Thinning forest

[buckeyefarmer]

Depends on how much you thin. If real thick, you need to thin down. If too much is cut, then brush grows up.

 

[GirlWhoWantsTractor]

Hmmm - buckeyefarmer - that's sure not the way it works in the pine forests around here. You thin and what remains grows big and strong. Otherwise, you end up with stands of spaghetti with green tops.

Yep. Those "spaghetti" trees are already doomed; they have been out-competed by other trees, or by each other in some cases.

 

[oosik]

I wish I could get brush to grow here. I've got eighty acres of one thing or the other - either bunch grass or Ponderosa pine. I thin a stand and both the bunch grass and the remaining pines grow big and strong. I have absolutely no other type of tree on my acreage - just Ponderosa pine. That is the predominant tree in this entire area of NE WA.

 

[GirlWhoWantsTractor]

I wish I could get brush to grow here. I've got eighty acres of one thing or the other - either bunch grass or Ponderosa pine. I thin a stand and both the bunch grass and the remaining pines grow big and strong. I have absolutely no other type of tree on my acreage - just Ponderosa pine. That is the predominant tree in this entire area of NE WA.

Sounds pretty.
But I do love our Blue Ridge mixed hardwood forests.

 

[newbury]

I'm taking delivery of a Kioti CK3510se TLB next week, along with a 55" Wicked Root Grapple, Piranha Bar, and a Wallenstein Chipper/Shredder. One of the projects on my to-do list is to thin out the forest surrounding my family's place. Total forest area of about 3-4 acres, maybe up to 6-7 depending on how industrious I get. Basically want to get rid of a lot of the young growth (2-3" trees), etc..., but not trying to clear everything. Trying to figure out the best way to go about it. No big rush... will work on this over the summer when I can. I also have a Stihl MS290 chainsaw, and an FS90 string trimmer.<snip>

We could use some idea of your budget.
Your string trimmer with blade is the tool you need to get small stumps near ground level but I think your FS90 may be underpowered. I've a Stihl FS110 and and FS250 I can handle 2 inch trees easily with the FS250.
However, having cleared a fair amount myself I found it was easier for ME with trees of that size to lop the tree off at a convenient level (about waist high) with a chainsaw. Drag the tree to my chipper parked nearby. Repeat process until I got tired or had a pile built up near the chipper. Then go back through and trim the waist high "stumps" with the FS250, then feed it all into the chipper.

IF you can burn thats is easier than chipping, but often I can't because of burn bans.

 

[newbury]

Yep. Those "spaghetti" trees are already doomed; they have been out-competed by other trees, or by each other in some cases.

I thought spaghetti trees were only found in Italy?

 

[tree farmer]

Since you have a Stihl fs90 already, have you considered a pole saw attachment for it?{about $200.} I have one on my fs110, and it is probably one of my most frequently used tools. I have a similar situation to yours, only with very prolific sitka spruce trees. They grow so thick you cant walk between them. I've been cutting them close to the ground, then reach up with the pole saw and cut them off repeatedly about 8 ft. high. eventually you will have a pile of short sticks on the ground, which I leave, as they will rot out in a few years. Soon as the ones you leave get some sunlight, they really take off and grow. If I need to put a trail through that area I will pop the stumps out with the excavator, but mostly I just leave them to decompose. Remaining trees do not do well if you run over the roots with equipment.....Dan.

 

[oosik]

I've already got all my thinning, dragging & piling done for the year - 870 small pines. Now the fun part - chipping. That, for me, is the most enjoyable. I get to use my big equipment - tractor and chipper - and its not so physically taxing. I do the chipping early - before sunrise - start at 5am and shut down at 9am. Its before the ticks and mosquitos are out and about. Lately the puppy and I have been bringing a few ticks back into the house. Hate ticks - wake up in the middle of the night - feel one crawling across the old bod. About another four days or so and all this years pines will be chipped up.

 

[LMychajluk]

We could use some idea of your budget.
Your string trimmer with blade is the tool you need to get small stumps near ground level but I think your FS90 may be underpowered. I've a Stihl FS110 and and FS250 I can handle 2 inch trees easily with the FS250.
...

Since you have a Stihl fs90 already, have you considered a pole saw attachment for it?{about $200.} I have one on my fs110, and it is probably one of my most frequently used tools. ...

No real budget, but as I mentioned previously, we just bought the tractor, chipper, grapple, etc..., so I don't want to spend a ton more money on this particular project right now, and it's not going to be a fiscal priority (I have a retaining wall project that get's that honor). If it comes down to it, though, a second brush saw might be in the future, especially if I need to spend more than ~$200 for the blade, guard, adapters, full harness and the handlebars(?) to run the FS90 safely. But if I do that, I may be interested in the FS 130 Kombi system, which doesn't give me a big step up in power. I'm not sure how the pole saw would help, though (unless you can angle the head to make the flush cuts?). We do have a Works 10" chainsaw with the pole attachment for small pruning jobs, as well as the Jawsaw (w/o the extension handle).

