Red Maple-White Pine

[Tarm]

I have a stand of red maple growing on loamy sand. It is about half junky poles and half medium quality small sawtimber. I assume that in presettlement times this site was mostly eastern white pine. A few of the old virgin pine stumps still survive to this day. It is doubtful that quality northern hardwoods could ever be grown on such poor soil. My long term goal is to convert this site to conifers. Conventional management would be to thin from below a time or two then when the red maples get to reasonable size clearcut, spray, and plant conifers most likely red pine. I have an idea that I would like to bounce off anyone with experience in this area. What if I did a heavy thinning now and cut all of the pole size trees. This would remove half the canopy and release the small sawtimber size trees on three or four sides. Then plant white pine in the understory. White pine is supposed to be the most shade tolerant of the northern pines. How would they grow in half sunlight? How much faster would the sawtimber size trees grow with the heavy thinning? Would the stems stay clean or would they sprout a lot of new branches? How long could I keep the overstory without stunting the white pine seedling/saplings? In ten, twenty, or thirty years could the red maple sawtimber be harvested without smashing up the white pine? If this would work I could get the same amount of red maple sawtimber faster and jump-start the conifer conversion by two to three decades. If anyone has experience with something like this I would like to hear from you.

[woodmills1]

white pine may be shade tolerant but every one i planted in shade just didnt make it.  they grow but dont thrive.  are there any pine seedlings ther now to nurture?

[Ron Scott]

Is the entire stand red maple poles and small sawtimber or are there some white pine currently in the understory? Also, how many acres and where are you located?

[Ron Wenrich]

USFS had a report many moons ago about white pine.  I can't lay my hand on it right now, but the jist of it was that white pine are shade tolerant in their early years of development.  They would seed and develop under a canopy, but should be released by age 20.

I had a stand that had white pine in the understory and tried to release some of it.  Too much competition from the adjoining hardwoods, which were primarily yellow poplar and black birch.  Going in and killing the hardwods would have made a difference.

The drawbacks would be logging damage when you take out the overstory and the extra cultural treatment.

[Ron Scott]

Yes, the white pine should grow well in the understory which it needs in its early years for protection against the white pine wheevil. There will be some damage to the white pine however when the red maple overstory is removed.

A good logging plan carried out with care for the white pine understory is needed. Short wood variable length logging should be the harvest method and not tree length logging.

You should decide on your timber management objective for the property considering the site. If it is primarily a hardwood site, the way you are going might be the preferred and most economical without getting into the conversion costs to prepare the site for all red pine.  

[Tarm]

This stand is in northern Wisconsin. It is located along the base of a moraine. Up the moraine the soil is sandy loam and supports a fine stand of oaks. Out on to the flats the soil turns very sandy and the tree species change to aspen and jack pine.  Depending where I draw the boundries this area is about seven acres. There are a few sapling size white pine trees in the area but not in this stand. The natural seed source is very limited. I was thinking of planting 600 white pine seedlings per acre. If half of them survive the overstory removal that would still be twice as many as needed to stock a sawtimber stand.  Again does anyone know any place where this has been done successfully? I hate to throw away a thousand dollars on seedlings that won't survive.