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Yes, logging creates disturbance, and in disturbance dependent forest systems, a certain amount, and the right kind of disturbance can be beneficial. I can discuss this in a later post.

But, there is a big difference between disturbance and resource damage.  Lets talk a little bit about what that is, what it looks like, and what it could cost you in the long run.

When a logging operation isn’t guided by a plan,  or is not administered by a professional forester, or conducted by an untrained or an undisciplined logger, things can go bad.

A well planned logging operation is done with specific trees marked to be removed, and skid trails and logging roads are planned accordingly to prevent damage to the better trees that are selected to be left in the stand. A skidder with a reckless driver roaming the woods removing trees indiscriminately is a recipe for disaster.

Damage to trees comes from poor or absent directional felling, which breaks limbs out of trees or skins up the stem. It also comes from skidders themselves or the logs drug behind them rubbing up against the tree, removing bark which  increases the risk of disease and rot, but it also drastically devalues the bottom log of the tree. The bottom log (butt log) of the trees tents to be the most valuable log in the tree.

The pictures included here were taken from a property while I was doing inventory for a forest management plan recently. The damage recorded here of mainly white oaks has been done by some logging over the last few years.  In one place, I noticed 15 or more white oak trees damaged more or less,  within my field of view.  This is unacceptable to me, and does not need to be acceptable to you.

So, besides poorer tree performance and increased risk of tree mortality, what does this cost the landowner?

Lets take these white oak trees for example:

With current average market stumpage prices for white oak at:

$186 / thousand board feet for sawlogs

$996 / thousand board feet for stave logs

• As white oak trees grow to become stave bolt size and quality (first log being most valuable) then a clear bole with no defect is essential to command stave bolt price.
• If the log on its own accord doesn’t meet stave bolt quality (no defects) but can be sold for grade lumber and tie center it can be sold at the sawlog price.
• If the tree is damaged but has enough solid wood to produce a railroad tie in the center, then the log will only be docked a small but not insignificant percentage from sawlog price.
• If the damaged tree is devalued to the point it wont make a railroad tie, then the value is reduced by half or more of sawlog price.

The damage from a bad logging operation can cost the landowner significantly.  The value of the butt logs of quality white oak in the Ozarks could be devalued up to 80% in some cases.  Don’t let this happen to you. Protect your resource now and into the future by giving us the opportunity to help you when you make that decision to harvest timber.

The term “Select Cut” gets used and abused quite a bit.

In this video, I’m using the results of a current Timber Stand Improvement (TSI) project to explain the difference between selecting the right trees and the wrong trees during a timber harvest.

This management strategy applies in a typical even-aged stand in the southern Missouri Ozarks and the broader central hardwoods region.

Making sure you are selecting the proper trees during a timber harvest or timber thinning is critical to providing long term forest health for you and the wildlife that use it.

Reasons for Hack & Squirt

I use the hack and squirt method of woods thinning for specific reasons:

• When re-sprouting of the tree is not necessary or not desired
  • control sprouting of trees for longer periods of open understory
  • control undesirable species in the stand.
  • shifting species composition in the stand
• When the timber stand is at a stage where it is overstocked with smaller diameter stems and
  • Advance regeneration of desirable species is not needed for many years
  • felling the trees proves difficult because of high stocking rate.
• When renovating a glade or woodland and felling the small trees would add too much fuel to the ground increasing fire risk or damage to remaining standing trees.

Here is the Hack & Squirt method of thinning in action!

 

Open Woodlands and Glades

Recently, we spent time renovating a high quality Open Woodland and Glade habitat.  This particular site in Shannon County Missouri is unique because it is one of the most western locations of the rhyolite bedrock that extruded up through the earth to form the St Francois Mountains many years ago.

Igneous Glades

Rhyolite is an igneous form of granite that has an attractive purple tint in the eastern Ozarks. The rocks make for some very rugged terrain, making management activities a bit more of a challenge. Because the rock is so close to the surface on these sites, the soil is thin, and tree growth is fairly limited.

Trees take a long time to grow, and don’t grow very tall, but lots of native grasses, wildflowers, and legumes that were created to withstand these harsh environments thrive when given plenty of sunlight.

 

Prescribed Fire

Many of these sites which are valuable for wildlife are fewer and further between because of our need to control widespread wildfires that once shaped the vegetation of our landscape and kept open woodlands and glades fairly open.

Prescribed fire is a useful tool, but has become more and more of a challenge to use in today’s society, so other tactics that help reduce woody encroachment on these sites for just a little bit longer between wider fire intervals will help.

 

This is where Hack and Squirt comes in:

 

In this video, I explain some of our objectives for using the hack and squirt method of thinning, and in the next installment I will show the actual process in action. Stay tuned!

 

 

Turns out my picture is in the list of bing pictures when you do a search for ( Missouri timber stand improvement ). The picture is from my Missouri Department of Conservation days, and was used for the “Call before you cut” program, which connected landowners wishing to have a timber sale to a professional consulting forester.