# "Extreme Logging" and "Ax Men"



## Growler (Jan 3, 2009)

I was wondering if any of your could shed some light on if those logging operations displayed on TV shows like "Extreme Logging" and "Ax-Men" replant the areas that they clear. They've only shown them cutting down the trees and hauling them away. So this brings me to my questions:


Do these operations replant the areas and we're just not shown it, because it would make for boring TV?
Is replanting forests mandatory by the US Forestry Service or by individual states?
If logging operations do replant, _how_ does one put thousands of saplings into the ground?

I'm actually most interested in the third question because I keep trying to equate to planting crops on farms.

Thanks


----------



## captainsteep (Jan 3, 2009)

Growler said:


> I was wondering if any of your could shed some light on if those logging operations displayed on TV shows like "Extreme Logging" and "Ax-Men" replant the areas that they clear. They've only shown them cutting down the trees and hauling them away. So this brings me to my questions:
> 
> 
> Do these operations replant the areas and we're just not shown it, because it would make for boring TV?
> ...



yes some of the areas get replanted they are called tree farms as far as the forest service they take care of federal land and replant. years back the tool for handplanting was called a hoedad kinda like a shovel with a hole to put the sapling in and then you step on it to push it in the ground,today it may be done with machines.


----------



## hammerlogging (Jan 3, 2009)

Regeneration is part of the bigger picture of the land management, logging is the harvest phase, replanting would be a different contractor, generally speaking. It depends where you are. Out in the OR coast range there was tons if not all hand replanted saplings and extensive site prep to provide the natural scarification the new trees like. Here in the Appalachians we manage harvests to support natural regen, replanting is uneconomical compared to natural regen.(and unnecessary) Deep south pine plantations, flat ground, yes, some is mechanised, other by hand. Its piece work, paid by the tree.

Consider the competition control too- you can spray broad leaf herbicides to release planted conifer species but your only real choice for HW competition control is mechanical, which is far more expensive.


----------



## slowp (Jan 3, 2009)

In Warshington, we have laws, as does Oregon. State land requires replanting. Private landowners who have their land zoned as Timber Land get taxed at a lower rate. If they want to keep that land classified and the lower property tax, they are required to replant also. It is a certain number of trees per acre.

Out here, the Forest Service doesn't clearcut much anymore. Nothing on those shows was on Forest Service land. Equipment in a swamp!:jawdrop: :jawdrop: :jawdrop: :jawdrop: no way. Not even near. On Axmen, they would have been lectured about their high stumps, tree lengthing, and would not have been allowed to pull their cat and skidder up the hill until the specialists had a look and the soil dried out. That would take months. But, when there used to be clearcuts, there is a law that requires reforestation. Every timber sale had to make enough money to cover reforestation. That was covered by charging at least what is called Base Rates for the timber. The stumpage price could not go below that amount. I could go on and on but it is confusing about how things are paid for by selling timber on Federal land. Suffice to say that I was told that at one time, the Forest Service made the second largest amount of revenue for the country. The IRS would be number one. 

There haven't been any clearcuts *here* on Forest Service land since 1990 something. Since then, the elk have moved down onto the private lands and towns in the valley, where there's more forage. Our area now has the game department and some local residents starting to push for a return to some clearcutting. I'd like some more because that is where the huckleberries grow. They still clearcut elsewhere, like in Wisconsin for Aspen production. 

Tree planting, like logging when done right, would make for boring tv. Unless they had some of the crews from the 70s which had some women who would go topless. In fact, now, unless you spoke Spanish, you wouldn't understand the planting crews. Tree planting is extremely hard and labor intensive. You have big bags strapped around your waist. You dip the tree roots in a vermiculite and water solution, which makes them heavier, you stuff your bags as full as you can, grab your hoedad and head up or down the unit. Slam hoedad into ground, wobble a hole, insert tree brown side down, work dirt against tree, tamp with hoedad or boot and walk the spacing for the next tree, repeat. Do this all day. It is a young people's job. In some areas chainsaw augers can be used for the holes but it is still hard work. 

There are some planters who can get a thousand trees a day planted. I don't know what the quality is. There are quality control inspectors who follow the planters and dig up some of the trees to make sure they are planted correctly.
If tree planters are getting paid by the tree, sometimes they bury trees instead of planting them. Sometimes they bury a lot of trees in one hole. 
For tree planting, the steeper the ground, the easier it is on the back. You don't have to bend over as far when the hillside is staring you in the face. 

And, like falling, you start out at daybreak. Tree planting season meant sleep deprivation for us inspectors. We had to be at the tree cooler at 0 dark thirty and load up the trees, cover them up good with an insulated tarp, and then meet the crews at daylight. If the day heated up, we'd call a halt to the planting and bury the unplanted trees under a snowbank to be planted in the morning. Planting follows the snowline. 

The other thing they showed, but said it was a wildfire, was slash burning. In a clearcut, usually a slash burn is needed BEFORE the unit is planted. We burned one in the volcano salvage that had been planted. Slash in clearcuts can be 4 feet deep or more. It needs to be burned to reduce fire danger and make openings for the trees to be planted. But at the same time, you don't want to fry the soil (burning too hot) or burn up the cull logs that might have been left. So, they started burning in the Spring around here and would go until it got too dry. Then since burning was done in the Spring, the areas had to be checked for any smokes popping up all Summer long. It is amazing how long a root can smolder for. 

There's a lot they didn't cover on those shows, and they'd be boring if they did. Except broadcast burning got exciting at times when the sparks would drift across the drainage and torch off another unit that we hadn't planned on burning. Then we'd here, "We're going to go to plan C, grab your torches and head across the canyon and start lighting." Our one unit plan, which we planned to have done by evening, would turn into a double or more unit plan and we'd be out all night. Then we'd be expected to show up in the morning for our "real" jobs. Another job for young people. Go home black, shower, have a beer, catch some zzzzzs and get up and go out and cruise timber, repeat. Nobody ever got killed so we must've done something right. We got a couple people bruised when they got hit by rocks, and then there was run for your life from rolling rootwads....clearcuts are lit by lighting strips back and forth across the hillside, working from the TOP down. There were hose belays.
We'd always have a rock bluff in the unit so you'd slide down the firehose and hope it was still hooked up to something.