But I honestly, don't think I'll be cutting much more than 1" or so. The few that I have to cut that may be thicker than that I'll deal with with the chainsaw or even a hand bow saw. The areas I'm looking at aren't as dense as it sounds like some of you are dealing with. It's actually fairly easy to walk through, but mixed into these stands are a number of birch trees (paper white birch, I think...). I want to give these trees a chance, so I really just want to clean out any smaller trees that might be growing to too close to them and generally 'tidy up' a bit (as well as clean up all the dead fall that's been accumulating). The place is a vacation / summer home, but I may run up there tomorrow to mow the lawn if the weather clears a bit, and will try and grab a few pics to give you a better idea.

Thanks again for the suggestions!

 

[oosik]

I've got just about every "head" that Stihl makes for my FS350. Two types of string head, a tri-lobed metal head, a carbide tipped saw blade head and my favorite - a head with three free swinging nylon blades.

Three years ago I had an idea - I took a brand new nylon blade to the local metal working shop and had them make six out of high carbon steel. I don't really think the steel blades cut much better than the nylon - maybe a little and they are quite a bit heavier. But the thing is - they last forever. I don't see them as being any more dangerous than the nylon ones either. You just need to be darn sure the back shield is in place and fully functional. I also check the screws that hold the blades every time I use the unit.

 

[EddieWalker]

On the benefits of thinning, around here in East Texas, a state biologist told me that hundreds of years ago, before any farming or clearing was every done, there where very few saplings and small trees. The big trees where spread out and there was open ground underneath. With farming, came clearing, and then the farming stopped and then the trees made a come back, but it takes hundreds of years for it to be where it is supposed to be naturally. My land is so think that it's impossible to walk through. Thinning it out is good for the wildlife, and the remaining plants.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

If you look at established forests, there is little undergrowth, and the trees are spaced a decent space apart.

I cleared in my woods about 10 yrs ago, then let it go. It got so thick with young crap growing, i couldnt get thru it. I cleaned it out again last yr. If i dont mow it, it will grow back up.however, once you get a mature tree cover, it helps keep the undergrowth in check.

 

[oosik]

buckeyefarmer - my dad bought this 80 acres in 1939 and took the first pictures of the place in 1940. The only things that have changed in the 80 intervening years - the Ponderosa pines have gotten bigger and since nobody did any thinning - there were lots of thick little pine stands when we came down in '82. The bunch grass and buck brush are exactly the same. And here and there are a sage bush or two.

This semi-arid environment simply does not support thick undergrowth - actually it doesn't support any undergrowth. I can very easily see all the way down the center of my property - 2640 feet - from the East property line to the West property line.

 

[/pine]

There is a dichotomy with forest preservation ideals...one bent is for timber the other for wildlife...
The latter is the reason in many places the USFS "clearcuts" ...undergrowth provides cover for smaller species and the food chain starts at the very tiny but links all the way to the top...

 

[GirlWhoWantsTractor]

There is a dichotomy with forest preservation ideals...one bent is for timber the other for wildlife...
The latter is the reason in many places the USFS "clearcuts" ...undergrowth provides cover for smaller species and the food chain starts at the very tiny but links all the way to the top...

Mature forest getting rarer all the time. (Heard there's a bit of true virgin forest somewhere deep in a national forest in the Appalachians, which is kept secret.) And because folks like to see neatly mowed fields bordered by tall trees, the "edges," the intermediate-growth brushy stuff, is often cut over because it don't look neat and well-kept, so that's a problem because like /pine said, it's prime wild critter habitat (like our native quail).

Had a county agent look over the property, and some areas that maybe didn't look so good, like under the powerlines, which had been cut over with dead wood left lying around and was sprouting all sorts of random brush and small trees, he recommended leaving exactly "as is." Said the wildlife would love it. Since it's not in view of the house, I took his advice. It looks better every year w/ zero work, plus I'm hoping to see quail again. Kind of changed my point of view. I don't see the point of acres of mowed grass, just to look at. Grass left unmowed becomes a wildflower meadow real quick. Cut it into curved swaths with a walking path through it and it looks quite lovely, and the curved pathways are a pleasure to mow, and quick. Spend the extra time fishing or building something.

Even farmers who need to produce income from the land, he said there was value in leaving the brushy borders, such as blocking wind, reducing erosion, among other things.

 

[aczlan]

Can your tractor fit in where you want to trim? If so, why not put a bush hog on the back and back over your 1-2" little trees.

Aaron Z

 

[LMychajluk]

Can your tractor fit in where you want to trim? If so, why not put a bush hog on the back and back over your 1-2" little trees.

