Norway Spruce Stand

[Pete and Jesse]

I have about 5 acres of 45-50 year old Norway Spruce that were planted for Christmas trees.  They were never harvested for Christmas trees or thinned.  The spacing is tight and the majority of the trees are small 6-8" DBH.  I was starting to clear cut these for pulp but I am finding some trees in the 10-12" DBH range. 
Is it worth trying to thin these trees at this age, or am I better off clear cutting them and starting over with something else.
I read somewhere that these trees will still release ever after 45 years, any experience with this?
The stand has a few White pine starting in some of the canopy gaps.

[Maine372]

the last Norway spruce stand I worked in had extensive root rot caused from previous thinnings. I was told that they are highly susceptible to root damage and that in Norway they are planted on a spacing that will last until a target age and size, then flatten it. not sure how true that is, maybe someone from Europe can chime in.

in general spruce isn't very windfirm, especially after a heavy thinning. might be best to flatten it and start over. if kbforester is reading this he might chime in with thinning technique he has used on spruce.

[KBforester]

Live Crown is key to any thinning, especially spruce. If the 12"ers  have differentiated enough to have 40% live crown or more, they may be worth keeping. This is important for wind-firmness (it assumes that the tree has been above the others, and thereby exposed to more wind its entire life, developing strong buttresses), and to have the ability to respond to the thinning. A tree can't feed itself well with little crown. Big crowns = big food. That's why its the wrong thing to do to cut the big ones and leave the little ones, especially in spruce.

But chances are if they had tight spacing, they probably don't have 40% crown.

An important question to ask yourself is, why do you want standing 12" Norway spruce? I'm not sure what your market is like where you are, but when I worked in Northern NY, we had plenty of sound N-Spruce rejected from the mills because they scrutinize it harder than other spruce. It has the tendency to twist and warp. I'd say if your looking at these trees as a crop to cash in on, it probably won't get any better. And Maine372 is right, they are highly suitable to root damage.

If you want to sacrifice those spruce to provide some shelter for pine seedlings (underplanted or natural) that might be a way to go too. Plus it gives you something to look at. But they might blow over. 

[SwampDonkey]

They should have been spaced a long time ago. It's not so much responding to the thinning as it is standing against the wind.  Usually on a site that is planted the trees are all even height. Where there was some trees that died is where you get the bigger girth. They are all the same age and fields tend to be fairly uniform as to the soil unless its a wet slag or on a shallow spot over ledge. Personally, I think it's not really time to cut spruce. They aren't paying enough. Most people up here have to leave the pulp lay now because they won't give enough. Too much pulp on the market, and it's worst here because the government allows them to harvest more volume than they can use. Just suppressing things for everyone on the pulp side. The Irvings love it because they can make you work for nothing.

[Pete and Jesse]

Very few of these trees have a 40% crown except along the edges. I do not want to deal with blow down.
There was a stand of Scotch pine right next to the spruce which all blew down a couple of years ago. The Scotch were about 15-20 older, also never thinned. 
It seems there must have been a big push during the 40' and 50's to plant red pine, scotch pine etc.  a large percentage of this old farm was planted to these stands.

Thanks for the information.

[m wood]

Peteandjesse, and swampdonkey and others too; I have an identical setting for my norway spruce and scotch pine. planted in the 60s, tight arrangement, I've spent years taking live small and standing dead for a viriety of rustic furniture uses (perfect sizes for that).  I've culled some larger for sawing for my own use now that I have a sawmill.  I have no intention of clearcutting as I intend to beautify (some clearing spots) the area in the process of using some of the 2 species.  The scotch pine are inferior and much more standing dead in there.  I have researched the spruce some but am clueless on the sawn uses or characteristics of the scotch pine.
there's a question in there somewhere :D. soil varies from clayish to shaley, fair drainage for the most part, majority of trees are 10 - 20% crown. 2 different stands, I estimate 17,000 originally planted
weigh in if there's any suggestions
thanks
mark