All this extra work provided additional employment for non-loggers. It doesn't exist much around here anymore. See, I hope I didn't bore you. It would bore the TV viewers.


----------



## forestryworks (Jan 3, 2009)

slowp said:


> In Warshington, we have laws, as does Oregon. State land requires replanting. Private landowners who have their land zoned as Timber Land get taxed at a lower rate. If they want to keep that land classified and the lower property tax, they are required to replant also. It is a certain number of trees per acre.
> 
> Out here, the Forest Service doesn't clearcut much anymore. Nothing on those shows was on Forest Service land. Equipment in a swamp!:jawdrop: :jawdrop: :jawdrop: :jawdrop: no way. Not even near. On Axmen, they would have been lectured about their high stumps, tree lengthing, and would not have been allowed to pull their cat and skidder up the hill until the specialists had a look and the soil dried out. That would take months. But, when there used to be clearcuts, there is a law that requires reforestation. Every timber sale had to make enough money to cover reforestation. That was covered by charging at least what is called Base Rates for the timber. The stumpage price could not go below that amount. I could go on and on but it is confusing about how things are paid for by selling timber on Federal land. Suffice to say that I was told that at one time, the Forest Service made the second largest amount of revenue for the country. The IRS would be number one.
> 
> ...



good post slowp


----------



## wilbilt (Jan 3, 2009)

forestryworks said:


> good post slowp



+1

Very informative and well-written. I have lived here in Butte Co. CA for 23 years, and have learned more about trees and logging operations in a week visiting this site than during that entire time.

Many thanks, slowp (and to all the rest of you!)  

Will in Nor Cal


----------



## Bushler (Jan 3, 2009)

400 trees/acre is the stocking requirement in Oregon. 10'X10' spacing. We have three years from time of harvest to replant under the Oregon Forest Practice Act. I usually plant the same year, before the brush gets a headstart, if I can. The trees are pre-commercial thinned to 200 stems/acre after ten/fifteen years.

I can plant 3/400 trees/day, and a good mexican can plant 1000/day. 2-0 doug fir/spruce/cedar/white fir, mixed is what I plant. The hemlock repalants itself pretty nicely.


----------



## RPM (Jan 3, 2009)

forestryworks said:


> good post slowp



++1.....

" _In Warshington, we have laws, as does Oregon. State land requires replanting. Private landowners who have their land zoned as Timber Land get taxed at a lower rate. If they want to keep that land classified and the lower property tax, they are required to replant also. It is a certain number of trees per acre_"

Same guidelines in BC for reforestation - legal obligation on crown lands and tax incentives for managed private forest land. The only difference here vs Washington is that we have been _*proudly clear cutting since the start - and still are!*_!

and....with regards to langauge....if you are a tree planter here - more than likely you speak Qubecois - french.....and some of the ladies still go topless.

Tree planting / silviculture / reforestation is boring to say the least......slash burning was the only fun thing about reforestation that I can remember and we don't do that anymore


----------



## Growler (Jan 3, 2009)

RPM said:


> Same guidelines in BC for reforestation - legal obligation on crown lands and tax incentives for managed private forest land. The only difference here vs Washington is that we have been _*proudly clear cutting since the start - and still are!*_!



Thanks for all of the insight given. What is the advantage to clear cutting vs the alternative (selective cutting?).

Thanks


----------



## GASoline71 (Jan 3, 2009)

You're not a hippie in disguise are ya???  

Gary


----------



## Growler (Jan 3, 2009)

Nope, don't like Birkenstocks, burlap pants or 99% of the nuts from Berkeley, CA. I'm a Computer Engineer and avid hiker that watches Discovery/HistoryChannel. My only guess is that it's easier and more efficient, from a logging perspective, to cut down everything and replant than it is to cut down 1 out of every X trees. I imagine it would be pretty hard to get the trees through a sparsely populated forest, than it would be to just cut it all down and roll up trucks. The operations on Ax-men seemed to run into issues when there were even stumps in the way.


----------



## Gologit (Jan 3, 2009)

Growler said:


> Nope, don't like Birkenstocks, burlap pants or 99% of the nuts from Berkeley, CA. I'm a Computer Engineer and avid hiker that watches Discovery/HistoryChannel. My only guess is that it's easier and more efficient, from a logging perspective, to cut down everything and replant than it is to cut down 1 out of every X trees. I imagine it would be pretty hard to get the trees through a sparsely populated forest, than it would be to just cut it all down and roll up trucks. The operations on Ax-men seemed to run into issues when there were even stumps in the way.



You're close. Logging is harvesting a crop, pure and simple. I log primarily on private ground and the majority of our work is clearcut. I also do selective cutting but that's mainly bug-kill salvage...kind of like weeding the garden.

Clearcutting makes sense in that logging is about production and efficiency... just like any other harvesting. Looking past the romance and colorful history of logging you'll find it's a business, just like any other business, and with a very slim margin of profit.

Granted, from an esthetic point of view, there's nothing uglier than a piece of ground that's just been clearcut. But come back in five years and see all the little trees we've planted and then come back every five years after that and you'll see a whole new forest aborning. I can show you places that were logged sixty years ago and you'd find that there isn't any ugliness anymore. If you didn't know it had once been a clearcut you'd be hard pressed to tell it had ever been touched. Last year I logged on land that my grandfather clearcut.

The term "renewable resource" is valid. If we do things right it will be valid forever.


----------



## RPM (Jan 3, 2009)

Growler said:


> Thanks for all of the insight given. What is the advantage to clear cutting vs the alternative (selective cutting?).
> 
> Thanks



1. Economics ..... clear cutting = effeciency and productivity = better cost

2. Biology .... in the absence of stand replacing events (ie. we suppress forest fires) clear cutting mimics those events in a basic sense.....of course I am generalizing here which could lead into a whole other discussion as there are a multitude of ecology based things to consider.


----------



## Growler (Jan 3, 2009)

Gologit said:


> If you didn't know it had once been a clearcut you'd be hard pressed to tell it had ever been touched. Last year I logged on land that my grandfather clearcut.



I have to agree on that, on many of my hikes amongst the redwoods (I'm in N. Calif), every now and then I would come across a "monster stump" which is probably the only evidence that the forest had been clearcut back in the '20s. While the trees I see aren't as big as the 200yr old redwoods, an 80 year old redwood is still pretty big.

