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Western Red Cedar

Started by Onthesauk, January 24, 2008, 02:26:10 PM

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Onthesauk

I've got a lot of western red cedar in the 30 - 50 year range with a lot of old red alder and big leaf maple mixed in.  Some of the older maple and alder is beginning to drop and in the process, pop the tops out of some of the cedar, 20-40 feet up.  Leaves at least one marketable saw log, (eventually,) and they will develop new leaders eventually and keep growing up but wondering if maybe I shouldn't just take them out when it happens.  Any thoughts?
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Tillaway

Why not take the alder and maple too?  Get them while they still may have some value.  Personally, I would not bother unless the logging was easy and I could get enough for a load.
Making Tillamook Bay safe for bait; one salmon at a time.

bigtreesinwa

Quote from: Onthesauk on January 24, 2008, 02:26:10 PM
I've got a lot of western red cedar in the 30 - 50 year range with a lot of old red alder and big leaf maple mixed in.  Some of the older maple and alder is beginning to drop and in the process, pop the tops out of some of the cedar, 20-40 feet up.  Leaves at least one marketable saw log, (eventually,) and they will develop new leaders eventually and keep growing up but wondering if maybe I shouldn't just take them out when it happens.  Any thoughts?

What you do will depend a lot of your forestry goals. Are you managing this stand for aesthetic, firewood, or timber purposes?

From the western red cedars standpoint, I believe they will continue to grow fine even with a broken top. Yes, one of the other branches becomes a new leader and the tree is no longer as straight as it used to be (and not as desireable for timber) but it seems to grow fine. For visual purposes, the cedar branches will cover up the break pretty well and I think the tree will look ok afterwards. I read once that cedar trees growing in full sunlight naturally grow several tops because some of the branches get a little too excited in the light and turn into leaders even though the main one is still there.

As someone mentioned, you can remove the hardwood trees (which I don't consider very valuable here in Western Washington). I'd second that vote.

Out of curiosity, how tall are your 30 - 50 year old cedar? I've always wondered how many feet a year they grow but never have found the answer to that one.

Onthesauk

Most of it seems to be in the 40 to 60 foot range, although I've got a bunch in the 100 plus size.  With our rain up here they say fir will grow 3 to 4 feet per year but the cedar seems to grow a bit slower.  Takes 10 years to get it established, (especially back in the brush,) and then seems to grow a couple of feet a year.

I had a cutter who sells to a hardwood veneer buyer cruise it a couple of weeks ago.  I've got alder, maple and birch that should probably be taken out.  All for export, apparently domestic market is pretty much gone at present.  Can't get to it until things dry out this Summer so will wait and see what the market looks like by then.  Appears to be a load or two of figured maple that they are very interested in.
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Sukuki LT-F500

Don't attribute irritating behavior to malevolence when mere stupidity will suffice as an explanation.

straightree

If you have some not so old maple and alder, I would keep them, since a mixed stand has some advantages: better aesthetics, better resistance to pests, more biological diversity.

Clark

To be perfectly honest, your goals with the land play more into this than the actual conditions present on the land.  There are, however, things that can be predicted of what will happen to your stand regardless of your goals.

The alder and maple will continue to slow in growth, die  and tip over.  The cedar will continue plodding along doing it's thing.  I would expect much of the space given up by the alder and maple to be taken over by the cedar.  The broken topped cedar will obviously be set back when it gets topped, but like bigtreesinwa said, they will continue to grow in and time you probably won't be able to tell it had it's top snapped off.

The only problem with this (IMO) is that cedar always (or darn close to always) has rot in the butt section.  Breaking the top off will probably introduce rot into the top.  In time this leaves very little quality wood in the tree. 

According to the Silvics Manual, redcedar has managed a mean annual height growth of 1.64' in 40 to 60 year old even-aged stands.

Clark
SAF Certified Forester

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