I Bought 42 wooded acres and its a mess.

[TomSeller]

Burning debris has become a pain where I live. The local regs only allow a 10' x 10' x 5' high pile, which is like cooking for a banquet in a thimble. The fire dept used to look the other way but not any longer, I had two visits by them in the last week. Nice guys, they rolled their eyes about the people calling the complaints in about a half mile away.

 

[forgeblast]

You have to watch the pests in the dead wood. You don't want to import the bugs to an area where they are not.
You could use the tops to keep the deer away from the saplings that will be sprouting using them as an almost deer exclusion fence. Then again you may want to look at Conservation programs that would cost share replanting. You could put in trees of your choice. Just go with the tubex tubes if you are going to replant they are much better then the bluex tubes.

 

[dave1949]

Yep, from a forestry practices and wildlife perspective, just leave the tops lay after cutting as much as you want. Removing all of the tree is like farming without fertilizing.

I guess the question is, do you want to be in the firewood business? 42 acres will keep you going for a while, but my guess is that eventually you will run out of enough sale-able and right-sized firewood to justify having the processor, truck, etc. You wouldn't cut good saw logs for firewood. And, what I would burn isn't what people expect to get when they pay for firewood.

Like Thomas suggested, you may want to look for an existing firewood dealer. They are generally looking for wood lots to cut. You need to manage what they cut. :laughing:

 

[Fishmansdad]

the stumps may coppice, and the new growth will be more rapid than a newly planted tree.

 

[muddstopper]

Cleaning up can go faster than most folks think. A tractor with winch setup works best. Helps if you have a cable puller to drag the cable for you. What I usually do is use chokers to hook up as many logs, tree top, etc., as i can pull, winch them to the tractor and then drag to where-ever I am going to process. I like to pick one area and work until its clean and then move over to the next spot. Acre today, acre tomorrow and pretty soon its done. Get you a good choke setter and a good sawman on the landing and you will be suprised just how much wood you can move in a day.

 

[newbury]

Hi everyone, I bought 42 wooded acres last week(I close Thursday or Friday of this week) and need a little help/guidance on the best way to attack it and clean it up. Any and all input is greatly appreciated so thanks in advance. <snip>

The FIRST thing to do is get in touch with your local State Forester. You will need a management plan if you are going to grow trees for profit. The Big Box stores, Home Depot and Lowes are already starting to prefer buying from "managed forests" in response to environmentalist pressure. If you state is like Mississippi the state forester may do it for you for free.

You may find there are places on the 42 acres you should leave all the mess for wildlife.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Hi everyone, I bought 42 wooded acres last week(I close Thursday or Friday of this week) and need a little help/guidance on the best way to attack it and clean it up. Any and all input is greatly appreciated so thanks in advance. The good, its ALL hard wood (mostly oak, maple and a lot of standing dead ash) its completely wooded from one end to the other, 35 minutes from work, 2 miles from the St. Clair river/lake (thats where we fish and boat all summer). Now for the bad. At some point there were loggers in there and they made a horrible mess of everything. They took all the big oaks 4'-5' diameter and left everything they didn't want. Most of the trees are mature 10"-20" round. I have a lot of time, in a few years I plan on building the last home I'll ever live in. In the mean time, I think I have to go in to the fire wood selling business and I'm not sure on how to do that. I have a small dozer Case 350B, Ford 4400 TLB, Ford 3000 to get me started. I'm thinking my 2wd tractors will be ok because the land is completely flat. I think a grapple and a fire wood processor is in the near future. FWIW here's a few pictures from this afternoon. There's piles and piles of wood like this everywhere , some huge oak logs are already cut, stacked and sorted. Piles of 8'-10' long 12"-20"dia already stacked.

Man that make me jealous for having something to do with the tractor and saw. Being retired, I have to look for something to do to keep busy. That looks like it will keep you busy for a few days at least. If will go a lot faster than you think though with cutting the limbs up that are firewood size and piling the rest to burn or leave for animal habitat. Downed trees cut up pretty fast once you get below about 16" in diameter. You just need about 6 or more people picking up the wood and loading it to haul away for the one person with a saw. A good saw & operator can lay more wood on the ground like in the photos than half a dozen folks can clean up and load. My problem is I don't have anyone to clean up, so I saw and then have to pick up all the firewood and load it up. Too bad your 800+ miles away or I would come up and give you a hand.

 

[andrehoude123]

We bought 300 acres last year and there's about a 40 acre pine plantation we build a cabin and now we're cleaning it up the farther we get into the Land the more nice trees we find we're cutting the small saplings and chipping it and burning it then cutting up the wavy stuff for fire wood and the good saw logs for a local guy that come saw up our wood for pretty cheap! Lots of fun weekend At the end of the day when looking back at your day of work it's a good feeling and having a Kubota l45....let's just say it really helps

 

[FarmWrench]

Do not burn the brush. The little stuff will be gone in ten years. Deer will eat almost everything, not protected by the slash.

Local firewood producers are really good at ruining roads, barking up good trees, leaving big oil slicks and adding trash (mostly empty bottles) to the hedgerows. If you REALLY want a mess to fix take the $7 a face cord.

A Forester will advise against getting a taste of (very addictive) maple syrup. An evaporator will soon become a sugar house and summer kitchen.....it is a sickness and you have been warned!

Remember it is yours for a little while and nature will cover your failures and triumphs in a short time. So enjoy it.

 

[SPIKER]

First thing I would say is to go over to the Forestry Forum, there are a good number of people there that live in Mich. including the site owner. Therefore you might get people who has the sawmill, firewood processor and be able to sell to them...

http://www.forestryforum.com/board/index.php#c2

Then if you decide to go it alone the site will be a very valuable knowledge base.

For me I would first put in some ads in CL and other free sites for the firewood people. ASH in Mich has regulations against moving it so selling it there are some things that HAVE to be done. Same for MOST all states now to try and slow the Emerald Ash Borer.

If you go it alone, be sure to cut and stack so that there are some good air spaces, toss down a couple cross bunks of Oak and then cross stack a few high like a box 4 sided. then stack log lengths on top back - n - forth. That keeps the log length firewood up and dry. It won't rot so much but expect the cross bunks to be invaded with Wood Chucks and the like for living spaces.

There is probably a good deal bit of Logs big enough to Mill into boards that you can save for the house as well. Several of those Tops were big enough to cut to 9~11 foot lengths and mill into trim boards or flooring. Anything 8~10" on SMALL end can be cut even if it is all knotty it will be OK for accent pieces in the floor or counter top etc.

Mark