One follow-up question, I often hear about how when a diversified forest (many different species) is cut down and replaced with a single species that the inherent advantages to a diversified forest are lost. When a replanting effort is undertaken, is it always a single species that is planted, as if you were planting a crop (like corn), or is sometimes multiple species planted as to emulate a more natural forest, rather than the crop?


----------



## RPM (Jan 3, 2009)

Growler said:


> I have to agree on that, on many of my hikes amongst the redwoods (I'm in N. Calif), every now and then I would come across a "monster stump" which is probably the only evidence that the forest had been clearcut back in the '20s. While the trees I see aren't as big as the 200yr old redwoods, an 80 year old redwood is still pretty big.
> 
> One follow-up question, I often hear about how when a diversified forest (many different species) is cut down and replaced with a single species that the inherent advantages to a diversified forest are lost. When a replanting effort is undertaken, is it always a single species that is planted, as if you were planting a crop (like corn), or is sometimes multiple species planted as to emulate a more natural forest, rather than the crop?



We plant back what was on site....so almost always a mixed species. On some sites certain species come back on thier own via seed banks in the soil or drift in from adjacent stands. Hemlock, balsam and lodgepole pine do well at coming in on their own. In our area we have a lot of Armillaria root rot / disease which affects Douglas-fir and Western larch primarily (least resistant) - so on sites that were predominantly Doug-fir and have a moderate to high root disease incidence we will plant less Doug-fir and a couple of other "resistant" species (White pine - blister rust resistant strain, lodgepole pine) so that the future stand will come out stocked. 

We have a system for classifying our stands by ecosystem type and then stocking guidelines for each of those types and sub types. Cut block areas are stratifed out by these sub types and planted accordingly...wet / dry areas, nutrient rich / poor, soil sensitivity, etc...

We don't plant off site stock anymore......seed sources for seedlings comes from the area that those new trees willl be planted in.....so in my area we collect our own seed for the nurseries.

The only places in BC where you might see more of a mono culture stand is in the lodgepole pole pine areas where lodgepole comprises 80% or more of the stems. But even then we still try and plant some spruce into the wetter eco types and if balsam is present it will make its way in as well. 

I kinda blew off the selective cutting question as we do not do much....it has to have a specific purpose and result other than making a bunch of urabn hippies happy.

It is mostly a silviculture tool (shelter wood systems) and sometimes used for wildlife (ungulate management) or for visual design (making the hill side pretty)


----------



## gavin (Jan 3, 2009)

hey RPM i have a quick question about selective logging. on the private lands here, there is a decent amount of single stem logging going on in the steep riparian areas. i've heard some people rave about how good it is for ecological reasons. aside from riparian and terrain stability, how "eco-friendly" is it? particularly around here in the doug-fir forests.

is there enough opening created for young douglas fir to thrive, or is it too shady? my uneducated guess would be that hemlock/balsam etc. might out compete the young fir in a shaded forest.

last, how does the high-grading affect the forest quality over the long term? essentially only the best Fd/Cw/Yc, is worth climbing, jigging, and flying out. economically it seems like it will make the area not feasible for harvesting for quite a while.

i was only involved in local (south island) stuff. i see it having its purposes when there's terrain stability issues, but ecologically, it seems like its been overly hyped up. i heard they've done some in the charlottes/prince rupert area, but i really know nothing about the ecology of the north coast.


----------



## slowp (Jan 3, 2009)

Growler said:


> Nope, don't like Birkenstocks, burlap pants or 99% of the nuts from Berkeley, CA. I'm a Computer Engineer and avid hiker that watches Discovery/HistoryChannel. My only guess is that it's easier and more efficient, from a logging perspective, to cut down everything and replant than it is to cut down 1 out of every X trees. I imagine it would be pretty hard to get the trees through a sparsely populated forest, than it would be to just cut it all down and roll up trucks. The operations on Ax-men seemed to run into issues when there were even stumps in the way.




The ax men didn't have to try. Instead of clearcutting, we do a bit of selective harvesting, commercial thinning it is called. The main reason? Because that is the only harvest that might not cause a law suit. The reason given? To speed up the growth of the stand so it will reach old growth size quicker. From a marketing point, we should be clearcutting a lot of the stands because they are at the prime size that the mills desire. 14-24 inch diameter. These are second growth stands that were planted in the 1950s and 60s. 

I've got a lot of pictures on this forum of how it is done. Thinning is a no brainer with a helicopter or cat/skidder. Maybe not a no brainer with a skidder or cat But with a yarder, it takes a lot of prep work and some thinking. We do some thick stands. First off, for the yarder, it has to have a carriage where you can pull line through. We require a capability to reach 75 feet lateral yarding...which is pulling the logs sideways over to the skyline. The skyline is run down a precut corridor. A corridor is a STRAIGHT line going up or down the hill, where all the trees are cut to make a path about 10 to 12 feet wide. These are spaced 100 or more feet apart. The wood is yarded through the standing trees, reaches the corridor then on up or down the hill on the skyline. Most of the touristas don't even notice that an area has been logged. They don't even notice the corridors. 

Skyline thinning is slow. Six loads a day is good. It is labor intensive. The fallers say they like it because they have to think more to get the trees on the ground. Trees get scarred up in a thinning. The rigging crew often has to reset the chokers to work the logs around the standing trees. There is a lot of inefficient speech in a thinning. 

The same with skidder thinning. Skid trails have to be cut open. You can do it all mechanical though and this saves on insurance costs. 

Helicopter? The one this fall did a beautiful job. But I hear they went out of business.

While driving my hippie car to town, I was pondering all the jobs there used to be that were linked to clearcutting. One of the fallers that I see a lot told me he started out building fireline for the various logging outfits. He was telling me how he used to destroy chains by plunging the saw into roots to cut them.
There were brush piling contractors and crews, fireline building crews, mop up crews, tree planting crews, and eventually precommercial thinning crews. That's besides the actual logging. For thinnings, the work is heavy on the prep side. The trees to cut have to be marked somehow. Then the only spinoff work might be some handpiling of slash along a road. If there's enough money made from the sale, contracts are given out to dump more trees to leave, make snags, and other nice touchy feely stuff. Thinnings do not generate the employment that the clearcuts used to. 