Aaron Z

See Post #1, Paragraph 3.



Here's a couple of photos of what I'm dealing with. When I was a kid (40 years ago), some of this was just wild fields with a lot of blueberry bushes. We had a brush fire that cleared a lot of that, and after, larger trees (mostly maples, but some birch and maybe oak?) started growing in. It's not so much 'too thick to walk through', but there are a lot of trees where there are multiple trees growing out of the same stump, or very close together (you can see a bit of that in the photos). I don't know why, but that seems to happen often on our property.

The ferns are starting to grow in already, so some areas might wait until the fall or next spring, but I want to start cleaning up the dead fall.

 

[Jstpssng]

buckeyefarmer - my dad bought this 80 acres in 1939 and took the first pictures of the place in 1940. The only things that have changed in the 80 intervening years - the Ponderosa pines have gotten bigger and since nobody did any thinning - there were lots of thick little pine stands when we came down in '82. The bunch grass and buck brush are exactly the same. And here and there are a sage bush or two.

This semi-arid environment simply does not support thick undergrowth - actually it doesn't support any undergrowth. I can very easily see all the way down the center of my property - 2640 feet - from the East property line to the West property line.

That's one big difference between where you are, and what I'm used to. Here we want to see some undergrowth as that's the next generation of trees. Mature growth is stagnant growth; it's what caribou and a few other species like, but there really isn't much life in declining trees. The American Indians used to burn the hardwood forests of Appalachia occasionally to promote squirrel habitat long before we Europeans et.al. came over... of course back then the hardwood leaves in the forest were a couple of feet deep because there were no earthworms around until they hitchhiked over on our ships.

See Post #1, Paragraph 3.

View attachment 555031View attachment 555032

Here's a couple of photos of what I'm dealing with. When I was a kid (40 years ago), some of this was just wild fields with a lot of blueberry bushes. We had a brush fire that cleared a lot of that, and after, larger trees (mostly maples, but some birch and maybe oak?) started growing in. It's not so much 'too thick to walk through', but there are a lot of trees where there are multiple trees growing out of the same stump, or very close together (you can see a bit of that in the photos). I don't know why, but that seems to happen often on our property.

The ferns are starting to grow in already, so some areas might wait until the fall or next spring, but I want to start cleaning up the dead fall.

I was looking at those ferns. Whatever you do, try not to disturb the ground too much. One thing that I remember from working in NY is how they like to take over, and the only thing which will grow up through them- eventually- is black cherry.

 

[GirlWhoWantsTractor]

See Post #1, Paragraph 3.

View attachment 555031View attachment 555032

Here's a couple of photos of what I'm dealing with. When I was a kid (40 years ago), some of this was just wild fields with a lot of blueberry bushes. We had a brush fire that cleared a lot of that, and after, larger trees (mostly maples, but some birch and maybe oak?) started growing in. It's not so much 'too thick to walk through', but there are a lot of trees where there are multiple trees growing out of the same stump, or very close together (you can see a bit of that in the photos). I don't know why, but that seems to happen often on our property.

The ferns are starting to grow in already, so some areas might wait until the fall or next spring, but I want to start cleaning up the dead fall.

Multiple trees growing out of the same stump is often maple.
Like I said before, late fall-winter is best for cutting trees. But now through fall is good for identifying trees, and for planning. Get a tree book and walk through the woods, and if you find trees of a species you want to encourage--oak, hickory, wild cherry, or whatever--tie a ribbon around them. Trees are a bit harder to identify w/o leaves. In the areas where we do anything, we try to cull the poplars, as they grow quickly and crowd out other species, but are very weak trees that fall in storms.
The ferns look like bracken. We have a lot of it. It is pretty indestructable and also very easy to transplant. Nothing makes a disturbed area look natural more quickly than some ferns. In fact, when we are going to disturb an area, we take off the moss, the ferns, some of the plants, and all the duff we can rake up. Then when we're done, we put it all back. Looks nice.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

See Post #1, Paragraph 3.

View attachment 555031View attachment 555032

Here's a couple of photos of what I'm dealing with. When I was a kid (40 years ago), some of this was just wild fields with a lot of blueberry bushes. We had a brush fire that cleared a lot of that, and after, larger trees (mostly maples, but some birch and maybe oak?) started growing in. It's not so much 'too thick to walk through', but there are a lot of trees where there are multiple trees growing out of the same stump, or very close together (you can see a bit of that in the photos). I don't know why, but that seems to happen often on our property.

The ferns are starting to grow in already, so some areas might wait until the fall or next spring, but I want to start cleaning up the dead fall.

I find winter the best time to clear, when you can see what you're dealing with. Seeing your pics, I'd take smaller trees out with a grapple, assuming they didnt sprout from an old stump. I love clearing land, fun seat time.