is ERC that invasive?

[m wood]

I heard this morning that OK is having major concern over the rapid expansion of  eastern red cedar, causing big wilfire concerns.  They mentioned a possible federal or state incentive for the harvesting.  (paraphrased from The Weather Channel's reporting).
mark

I wish I had some Cedar

[ND rancher]

I'm with you on wishing I had some to mill! I have read past threads on this topic.

[thecfarm]

No ERC this far North,it's in ME,but not on my land. I just have the Northern White,the deer keep it in check on my land. Someone asked me for a few branches for a flower arrangement once,I said sure,no big deal. I had a very hard time to find any that I could reach!!!I was shocked. I think I came back to get my bush cutters,added almost 3 feet to my reach and got her some.
I read the posts about ERC and I believe but just can't really understand it growing that fast. Sometimes we all have to see to believe it.  :D

[Magicman]

We have much ERC in my area but it is slow growing and I would never consider it as invasive.  But Black Locust, Sweetgun, and Pecan.  :-\   

[thecfarm]

Hey Magicman are the smileys in order for the species???  :D
Just to add to it all,that is just about the only good thing about a Maine winter,at 10 above trees seem to slow down spreading.

[tyb525]

Just ask Cedarman, his son is out there clearing cedar and mulching it. Sounds like there is enough to keep them busy for a long time, even clearing with machines.

[Magicman]

Hey Magicman are the smileys in order for the species???  :D

:-\      Busted again.   ;D

[Cedarman]

In the past grass fires in the prairies kept the cedar confined to the draws and canyons which are just great big gullies usually a lot of hardwood in the eastern 1/2, just cedar further west.
Estimates are there are about 10,000,000 acres that have cedar of some density growing.  Satellite pictures show it taking over the state at about 750 acres per day.  We only mulch about a 1000 acres or so per year.
Birds carry the seed everywhere and with droughty conditions at times there is bare ground for it to get a start.  it does grow fairly fast  especially horizontal.  Most upland trees are not good for posts or lumber.  A tree can be 25 feet tall with limbs sticking out 10 to 12' in all directions from ground on up.

Good management on pastures should have a fire about every 3 years to keep the cedar in check.
There is a tremendous amount of good cedar in the gullies and canyons, but there is no sawmill culture or logging culture so most people don't know how to log or saw it.
If you cut without delimbing, the needles will keep on sucking water from the tree causing it to dry quickly , this causes a lot of deep checking in the sapwood.  Not unusual for the log to dry to 12% in summer time.  People have disagreed with us on that, but moisture meters say so.

[Ianab]

Like Cedarman says, it's mainly a man made problem. Cedar (or some other tree) is always trying to colonise open ground and turn it into a forest. The cedar trees just the first stage of this process as they can grow in the open and the seeds spread easily. Now without human intervention a big grass fire comes along every few years and knocks them back. But it's a constant colonisation battle going on.

But then humans came along and decided that those brush fires were a bad thing, and keep putting them out, due to that nasty tendency to burn down houses and other buildings. Fair enough I guess. But this changes the dynamics of the system, and the tree start getting the upper hand.

Now because there are open growing they have a poor form for timber (or anything else). The more established trees in the gullies are growing in more sheltered and crowded conditions, so they grow with a better form and make good saw logs.

Same thing will happen here with native Manuka if the land isn't intensively managed. But farming methods here are able to control it. Leave the land unmanaged, like open grazing land for 10 years, and it's a junior forest.

So that leaves options of letting things go back to the natural system, with the risks form fires, or go to a more intensive management to either harvest the wood, or just prevent it's growth.

I wonder if it's actually better to deliberately "farm" the cedar? Then you have the income to pay for the management, fire suppression etc.

But of course then the rare "blue eared prairie grasshopper" is in danger of extinction???  :

Ian

[mesquite buckeye]

Pruned, upland cedars lose a lot of taper and rapidly become good sawlogs if given some space between them. If widely spaced, no problem having grass.

Also add in that on a lot of OK land, the grass is reduced by cattle grazing, favoring cedars that they don't like to eat, producing more prime cedar habitat. The cedar needs to be managed, hopefully for useful products and not just as a weed. OK needs to grow a timber industry.....

[Cedarman]

There is a couple of billion board feet growing in the gullies and canyons in Ok.  When the land owner pays you to get rid of the cedar, there is just no incentive to do any work on them.    There is a glut of cedar timber in the US.  Giles and Kendall and maybe another paneling manufacturer use a lot.  The biggest user by far is American Wood Fibers and they just shave it into pet bedding. 
Overgrazing is one of the big problems, but lack of burning is the biggest.  Texas , Kansas, Neb have large amounts of cedar going unharvested.
A few years ago a Minn. state forester called and wanted to know if we wanted 5000 acres along one of the rivers.  Don't know what happened to that.
A big tract of cedar in Ar went for about a nickel to 7 cents on the cedar scale.
Standing cedar is cheap.

[Ianab]

I guess it's the old Chicken and Egg thing.

No one is going to bother managing for good quality logs until there is a demand for them.
There is no demand because no one is producing high quality logs....