Burning would be more complicated now. Because we and everybody else lit up units one nice Saturday in July in 1980 something, and the wind changed and blew the smoke over into Olympia, Seattle, and Tacoma, laws governing burning were passed. "Smoke Management." Another layer of bureauocracy was made, the Clean Air something or other, and they collect a per acre fee to burn so they can have their agency. Forest Service people have to have more training to burn, wear nomex, and pass the physical test thing. When I burned, the fire guy would walk through the office after we'd come in from doing timber work, and flick his Bic. We'd grab some munchies at the mini mart and head out. Can't do it like that now. 

Oh, and as far as having a monoculture. Even when just one species was planted, Nature seeded in hemlock and other species. They were called Naturals when we were checking the area to make sure it was reforested. 

Not much comes up underneath in a thinning. Because of rules dealing with spotted owls and other critters, a 60% tree canopy is required, or at least required in a short time. So the thinning is light, and the trees fill in the openings with their branches quickly. That is one of the theories of why there are so many more elk hanging out down in the valley year round. Questions?


----------



## (WLL) (Jan 3, 2009)

some good info in here fellers


----------



## slowp (Jan 3, 2009)

Some pictures from thinnings.
This is a unit that is right below a major road. This was partly cut by the guy who started out building firelines. They hardly scarred up a tree, and the rigging crew also followed through with a nice job. The unit has survived one wind event and I like to look at it as I drive by to other logging sites.





Here's one in a different stand. It is a higher elevation, natural (non planted) stand. It is a little messier looking because the trees are limbier--more Hemlock. 




Here's a turn going laterally across the hill to the skyline corridor where it will go up to the yarder.




And here is something they didn't talk at all about on Axmen. It is an intermediate support, or Jack. This unit would have been better logged by a cat or skidder, but a judge ruled that it had to be skyline. The profile of the ground was not conducive to a skyline and no road could be built to the break to put the yarder on the edge, so they hung a jack in a tree. The jack lifts the line up so the logs will still be suspended by one end. Without the jack, the carriage and turn would drag here and, if the yarder had enough power, it would yank the turn hard enough to carve a ditch here. The hooktender has to climb the tree to rig this up. It takes more time and is not a favorite thing to do.


----------



## Backwood (Jan 4, 2009)

GP has a big track of land nearby, and a few years ago we kept seeing cropdusting planes dropping below the treetops and decided to check it out. While watching them dusting pines we also saw them planting pines. They had a dozer that pulled a trailer. The trailer was enclosed except for the back. It was a mexican sitting in the trailer laying plants in the planter ( worked like a tobacco planter ). The dozer was going back and fourth over the land that had just been cut, over stumps and through ditches like they wont there. gave me a headache just watching , dont know how somebody could take that pounding all day. Looking out the back of the trailer he could only see where they had been so he didnt know if the next second was going to bring a stump or a hole.

As for replanting I am guessing each state has its own rules ??? I see some land around here get replanted and some is just left to grow back on its own.


----------



## slowp (Jan 4, 2009)

Backwood said:


> GP has a big track of land nearby, and a few years ago we kept seeing cropdusting planes dropping below the treetops and decided to check it out. While watching them dusting pines we also saw them planting pines. They had a dozer that pulled a trailer. The trailer was enclosed except for the back. It was a mexican sitting in the trailer laying plants in the planter ( worked like a tobacco planter ). The dozer was going back and fourth over the land that had just been cut, over stumps and through ditches like they wont there. gave me a headache just watching , dont know how somebody could take that pounding all day. Looking out the back of the trailer he could only see where they had been so he didnt know if the next second was going to bring a stump or a hole.
> 
> As for replanting I am guessing each state has its own rules ??? I see some land around here get replanted and some is just left to grow back on its own.




Yup, you can plant that way where it is flat. I worked timber cruising with guys who had been the planter on the trailer and they blamed their back problems on doing that work. It sounded like they took quite a beating. They also tend to plant in rows that way. Out here, planting by hand just doesn't make for those straight rows, you are always having to go around a rock or log, and that's a good thing, it makes the plantations look more like nature planted it. 

While in exile and working in the Up Nort Mid West, I heard constant complaints about the spacing of the rows and trees. I think they were 9 feet apart. The thing is, when those trees were planted, I bet nobody ever dreamed there'd be a processor and forwarder working in them.


----------



## treejunkie13 (Jan 4, 2009)

Slowp, how does the carriage pass over the skyline jack?


----------



## Bushler (Jan 4, 2009)

Doug fir likes clear cuts because they love sunshine and are not shade tolerant like some of the other species. Doug. fir will grow faster in a same age stand, and doesn't do so well in multi age stands, or in partial shade.


----------



## polexie (Jan 4, 2009)

Very good info on this thread, thanx

Lex


----------



## Bushler (Jan 4, 2009)

For a copy of Oregon's Forest Protection Law's (beautifuly done book, well worth getting, almost coffee table quality photos and diagrams):

Write to:

Oregon Forest Resources Institute
317 SW 6th Avenue, Suite 400
Portland, OR 97204

tel. (503) 229-6718
(800) 719-9195

Web. www.oregonforests.org

email: [email protected]


----------



## (WLL) (Jan 4, 2009)

Bushler said:


> For a copy of Oregon's Forest Protection Law's (beautifuly done book, well worth getting, almost coffee table quality photos and diagrams):
> 
> Write to:
> 
> ...


im on it!! thanx man.


----------



## slowp (Jan 4, 2009)

treejunkie13 said:


> Slowp, how does the carriage pass over the skyline jack?








See how the line is held on the yellow rail? The carrage goes over it just like it does the skyline. Except, they yarder engineer usually slows down the carriage because it is more likely to come off and create unwanted excitement (sailing through the air) at the jack. Sometimes the yarder engineer forgets this while sending the carriage back down the hill and then the crew scampers out of the way and they will say bad things about the yarder engineer.

Heres a closeup of the carriage. The shivs (or is it spelled sheaves?) will go right over the jack. It makes a metallic kathunk sound.


