Do you plant trees?

[Larry Caldwell]

Yeah the state does a great job of regulating everything. Just like out west where you're not allowed to even cut up dead stuff and they have wildfires, burning thousands of acres. I'll take care of own thanks.

Jeff

If you are going to talk about "out west," you need to buy some timber land, move here, and manage it for 20 years or so. Then you would know what you are talking about.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

If you saw the rules we need to abide by to cut timber, you might think that trees are publicly owned. As I mentioned before any clearcut over 5 acres needs to be regenerated within 5 years, and there are stipulations on tree species, minimum height and density.

What is the payback? In Oregon, private forest land has a property tax timber deferral. The state pays 90% of the property tax. You have 3 years after logging to replant or they stroke you for 10 years back property taxes. The state makes its money back with severance tax on the logs delivered to the mill, the idea being that property owners only have to pay taxes when they have the money. It works out well.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

I plant trees to improve the diversity within my patch and try and get a leg up on nature.

I planted 14,000 doug fir seedlings when I bought this place, because I knew I was going to log it and wanted trees for the next buyer to look at. Sadly, because of repeated drought years most of them did not survive. I have had 50 year old trees give up and die of thirst. This climate change thing is ugly. Ma Nature needs a helping hand or some forests will never regenerate.

 

[jyoutz]

Here is an excellent article about why we don't plant many trees after a timber harvest.

Oh, You’re a Forester…Do You Plant Trees?

While planting trees after logging is common practice in other parts of the country and the world, here in New England tree planting as a part of forestry is unusual. Instead of planting, we typically rely on natural regeneration of trees.

extension.unh.edu

In my region, we use single tree selection and group selection cutting methods, retaining seed trees for natural regeneration. But we sure plant a lot a trees following high severity fire when there are no surviving seed trees.

 

[jyoutz]

I have a few also, but they never get to log size. I would like to saw one, just to see what it's like.

If American elm is anything like Siberian elm (that are invasive species in the west), the grain is too twisted to saw into boards. It’s even difficult to split for firewood.

 

[jyoutz]

I started planting trees for pay about 1965 in Essex Jct., Vt. A bunch of us high schoolers would get dropped off by our parents at a local tree farm and put bare rooted Christmas tree seedlings in dirt. Pay was minimal, maybe $1/hr. My back would not let me do it today and just THINKING about it hurts.
About 1978 I bought 75 acres in Vermont and planted about 2 acres of seedlings. Now I tend to just let the trees grow.
We have about 400 acres of forest in Mississippi. Most obtained after about 10 years of growth after clearing-cutting and obtained about 10 years ago. It's a lot easier to just let it regenerate naturally.

In Mississippi, natural regeneration will be dominated by hardwoods, not pine. If you want to re-establish a timber crop after clear cutting, planting is necessary.

 

[Jstpssng]

In Mississippi, natural regeneration will be dominated by hardwoods, not pine. If you want to re-establish a timber crop after clear cutting, planting is necessary.

We sell hardwood logs to the sawmills, veneer to the veneer mills, and hardwood pulp to the pulp mills. Right now there isn't much we can't sell, although it might not be a high value item.

 

[jyoutz]

We sell hardwood logs to the sawmills, veneer to the veneer mills, and hardwood pulp to the pulp mills. Right now there isn't much we can't sell, although it might not be a high value item.

Hardwoods in Maine have value. Many of those southern hardwoods aren’t good sawtimber and there aren’t hardwood pulp mills there like in Maine. Southern and western forestry is dominated by softwood timber production.

 

[newbury]

If American elm is anything like Siberian elm (that are invasive species in the west), the grain is too twisted to saw into boards. It’s even difficult to split for firewood.

Back in the late 1960's in Vermont we had one fairly massive Elm that was dying. My Dad decided to take it down so I could chop it up for firewood. No chainsaw, no powered splitter. Just axes, wedges and sledge. Now I had split up a lot of maple and some oak before that but that darn elm was the toughest ever. Kept me warm most of the winter just splitting it.

 

[jyoutz]

Yeah the state does a great job of regulating everything. Just like out west where you're not allowed to even cut up dead stuff and they have wildfires, burning thousands of acres. I'll take care of own thanks.

Jeff

I have been a practicing forester “out west” for 40+ years. Your comment is dead wrong and you have no clue what you are talking about.