old trees

[woodmills1]

i was putting a piece of standing dead red oakfrom my forest into the kitchen stove last night when i noticed the small growth rings.  i went out to the wood pile and found a round unsplit piece and brought it in.  i counted the rings using a magnifier and was very surprised that this five inch diameter tree was 45 years old when it died.  having been shut out from sunlight by its neighbors.  just imagine the tight grained quality lumber that this kind of growth will bring.  i can't wait to harvest some sawlogs from my back 60. :D :D

[Ron Scott]

They should be of sawlog size in another 45+ years under same growing conditions. Can you wait that long?

[Tom]

I have had the same experience with the pine that was on the front of my place awhile back.  It was 8" in dia. and an even stand of 26 years old. I was excited about the boards that I would get from it until I got my pencil out and realized that I would be well over 100 years old by the time they reached sawlog size.

Since the survival of the plantation hadn't been good and the dense growth rings were due to poor stock or bad ground I decided to get rid of them and sold them for pulp.  I have replaced them with a super slash that has knocked me down several times in the past couple of years.

At this rate it will be pulp at 12 years and sawlogs at 20 if I take care of it; and at 100 I wll have harvested twice and be looking towards my third. When I get that third one and plant the fourth then it will have to be for someone else.

That'll be a good time to retire. I always wanted a sailboat, say about 50 feet, and cruise the islands. Yeah, sit back and troll for Marlin and drink margaritas.  

[woodmills1]

he is the story,  the oldtimer around the corner says there was a fire on my land some 100 years ago, and the pine burned and the oak seeded in or grew from squirel planted acorns.  on my trip through it with a forester he explained that it was and even aged forest with many diameter classes.  the wood i am burning came from standing dead trees, which are surrounded by much taller trees.  there are dominant trees that i plan to keep as seed trees and subdominants that i will thin.  some of these are small diameter some are up to 20" dbh.  i plan to sell any fine butt logs and keep good smaller, and lower quality larger, to saw myself.  then deal with the poor and tops as firewood.  early figures from our estimates are some 6000 cords if the thinning goes to firewood only.  i will quit teaching high school at the end of next year to do this forestry managment full time.  my wife and i also are trying to preserve this as a sustained red oak forest, that will provide wood for whoever we pass it on to.  i test cut the first small piece 10 years ago and saw growth rings like pencil lines on logs 14 inches at their tops.  that test area is now ready for precommercial thinning and in 10 more years a harvest of  the huge seed trees we left back then.

[Ron Scott]

It sounds like you are on the right track with your timber management plan. It was smart to have a professional forester look at your oak timber to maximize your future timber values and meet your objectives.

Its often hard to realize that all trees of different diameter sizes in a stand might all be the same age. Harvest the worst first throughout the diameter classes.

[woodmills1]

thanks ron.  the forester said look up, meaning not just the bole but see the crown.  he also said don't make your cutting decisions with your chainsaw in your hand.  he was well worth his pay.

[L. Wakefield]

   hmm, Woodmills- you're practically right next door to me! I'm wondering if your standing dead oak is from the same cause (whatever it was) that got mine. Our trees are still standing- many of them, but are now many already without bark. The husband has been harvesting them (and encouraging me to do the same...)- and sold a couple cords this year. I'm going to show him your post (when he gets back from this weeks' hunting trip..) I don't really think he's going to get real hot about tree harvesting as alt.job- he did a lot of that with his dad in his younger days and he's convinced it's no way to make a living. What is your going price for standing deadwood like that? Mike was guessing $10/cord.

   I'd love to come see your woodlot.      lw

[woodmills1]

right now i can sell this stuff for $230 a cord  :D  as it is burnable now.  that is all i have been burning since it got cold in the new house we moved into in june. some of my friends told people they no and i have orders for 6 cord at the above price.  now if the tractor will only pull home the big loads without eating it's way back toKorea. :D :D  

    
                        

[L. Wakefield]

   How much processing are you doing to get that price? Do they come and cut it down and haul it away- or are they picking up the sticks/logs you show in the tractor at that length? Those do indeed look just like our dead oaks. When did you first notice the standing deadwood? Ours showed up about 95 or 96. I wasn't sure if it might have been a result of them taking the timber off in 95. Maybe one of those spreading blight things that we discussed earlier this year (or maybe it was last year..) some have tipped over (makes it so much easier to cut)- others are just standing and now mostly debarked. Good chance for me to play with the 'oakmoss' (Evernia and Usnea)   lw

[woodmills1]

it is 230 a cord cut split and delivered.  the oaks that are standing dead in my forest have been choked out from the sun by their more hardy neighbors.  no disease just no sun.  the ash is a different story it is just dying and so far i havent found out why.