----------



## Haywire Haywood (Jan 4, 2009)

From the other side of the coin, the tree huggers say that replanting isn't regrowing a forest, it's planting a crop. They say a forest is a diverse ecosystem of a lot of different kinds of trees and brush. A planted area is a gridwork of one kind of plant, can never be a forest in that sense of the word and won't support the wildlife that thrives in a true forest. While I don't know what happens out west, I grew up in pulpwood central in mid-Georgia. You can drive down the road and see acres and acres of pines grown like an oversize corn field in rows that you can see down for hundreds of yards. No underbrush and no other kind of plant to be seen.

just another perspective,
Ian


----------



## chevytaHOE5674 (Jan 4, 2009)

On the other side of the country from the PNW we do very little planting and not so much clear cutting. 

We clearcut jackpine and then drag the sites with anchor chains to break up the cones and allow it to seed itself. We also clear cut red pine plantations and either let them convert to other species or replant into Rowed red pine plantations.

Most of our logging is selection thinnings in mixed hardwood stands. Thin out the worst trees first cutting down to some specific stocking density. Leave your best trees as the seed source for regen. With this method there is no replanting as natural regeneration takes place. We have done some site conversions by underplanting certain species but it isn't very common. 


Re: Extreme Loggers, the mule loggers IMO were hi-grading the heck out of that stand. Taking all of the big high value trees, that are what you want as a seed source for the future.


----------



## willsaw4beer (Jan 4, 2009)

When my neighbors' property was logged last spring, they took all the big, straight hardwoods (oaks, cherry, ash, maples, walnuts, etc.) took any nice softwoods for boards, and left the rest. They left standing alot of bigger twisted hardwoods that weren't good for lumber. And the 15+ acres of tops which they let me have  . The woods is still there, it's just been thinned considerably. What I'm trying to say is that I'd think that the stuff they left standing or left behind wouldn't have been worth their time compared to the big money hardwoods. Why bother when they could just move on to the next site get the big money stuff out, and move along. It would seem that way they'd make the most money per hour, and leave behind plenty of seed and shade trees. A strategy for veneer and lumber trees would theoretically be very different for pulp wood harvesting I would think.


----------



## Gologit (Jan 4, 2009)

Haywire Haywood said:


> From the other side of the coin, the tree huggers say that replanting isn't regrowing a forest, it's planting a crop. They say a forest is a diverse ecosystem of a lot of different kinds of trees and brush. A planted area is a gridwork of one kind of plant, can never be a forest in that sense of the word and won't support the wildlife that thrives in a true forest. While I don't know what happens out west, I grew up in pulpwood central in mid-Georgia. You can drive down the road and see acres and acres of pines grown like an oversize corn field in rows that you can see down for hundreds of yards. No underbrush and no other kind of plant to be seen.
> 
> just another perspective,
> Ian



And yet another perspective. I log mostly in second growth timber. Some of it was replanted after the initial cut, some of it regenerated naturally,
a lot of it is a combination of the two. Like Slowp said, in our terrain it's nigh impossible to get neat little rows of reprod growing like corn stalks in a field. Because of the nature of the terrain, the natural regrowth of volunteer trees, and the variety of tree types, our second growth forests are almost indistinguishable from what they replaced. 

Our second and third growth forests are forests in the true sense of the word. They support as many, and as varied, species of wildlife as the old growth forests did. And now, with riparian conservation, watershed protection, and wildlife habitat a major concern there'll probably be even 
more.
And brush? And undergrowth? Plenty of that.

Okay, that being said..theres something else. All of the above drives a lot of foresters and sawmill people absolutely nuts. What they want, and what would be most economically efficient, would be the cornstalk straight rows of trees growing all the same size, with no different tree species, and no brush. Logging is about production and production means getting the logs to the mill at the absolute cheapest cost. They could motor through it with their feller 
bunchers, harvest it like stalks of grain, pull the stumps, spray for brush, 
and start all over again. Just like growing any other crop...plant, cultivate, harvest, repeat.

In places like the South, and even some places out here, they're doing that and they seem to have quite a bit of success with it. Is it a forest? No. But it's what works for them.

The tree huggers need to be able to tell the difference. All they have to do is ask.


----------



## chevytaHOE5674 (Jan 4, 2009)

willsaw4beer said:


> When my neighbors' property was logged last spring, they took all the big, straight hardwoods (oaks, cherry, ash, maples, walnuts, etc.) took any nice softwoods for boards, and left the rest. They left standing alot of bigger twisted hardwoods that weren't good for lumber. And the 15+ acres of tops which they let me have  . The woods is still there, it's just been thinned considerably. What I'm trying to say is that I'd think that the stuff they left standing or left behind wouldn't have been worth their time compared to the big money hardwoods. Why bother when they could just move on to the next site get the big money stuff out, and move along. It would seem that way they'd make the most money per hour, and leave behind plenty of seed and shade trees. A strategy for veneer and lumber trees would theoretically be very different for pulp wood harvesting I would think.




The is what I call hi-grading. Proper forest management shouldn't be about $$$ but what is best for the land. Leaving junk trees leaves poor genetic growing stock. Do you want your trees to reproduce from superior trees or twisted crooked ones?

When selectively harvesting hardwoods you shouldn't just take large trees. You should have some predetermined management plan, thin the stand to a certain Basal Area, cut across the diameter range, and cut the worst/sick/diseased trees first, next you should cut trees that do not have a good chance of increasing in quality and size over the next rotation.


----------



## willsaw4beer (Jan 4, 2009)

chevytaHOE5674 said:


> The is what I call hi-grading. Proper forest management shouldn't be about $$$ but what is best for the land. Leaving junk trees leaves poor genetic growing stock. Do you want your trees to reproduce from superior trees or twisted crooked ones?
> 
> When selectively harvesting hardwoods you shouldn't just take large trees. You should have some predetermined management plan, thin the stand to a certain Basal Area, cut across the diameter range, and cut the worst/sick/diseased trees first, next you should cut trees that do not have a good chance of increasing in quality and size over the next rotation.



I always figured trees being twisted and knotted came from struggling to survive in the woods more than the specific genetics of the tree.


----------



## chevytaHOE5674 (Jan 4, 2009)

willsaw4beer said:


> I always figured trees being twisted and knotted came from struggling to survive in the woods more than the specific genetics of the tree.



