept. of Forestry website that has an example forest stewardship plan.  This will give you an idea of where to start.  A call to your local county DOF forester should get you pointed in the right direction.

Jeff
"You may tear down statues and burn buildings but you can't kill the spirit of patriots and when they've had enough this madness will end."
Charlie Daniels
July 4, 2020 (2 days before his death)

GHRoberts

I don't really think that personal use (building a bridge and buildings) qualifies for the tax break you want.

I think you should see one of the sources that others have posted so that you ge the tax break you want.

submarinesailor

Took a close look at the Virginia plan, liked it, so I downloaded it into Word and working on it as we speak.  Now, if I can just get my BIL to sign it after it's done.

A very BIG THANK YOU to all.

Bruce

Brian_Rhoad

If you put your land into the American Tree Farm System they will sen a forester around every 5 years to check your timber and write up a plan for you. As long as you follow the plan you will be ok. My "plan" is to use/cut the timber as I need it or when it matures. This is what was put on the form for my forestry plan and was ok since I have a sawmill business on the property. I tried to get in the state stewardship program but was told because I have a sawmill/lumber business I couldn't do it. My timberland is considered a commercial forest.

submarinesailor

UP DATE!!!!

After spending a few minutes talking with my BIL, I found out he couldn't sign the Virginia plan that I had modified.  He hasn't worked in the forestry field in over thirty years, so he wasn't comfortable with reviewing and signing it. :-[ :-[ :-[

Sssssooooo, I sat down and completely reread the county requirements.  AND I found out that I DO NOT need a forestry plan filed.  I just need to fill out the "enclosed form", have it notarized and file it with the county OR I can file a forestry plan.  Boy was I happy to see the "OR" word in the county requirements.  It will be taken care of on Friday – my day off.  Along with getting my truck it's state inspection.  Hate getting vehicle inspections!!!!

So I'm much happier about this whole situation. 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)

Bruce

Tom

That's good about the plan.  I don't like the auto inspections either.  If the state is so concerned about your car, why aren't they concerned about termite inspections for the house.  They could come by every year and check it to keep it from falling on a guests head.  Or why don't they set up breast exams and prostate exams in the auto inspection booths or send an accountant to your house once a year to go over your budget or send out a nutrionist once a week to inspect your refrigerator to make sure you are eating healthy?

Cause it's just about  money and little long nosed busy-bodies.  That's why!   :D    grrrrrrr

We got rid of our auto inspections. ....again.

PineNut

Here in MS several years ago, the media kept making an issue about the auto inspections. Said that it was just something to make a little money ($5) and no real inspections were being done. Well who is gong to do much of an inspection for their cut of $5?  Fortunately it died. I would much rather give them $5 and have it over with than spend $25 to 50 and then have to make a lot of unnecessary repairs to support some more bloated bureaucracy.

SwampDonkey

Costs more than $5 here, although the garage probably only has to submit $5 to the government. [Not sure on the government's share.] If you get a bright orange rejection sticker, it'll cost alot more and give some local cop a reason to stop ya a few times to check the date on the rejection sticker.  ::)
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

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