"Extreme Logging" and "Ax Men"

[Growler]

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]

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

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]

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]

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]

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.

good post slowp

 

[wilbilt]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

Gary

 

[Growler]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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)]

some good info in here fellers

 

[slowp]

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]

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.