Much of it comes from predetermined genetics. Give poor genetic stock a great site and they still grow like crap. Thats why it is important to leave good stock to reproduce.


----------



## Zackman1801 (Jan 4, 2009)

Growler said:


> My only guess is that it's easier and more efficient, from a logging perspective, to cut down everything and replant than it is to cut down 1 out of every X trees. I imagine it would be pretty hard to get the trees through a sparsely populated forest, than it would be to just cut it all down and roll up trucks. The operations on Ax-men seemed to run into issues when there were even stumps in the way.



thats not the reason for clear cuts, clear cuts are for other reasons more than they are for whats easiest. In the cuttings i do i cut only selectively, on areas that a forester goes through and marks out to ensure good stand management. Its not as hard as you would think to make trees go where you need them as long as you know what you are doing.


----------



## slowp (Jan 4, 2009)

Haywire Haywood said:


> From the other side of the coin, the tree huggers say that replanting isn't regrowing a forest, it's planting a crop. They say a forest is a diverse ecosystem of a lot of different kinds of trees and brush. A planted area is a gridwork of one kind of plant, can never be a forest in that sense of the word and won't support the wildlife that thrives in a true forest. While I don't know what happens out west, I grew up in pulpwood central in mid-Georgia. You can drive down the road and see acres and acres of pines grown like an oversize corn field in rows that you can see down for hundreds of yards. No underbrush and no other kind of plant to be seen.
> 
> just another perspective,
> Ian



Too bad you didn't get to drive through the St. Helens blast area. You could see the planted areas and the ones going natural. That area was one humongus clearcut. The replanted areas were logged first. They are ready for a precommercial thin. The unplanted is still pretty open and has so many elk that there's a problem with them overgrazing and starving to death. So, we have both in one place. The trees are not in rows, and there's a mixture of species. Huckleberry picking is not allowed in the monument so I want some new clearcuts made in the forest so there'll be more berries. The gourmet world discovered huckleberries and demand has increased to the point where we have a major influx of pickers during huckleberry season. We recreational pickers now have to compete with them and they have full time scouts out looking. Meanwhile the berry patches created by clearcutting are growing in, they were replanted and the trees are blocking out the sunlight that the berry bushes need. 

To those of you talkiing about high grading, the kind of thinning done here and pushed by foresters is "thinning from below". You LEAVE the best trees for the future crop because it is when they are bigger and ready for harvest that you will make the money. You don't want to waste time with the scraggly stuff that is already showing it is slower growing. My tree farming friends call it Forest Enhancement.

However, the latest fad here is to have a description by diameter cut. The timber marker picks out the LARGEST diameter tree at stump height. That tree stays if it is alive. Doesn't matter what the rest of the tree looks like, it could have mistletoe, 100 tops, fire scar, etc. If it is the biggest diameter at stump height, it STAYS. The smaller trees within a certain radius of the big tree are cut. Like 10 feet. So, the largest spacing you'd have would be 20 feet. This supposedly cuts down on the perceived high grading of trees, and makes for "diversity" in the woods. 

Like Gologit said, we don't cut old growth here. If we have to, it stays as a wildlife log. However, the environmental community hasn't figured that out yet and keeps bringing it up. They won't let go because it stirs up emotions quite well and keeps donations coming into their organization. 

Much of Southwestern Warshington, pre 1980s eruption, was burned early in the 20th century. Look up the Yacolt Burn and the Cispus Burn. It was replanted by the CCCs and also came back naturally. It is part of what we harvest today. In fact, that's what Douglas fir likes. It is what is called an early seral species, comes in after the Alder. Alder fixes the soil with nitrogen, lives a short time and the Doug-fir is next. Dougs need sunlight. When they get to a point, the hemlock and true firs, which are more shade tolerant come in underneath. Eventually, they take over till another fire hits. 
That's how nature does it. 

The environmental groups want nature to take over. Except they don't like smoke in the air for months on end. That's how nature would do it, It is hard to put out a fire in West Side old growth once it gets running. It usually takes winter to do it. That's the alternative.


----------



## Haywire Haywood (Jan 4, 2009)

Gologit and SlowP... nice posts. Rep for ya.  

Ian


----------



## Gologit (Jan 4, 2009)

Haywire Haywood said:


> Gologit and SlowP... nice posts. Rep for ya.
> 
> Ian



The hell with rep...send barbecue sauce. Send me Slowp's share, too. I'll give it to her at the GTG. Honest I will.


----------



## Haywire Haywood (Jan 4, 2009)

PM me your addy and it's a done deed.

Ian


----------



## wilbilt (Jan 4, 2009)

Gologit said:


> The hell with rep...send barbecue sauce. Send me Slowp's share, too. I'll give it to her at the GTG. Honest I will.



Do you like the local sauce (i.e., J. Lee Roy's) or do you prefer the exotic stuff imported across state lines?


----------



## slowp (Jan 5, 2009)

Haywire Haywood said:


> PM me your addy and it's a done deed.
> 
> Ian



Might as well send my share to him. He's got "sun to wallow in." I awoke to the wumph of snow falling off trees in the snow now turned to rain storm. Barbecuing is in a land far far away....Like Hawaii.


----------



## Gologit (Jan 5, 2009)

Haywire Haywood said:


> PM me your addy and it's a done deed.
> 
> Ian



Done. Don't forget Slowp's. You know I'll let her have it...otherwise I won't get any huckleberry pie.


----------



## Gologit (Jan 5, 2009)

wilbilt said:


> Do you like the local sauce (i.e., J. Lee Roy's) or do you prefer the exotic stuff imported across state lines?



I've never tried Roy's but I've heard good things about it. I missed out on Haywire's BBQ sauce at the GTG last year but I've heard good things about it, too.


----------



## wilbilt (Jan 5, 2009)

Gologit said:


> I've never tried Roy's but I've heard good things about it. I missed out on Haywire's BBQ sauce at the GTG last year but I've heard good things about it, too.



I think JLR's is pretty good, but there are other good recipes out there. I have stumbled on a few on occasion, sometimes by accident and desperation.

I recently read in the O'ville paper that JLR is expanding their distribution. I think it's a good thing, given the current economic situation, for the town to be known for something other than casinos and a lake with no water in it.


