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Distinguishing High Grading from Veneer Timber Operations

Started by Dylan21502, September 24, 2017, 10:28:57 AM

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mike_belben

Welp, i cant complain, corrective forestry has proven to be an enjoyable niche for me that has no competition.  Little by little its helping me grow a reputation for best practices which will eventually get me onto the coveted sites where top timber grows.  Im in it for the long haul. 
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Praise The Lord

MbfVA

 The type of problems expressed here are one reason why I engaged the forester recommended by our local Piedmont Environmental Council, conservation oriented, and yes liberal in their slant, but I believe I know how to filter.

Our problem is a little different, not enough tree cutting over the years, trees crowding each other & not growing very fast.   However, I'm certainly glad that the previous owners didn't fall prey to one of the idiots portrayed above.

Here in Virginia, the state forestry operation does a pretty darn good job of educating landowners, and I like to believe that the  problems Mike sees are less frequent.  Of course landowners have to be willing to absorb reliable information, and there will always be the landowner who needs money & does stupid things.

Let me repeat some general advice that I have had from more than one forestry expert: most stewardship plans should encompass cutting trees that "no longer contribute to the forest", trees past their prime, and leaving enough contributing trees and to assure continued health & growth.

Is that oversimplified, or does it make sense, in the context of the discussion above?
www.ordinary.com (really)

mike_belben

I suppose its a reasonable way to put it.  Long as we remember that a private forest is serving its owners private interest, and that can vary.  One person may fancy timber while another is into songbirds or honeybees .. So their specific tree species that benefit the stand could be quite different. 


If there is not a good tree to leave standing (good being subjective) i simply dont leave one.  I pick winners and clear the rest.  Enjoy watching whole new forest come in with a vibrant, bright green, vertical fresh start.  Sunshine on the forest floor is like miracle grow. 
Praise The Lord

MbfVA

 The stewardship plan that the state paid for for our forest allowed us to pick our priorities from 9.  I cannot recall if we picked out three top priorities, or whether we simply arranged the 9 in our  preferred order.  I do recall they dickered with our forester over wording and some other aspects of the plan he wrote before they allowed him to give it to us. I think the changes were more along the order of 'nudging' us to think more about some things VDOF  considered important.  They didn't try to change our chosen priorities per se.

That was 2006, and I don't think the Commonwealth of Virginia pays for the stewardship plans anymore.

apology in advance, going to slightly off-topic here with a rant.

Along with no longer paying for putting in drain pipes at residential & farm entrances from the public road, we might call these sorts of things a little bit of a tax increase.  Raise fees, stop paying for things, and pretty soon the citizens are being subjected to hidden tax increases.  Sure, these  particular items affect the wealthier than average, landowners after all, but they still amount to tax increases.

I can tell you this: when we raised the fees on court filings, when I was on the local board of supervisors, it was effectively a "cost of government increase".  We even discussed among ourselves how this would affect the lower income folks disproportionately.

But we certainly didn't want to be guilty of raising taxes!  Yes, the money went toward what raised property & and or other traditional and clearly recognizable taxes would have had to go to, but it was not a tax.

PS, check your cell phone bill and bank statements for some of the items that never would've been on there 20 years ago, reimbursements for things like the taxes they pay,  two cents for looking in the mirror twice.

Gosh, in the restaurant business I have to absorb all that in my overhead.

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mike_belben

Taxation and inflation always rolls downhill as a pass-it-on fee until it lands at the least organized, most powerless group, the individual retail consumer, who cant do much of anything about it.   

"...grind them down between the millstones of taxation and inflation."

Praise The Lord

mike_belben

I sold and delivered some firewood to a disabled guy maybe 10 or 12 miles northeast of me.  While there he mentioned a "monster walnut" somewhere in the woods that his son had accidentally started cutting for firewood.  It was supposedly still standing and he wanted to go halfs with me if i could sell it.   I trudged all over for this mythical walnut that didnt exist. 

Anyhow.. This residential stand was incredibly tall.  Same terrain and species composition as my neighborhood, similar soil and water but just incredibly tall, straight, unbranched oaks and poplars.  Hundred foot plus and a mostly closed canopy.  There were trees with 70' to the first limb, easily 5 sawlogs in a few trees.. Many will become veneer.  Also incredible was the height relative to the diameter.
Most werent much over 20" dbh i bet.. But they had no taper!  Probably held 14" up to 70feet before branching.  I was in awe. 

The crazy part.. This wasnt timberland, zero management.. It was a rinky dink little neighborhood of 1 to 3 acre lots with houses on them.  Properties just too small to get a logger out for a visit so nature was allowed to let the best stem win, i saw no stumps nor any blowdowns, tall vines etc. 

It really gave me a new basis of perspective to evaluate my neighborhood, which is now a residential subdivision of 5-10 acre lots that were made from a single timber tract owned by a massive land corp that im really starting to hate.  They are the chronic evil highgrader and ive contacted them directly offering TSI service but there was zero interest.  This jerk oversees probably 50,000+ acres and wanted to know if i had a dumptruck to haul him some driveway gravel, that was his only question.  Singlehandedly wrecking our forestry future without a clue.   

Compared to the lots i described, my area is a collection of short, bushy, no side clear yard trees overcrowded into a dying clump of twisty peckerwood and vine tangles.  I cant fix it nearly as fast as they can wreck it. 
Praise The Lord

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