[L. Wakefield]

   THAT is alarming. I have only a few ash trees. The only one I see daily is the young thing that was in the orchard area I am reclaiming. My husband thought that- since it's not a fruit tree- I should cut it but I said NO WAY! It is tall and straight but only about 4-6" diam right now. It deserves its place. It has seemed healthy to me so far. What I did was release it- the other trees were quite thick.

   I'm sure I've come across others but don't exactly remember the location. I will have to focus in on that.

   An aside on the orchard- while I want to restore the apple trees that used to grow there (my brother had cut them down for some reason best known to himself..)- I have also given space to the hawthorn, cherry, and serviceberry volunteers now in place. That says to me that it is indeed the 'right place' for an orchard. As I cleared things back, I did discover some apple seedlings also struggling along. So it is a hodgepodge of spacing- trying to give the planted trees sufficient room, but with serviceberry leaning over in its untidy posture- and that tall ash looming over things and not looking like a fruit tree AT ALL. And we did put in some buartnut and hazelburt..

   Our Maine tree ref. book shows 3 species of ash in the state- black ash (Fraxinus nigra), white ash (F. americana), and green ash (F. pennsylvanica). I haven't gone through the steps of eyeballing the various species yet. Are they all getting a hit at your place?  :(   lw

[Ron Wenrich]

I remember a speaker I heard, some 20 years ago about the effects of acid rain.  The study was done in Maine.  The rainfall caused heavy metals, primarily aluminum, to be released and absorbed by the tree.  It put a severe strain on the trees, and they predicted many of these trees would die.

New York and New England would probably be hit the hardest, since the soil is thin and there are few buffering agents in the soil.  There are dead lakes in New York, according to one person who lives up there.

Do you think that could be a cause?  It could be worse on surpressed trees since they are already under stress.

[L. Wakefield]

   I have to pick away at that question from the edges..I have seen pictures of European forests hit by devastatingly acid rain from the burning of lignite (brown coal) for fuel. Defoliation occurs. I have also seen something happen recently to the pines along the interstate and to some extent others in landscaping plantings. They have (in the last 2 years) been suffering browning of the needles- and possibly death in some cases. Initially I thought it was from salt used in fighting snow and ice- but it is species-specific and not limited to the salt zone.

   The acid rain effects on the NY lakes was noted back in the early 80s. I think they put scrubbers on a lot of the coal-burning power plants in the Ohio valley (which carried much of the onus for New England's acid rain problem- so it was said). After that there was not much said about acid rain.

   I also remember at some time standing in the rain and licking it off my lips as it ran down my face. I'm used to tasting salt from sweat (sorry..) but this was acid. Is that my personality, or was that acid rain? In WV sometimes when the rain came down onto the maple trees, where it collected it would be foamy- not like soap but a little bubbly like a chemical reaction.

   I dunno. I haven't seen or smelled anything like what was occurring over in the northern part of the Czech Republic. And I well remember the brown cloud over Denver, and the one over Phoenix. Maybe there is something more subtle going on here. :(       lw

[Ron Wenrich]

Scrubbers or not, there still is a lot of garbage coming down with the rain.  Here is a link to maps of acid rain precipitation vor the past 10 years.  Things have improved in some areas, but the northeast is still getting a lot of acidic precip.

http://bqs.usgs.gov/acidrain/

[L. Wakefield]

   Excellent reference! I bookmarked it but haven't fully explored it yet.. it appears the highest pH shown on the map is 6.6, and that in a state (Utah) which I would expect to have a highly alkaline soil- some of which probably affects the atmosphere in terms of dust. Do you happen to know what the theoretical 'normal' pH of rain would be in the (presumed) absence of human-made pollution? Is it 7.0 or is it somewhat less? This info may be on that website somewhere- as I say I haven't fully explored it.   lw

[woodmills1]

the expectation would be pure water at a neutral pH of 7 and rain at just slightly acid due to foest fires and volcanic activity.  if that was the only acididic impact there would not be a problem.

[L. Wakefield]

   Speaking of that- when we went up to Aroostook County to try out the trout fishing and take in the landscapes and the Great North Woods, we fished (among other places)- the mighty Prestile River. It was certainly mighty with mosquitos, thorns, and high water at that particularly time, and mighty sparse of fish. But more to the point- it is a Limestone river- one of few in Maine, and the claim is that that makes for better troutfishing. So I had wondered about my little acidic Stony Brook, which borders one side of our property. In this case (I haven't measured the pH), I am told the acid has a lot to do with pine trees and tannin. We have trout, but small (wild) ones- and I had wondered if things might be improved with limestone in the vicinity. I haven't carried out any experiments. We'd gotten a book up at LL Bean titled 'Trout' (that about says it all, doesn't it?) And it had a section discussing how to make undercut banks to improve trout habitat. I know that sounds insane, but they had a description of little wooden strutures to make to cantilever out just a bit, and then pile some dirt on them. I haven't done that yet either.         lw