----------



## 74craig (Jan 5, 2009)

Great informitive posts!


----------



## slowp (Jan 6, 2009)

Are the Browning trucks symbols of dire things to come? I saw a loaded one heading to our local mill....J L Browning on the side. I get back into the office and everyone is serious looking--the weather service is predicting yet another record setting flood for our area. I'm a bit nervous, this house has never flooded but is too close to it for me. Thursday will be the bad day. Keep your fingers crossed and I will try to buck up. It'll be the third year in a row for major flooding in this county.  

If we survive here, I'll be out helping the other folks clean up. Unfortunately, we have a little group of us who are getting very experienced at that dirty job.


----------



## hokiewheeler (Jan 6, 2009)

slowp, best wishes with the weather. Good thread on forest management here. I'm curious to hear what some of your thoughts would be on the oak bottleneck issue and how to manage to reduce it. I know the PNW is mostly conifers so maybe not so much of an issue there, but here in Ohio, I have been told by OSU forestry types that logging makes it worse. Not sure I believe that because the bottleneck is caused by the fact that oak seedlings are not shade tolerant, and in old growth forests, the canopy prevents regen.


----------



## Gologit (Jan 6, 2009)

hokiewheeler said:


> slowp, best wishes with the weather. Good thread on forest management here. I'm curious to hear what some of your thoughts would be on the oak bottleneck issue and how to manage to reduce it. I know the PNW is mostly conifers so maybe not so much of an issue there, but here in Ohio, I have been told by OSU forestry types that logging makes it worse. Not sure I believe that because the bottleneck is caused by the fact that oak seedlings are not shade tolerant, and in old growth forests, the canopy prevents regen.



What is oak bottleneck?


----------



## slowp (Jan 6, 2009)

Gologit said:


> What is oak bottleneck?



Heck if I know. I know about poison oak.


----------



## Burvol (Jan 7, 2009)

Gologit said:


> And yet another perspective. I log mostly in second growth timber. Some of it was replanted after the initial cut, some of it regenerated naturally,
> a lot of it is a combination of the two. Like Slowp said, in our terrain it's nigh impossible to get neat little rows of reprod growing like corn stalks in a field. Because of the nature of the terrain, the natural regrowth of volunteer trees, and the variety of tree types, our second growth forests are almost indistinguishable from what they replaced.
> 
> Our second and third growth forests are forests in the true sense of the word. They support as many, and as varied, species of wildlife as the old growth forests did. And now, with riparian conservation, watershed protection, and wildlife habitat a major concern there'll probably be even
> ...



We talked about this before, the other factor here Bob is product quality. The "Production Farm" wood is not lacking in volume per acre vs. fesibility or sustainability, but overall product quality. You end up with nice, straight trees that have low ring count. The grain is looser. The wood has it's best shot at being useful in OSB, chip board, glue lams, ect. The revised building codes in several counties reflect this; larger sizes of beams, more straps, clips, nails, ect. are required than the previous 10-15 years.


----------



## wilbilt (Jan 7, 2009)

slowp said:


> I get back into the office and everyone is serious looking--the weather service is predicting yet another record setting flood for our area. I'm a bit nervous, this house has never flooded but is too close to it for me. Thursday will be the bad day. Keep your fingers crossed and I will try to buck up. It'll be the third year in a row for major flooding in this county.



Wow. Three years in a row? Stay safe!

Major flooding here has most recently happened in 1986 and 1997. 11 years apart. That would make us overdue for another. We sure need some rain, but I hope it doesn't happen all at once.


----------



## slowp (Jan 7, 2009)

The Eastern part of the county, where I live set a record for a big flood in 2006--winter.
The Western part got hammered in Dec. 2007
I guess, technically 2008 was not a flood year although we had a small one in November.
This one is supposed to hit the entire county. The weather guy is predicting 40 mph winds also. The radio said they have started evacuations in our community. During the 2006 flood, people were surprised and there were a few coast guard helicopter rescues and boats were used. Two people died.
One when he put his pickup in reverse, and went over the river bank, the other guy drove through a manned roadblock, into the water and his body was found up against the grocery store after the water receded. 
We don't have the elk hunters to worry about this time of year. Most of the logging equipment is out of the woods too. That'll make it less complicated, but still nasty.

I'll still go by my plan of drinking the alcohol supply up at the bar next door, which saves my reserves for last. Well, I better go to work. We'll probably have a meeting about staying safe.


----------



## Tzed250 (Jan 7, 2009)

Take care slowp...


----------



## hokiewheeler (Jan 7, 2009)

Oak bottleneck is something you run into in mature stands of oak trees where the acorns don't sprout so you don't have any saplings to replace the old trees when they die or are cut. Maples (silver and norway mostly I think - the not desirable ones) come in the understory and then as the oaks die off they are gradually lost from the stand. An example of this that I am familiar with is in northern Ashland county in a park known as Kroll woods. There are a lot of 200 plus year old trees there, a mix of tulip, white oak and hickory. There were also some tulip saplings in there that were about 3" dbh and cored at 80+ years old. I was there with OSU extension for some forest soils training for work and they got talking about the oak bottleneck issue and said that the research says logging makes it worse. I would think you could remove the maples in the understory and it would be ok, but the more I learn about forestry, the less I know. I'm an agronomist by education.


----------



## hammerlogging (Jan 8, 2009)

HW- Interesting theory, I've never heard of this oak bottleneck idea. But, there are many factors you're not addressing. The oak and poplar regen thrive in a disturbance type regime, they need sunlight for germination and good growth. They will definately end up supressed when growing in the understory/midstory, hence the 80 yo poplar- hickory and oak will do this too. This is in fact a large reason not to do diameter limit cuts, becasue you are leaving supressed trees that will never get the intended "release". You don't open the canopy up enough in a typical high grade to get adequate desirable regen. The red maples are more shade tolerant so can hang in the understory longer, and don't get supressed like the oaks, etc. But, this has more to do with sunlight. I just don't know about how (over)mature oaks acorn production changes, but if I was concerned about regen, and associating logging with poor timber species replacement, I would immediately address the light issue before enterring some sort of conversation about "oak bottleneck" and acorn production. You don't have to clearcut, if you want 2-3 age classes, figure your leave trees and save them, but cut all the junk, and whatever timber you can justify within your parameters. A 200 yo oak is definately justifiable in many ways- very slow annual growth, liekely quality and value decline.