And with lead time of 30 or more years before you see the return on that initial management there isn't much incentive to get started....

Ian

[mesquite buckeye]

Good call. Only dummies like me thin and prune them. I can cut them up myself and use the lumber if I need to. I want it to be as good as it can be. Maybe doesn't make financial sense now. Hopefully someday. The resource is huge, just as Cedarman says. Seems we could figure out something useful to do with it... other than mulch and cedar closet linings.

[SwampDonkey]

We have a northern climate juniper. Depending on soil and growing conditions that can take over a field. Now we aren't talking huge numbers because many old abandoned fields are small acreage and eventually the natural trees will take over. This juniper grows short, kinda like those you see mulched around in gardens and walkways. But it has a huge natural range all over the north, I mean globally.

[Cedarman]

Mesquite, before Aaron and I showed it could be done, all the cedar trees in Ok and Ks were cut, let dry, pushed up and burned.  Mulch is a big improvement in value added.  There have been a lot of heads to figure this thing out.  One thing the could come along is cedar oil extraction.  Takes a couple million to make a decent sized plant.

[Corley5]

We have a northern climate juniper. Depending on soil and growing conditions that can take over a field. This juniper grows short.

We call it "shin tangle" here  ;D for obvious reasons 

[thecfarm]

My Father called it ground hemlock. We had it in with the low bush blueberries.One day we just started to cut it to try to get rid of it. It likes to come back,real easy. Now we just mow the whole field,every few weeks,no more low bush blueberries. I do know it will die out in a grown up pasture. I kinda feel it grows where the soil is not the best. Across the road is great soil,none over there in the field. But come up by the house where there is only a few inches of top soil and it GROWS. Just like the low bush blue berries,they do good up by the house,but none across the road.

[mesquite buckeye]

Mesquite, before Aaron and I showed it could be done, all the cedar trees in Ok and Ks were cut, let dry, pushed up and burned.  Mulch is a big improvement in value added.  There have been a lot of heads to figure this thing out.  One thing the could come along is cedar oil extraction.  Takes a couple million to make a decent sized plant.

Maybe somebody has to demonstrate you can also produce a high value product that would make better management pay. Just working along on my little plot....

Cedarman- what you have accomplished in this field is a great contribution. I think we can do even better....

[mesquite buckeye]

On my land, the best redcedar grows on eroded, abandoned farmland that is too acidic to grow any other trees. The cedars raise the pH, grow well, and are often followed (succeeded) by walnut, cherry, ash and oaks as they mature. To keep growing cedar will mean keeping out most of the hardwoods. I think we can grow a very high end product rapidly. All we need is someone who wants a high end product, ie, clear red cedar.

[SwampDonkey]

Up here ground hemlock is Canada Yew, what I was describing is common juniper. But you may possibly be talking about juniper. Every region seems to have their own nomenclature. ;D

[thecfarm]

common juniper,juniperus communis is it. Ground hemlock,that was a name my Father always called it. As it has been said on here before,the latin names are the ones to use. I looked it up in my tree book. That book even claims it can grow into a tree. Never saw that on my land.
I remember one of my friends Father came over to dig up some juniper bushes. My Father had a fit,thought he was the biggest dump %#@ to want that on his land. My Father told him to dig up all he wanted. He laughed almost as hard at one of my Aunts on my Mother's side wanting some milk weed to eat. Just the way he was about some things.  ;D

[Ianab]

Wikipedia has some info on ERC and how it's invasive (or a pioneer species, depending on your point of view). And how lack of natural fires, probably couple with overgrazing, lets it take over grassland. I would guess that a good healthy field of grass would smother the seedlings, but where you had patches of bare ground the tree seedlings probably establish before the grasses can smother them?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juniperus_virginiana

Ian

[SwampDonkey]

Yup, the common juniper. I have not seen it locally. But down river I found it growing all over an old field. Areas down there can have heavy sand and clay, clay on the bottom with large sandstone rocks.

[GATreeGrower]

We have much ERC in my area but it is slow growing and I would never consider it as invasive.  But Black Locust, Sweetgun, and Pecan.  :-\   

Man I hate a sweetgum tree

[Magicman]

My sawing customer this week had several Sweetgum logs on the pile.  When I told him what they were, he immediately pushed them off and to the burn pile.   

[RexBandit]

I live in south centralish Oklahoma and there's erc in every pasture that you drive past it seems like. The bad part is that you can just run a brushhogg over them and kill it. Guess use country folk are startin to slip alittle. And I'm just as guilty as anyone cause you look in my pasture and you'll see'em.

[Ed_K]

Just saw a DR.mower advertisement on RFD where they sell a cutter that mounts on a 4wheeler and drive thru them smaller one's and it slices's it off.

[mesquite buckeye]

I've seen it. Sort of a cowboy tree ram knife. Yee Haaa smiley_horserider

[RexBandit]

Ha ha. Ive also seen it. It seemed to me that they were hitting them with a little bit of speed too. What happens when they hit one they can't cut???   Does the driver take a flying lesson then.

[mesquite buckeye]

Same thing I was thinkin'. Cowboys on horses are used to flying lessons though. Probably used to it... ;D