iDRY Vacuum Kilns

Sponsors:

Southern Pine - Timber cruising basics

Started by Gatorguy, October 16, 2015, 12:09:48 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Gatorguy

Hello everyone- new member here looking forward to learning a lot from this forum.  My family has a timber and cattle ranch that I grew up on and help manage.  I learned a lot about forestry through the FFA and also took some college courses in silviculture etc.  I'm going to cruise all of our property in the next year or so to evaluate our stands.  What I'm looking from you all is some suggestions for commercially important data. 

Our property consists of natural and planted pine stands of slash and longleaf pine with some oak hammocks and cypress heads. 

I have a typical "book" knowledge of timber cruising and plan on following what I learned.  I'm going to start with a stand map to establish all of the different stands and guesstimate their age using memories from my grandfather.  Is there an affordable mapping software out there for private land owners?Then I figured I would take a few cores from each stand, height, crown ratio, DBH.  Most of our timber is sold to mulching facility that is less than 20 miles away as we are over 100 miles from the nearest pulp mill. 

Are there any good industry resources y'all would recommend?  I want to make sure if I'm going to dedicate all of this time I don't miss anything important.  Up until now, the only cruising has been done from the cab of a truck with no formal measurements taken.  Timber has been thinned or cut based on market conditions, fire events etc. 

I tried searching around on the forum and didn't find a comprehensive source so I thought I might create one through my experience.  Thanks in advance for all of the help!

treeslayer2003

as a logger, i can't help you much with figures. plus our timber density is probably different than yours. however, i thought the value in long leaf was for lumber, seems a shame to mulch it.......

Gatorguy

I agree,  unfortunately longleaf is the minority of our timber.  The last bit of longleaf we had was sold to a company out of Georgia to make telephone poles but even that market has taken a hit with concrete poles becoming popular.  Most of the knowledge my family has been running the place on is based on their logging experience so I know what you mean! 

Sixacresand

"Sometimes you can make more hay with less equipment if you just use your head."  Tom, Forestry Forum.  Tenth year with a LT40 Woodmizer,

clearcut

Gatorguy, welcome to the forum!

The American Forest Foundation has a website that helps you set up a map of your property and begin a management plan. It may be useful for mapping and guiding you through the elements of a management plan.

     http://mylandplan.org

The free, open source tool that I use for mapping is QGIS. It has a significant learning curve however.

QuoteMost of the knowledge my family has been running the place on is based on their logging experience

Consider hiring a forester to help expand this knowledge. If all of the valuable longleaf was sold off, why was it not regenerated?
Carbon sequestered upon request.

Rocky_Ranger

RETIRED!

Gatorguy

Quote from: clearcut on October 17, 2015, 12:03:46 PM
Gatorguy, welcome to the forum!

The American Forest Foundation has a website that helps you set up a map of your property and begin a management plan. It may be useful for mapping and guiding you through the elements of a management plan.

     http://mylandplan.org

The free, open source tool that I use for mapping is QGIS. It has a significant learning curve however.

QuoteMost of the knowledge my family has been running the place on is based on their logging experience

Consider hiring a forester to help expand this knowledge. If all of the valuable longleaf was sold off, why was it not regenerated?

Most of our old growth timber that was logged was destroyed in fires in 89 and 98.  It was replanted with slash shortly thereafter.  Thanks for those mapping sites, I'll look into those. 

Thank You Sponsors!