There are very few locations that are not prone to the "disturbance regime" that makes our oak/hickory/poplar stands. A very small amount of land. They are generally physically protected from wind/ice/fire in some geographic manner.Theres proably some reason the oak stand you're talking about has gottne so mature, other than protection from harvesting-- try fire prevention? Interesting, I'm still interested for a little more info on this bottleneck theory.


----------



## hokiewheeler (Jan 8, 2009)

I don't have any more info than what I've already posted and that was the first I'd heard of oak bottleneck. This area is a park now so it's not gonna be logged. Half of the preserve was logged or cleared at some point in the 1800s and the other half is undisturbed. The half that had been cleared at some point was more diverse with shagbark hickory, white oak, and tulip. The virgin half was very large white oaks and tulips mostly. The forester was talking about how as mature trees die and eventually collapse, they are being replaced by maples because the maples grow faster. So the proper way to address a mature woods would be to not log the mature trees, or would be to take them because they are gonna die and rot? I recently reviewed a harvest plan for a site in my county that I think was probably a high grade cut as you stated. They took a lot of large old trees out. We don't review the timber they plan to take, just their erosion control practices. In Ohio, forestry is under agriculture not EPA, so they don't have to deal with NPDES.


----------



## hammerlogging (Jan 8, 2009)

If logging were in the picture, an appropriate prescription might include something like this: mark leave trees- next crop (age class 2, say 20 years from harvest) and whichever of the best "heritage trees" (3rd age class) for seed trees, sentimental value, whatever. Then, harvest for regen (1st age class). All unmarked trees to be cut, down to say 2", that includes merchantable and unmerchantable, harvested or not. This should knock back the maple pretty good and you've gotten the light in there you need for oak/poplar regen. You still have to deal with vigorous coppice growth from the maples, so 7-10 years down the road you may need to do some precommercial TSI- crop tree release- a phase often overlooked.

Since harvesting isn't in the picture, you just need to do the crop tree release when you have a massive blow down (we mimic this with "group selection" mini-clearcuts) so your desired species crown out, not your undesired species. Herbicide or chainsaw, your choice. Silviculture, science and art.... just my take on it.


----------



## RPM (Jan 9, 2009)

gavin said:


> hey RPM i have a quick question about selective logging. on the private lands here, there is a decent amount of single stem logging going on in the steep riparian areas. i've heard some people rave about how good it is for ecological reasons. aside from riparian and terrain stability, how "eco-friendly" is it? particularly around here in the doug-fir forests.
> 
> is there enough opening created for young douglas fir to thrive, or is it too shady? my uneducated guess would be that hemlock/balsam etc. might out compete the young fir in a shaded forest.
> 
> ...



Managed forest land (private) on Vancouver Island is largely owned by 2 companies -TimberWest and Cascade Forest Products (owned by Brascan - formerly Weyerhauser - formerly McMillian Blodel). These are the areas east of the E&N line from Sooke to Campbell River (approx. 2 million acres) which was granted to the E&N rail road company in the late 1800's. 

Both are publicly traded companies and therefore have shareholders who want to see a return on investment (ROI). Single stemming riparain areas from an economic point of view is called generating a bigger ROI. These companies are milking their holdings for the biggest bang for the buck and are not looking at long term forest management ie:......producing timber over over the long run. TimberWest for example generates a large amount of revenue from selling off prime forest producing land after it has been logged for real estate developments, rather than replanting. Private forests are managed to economic rotation age rather than a maximum rotation age where the stand has reached its maximum potential or culmination age. I am a forester, not an economist - but basically you are looking at weighing the return on capital for carrying the stand from year to year - vs - the cost of doing so...... 

Single stemming riparian areas probably isn't the most ecologically sound thing to do...especially on larger streams where other values such as fish (Salmon) are involved. Private forest land owners are governed in BC by minimal gov't regulation - most of which is around fish and water quality. The Private Forest Land Association (PFLA) has a set of Best Managenment Practices that land owners are suppose to abide by but there seems to be little enforcement behind it. The bigger companies don't mess about with water and fish because the Federal Fisheries Act is enforced. And your right about Doug-fir - it is shade intolerant and depending upon location and in the absence of any major stand disturbance (fire / wind) the stands will revert to hemlock / balsam stands (climax species). 

On crown lands (public forest), single stemming is not called high grading but rather "variable retention". It is an alternative to clear cutting but isn't like the selective cutting that slowp is involved with. These areas have a variety of opening sizes as well as large areas of standing residuals that have been "jigged". I haven't seen any of these variable retention areas post harvest so don't know what the residual stand looks like - but the intent is to have a variety of stand structure left (-vs- a clear cut) which would maintain some biological diversity on hillside. It is also intended to mimic natural disturbance patterns like fire and wind events. What it has done is allowed us to harvest certain areas that we probably wouldn't have been able to clear cut for 20-30 years out or forever in some cases. 

In the end many of these areas are planned for a single entry with no intent on going back again. Which tells you about the quality and value of the stand after they are finished. Stand value has to be high for heli logging, never mind single stemming. So, while it may be good for the animals, from a long term harvesting point of view it may be a little short sighted. I believe in logging the timber profile (some bad with the good) over the long term. What is hard about the statement now is that we are constrained by world markets and demand for wood is low so you do what you have to do to survive at some cost.

Don't get me wrong about making a living out of the forest...I'm a company guy and my job is to ensure that whatever I do benefits the company and its shareholders.....but I need to work for at least another 20 years too. We work the system to its limits because thats what you have to do to not loose it to some hippie group or other bleeding heart society....use it or loose it we say around here. Sometimes though when you sit down and try and look ahead 5 years out as to where you might go logging - its getting harder to put a solid plan together.

Its Friday right....


----------



## gavin (Jan 12, 2009)

thats a good and big answer, thanks a lot. i've been reading some books by Ken Drushka lately and they bring up some interesting perspectives, although he doesn't seem to think too highly of the MOF. Some of the heli logging has struck me as a quick way to make money, and leaving the lower grade stuff around it not worth persuing conventionally. But there will always be that trade off of economics and other interests. Thanks again for the answer.


----------

