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These past few weeks we have been starting to implement a forest management plan that I developed for a landowner last year. His goals were to improve the timber and improve deer and turkey habitat. WE CAN HELP!
He started off with a several hundred acre block of trees that were in varying degree of health and quality depending on topography and past land use. We took detailed inventory of the whole property and then broke up the land on paper planning to:
Increase Forest Health and productivity where good growth could be supported by identifying timber stands and performing a combination of TSI and Crop Tree Release on the stands to improve timber growth and wildlife habitat.
Increase Wildlife Habitat in areas where forest productivity is poor by managing them as Open Woodlands by thinning them to let light to the woodland floor, and then implementing Prescribed Fire to stimulate and increase green vegetation and tender woody sprouts.
Increase Habitat Edge by creating habitat transitions between certain management stands using Edge Feathering to increase habitat diversity.
Increase Wildlife Food Production and Water Availability with food plots and strategically placed water sources
Today, I want to focus on what TSI and Edge Feathering looks like on the ground.
I’ve heard the way to manage timber is to “cut the big old trees and leave the small young trees to grow into big old trees and then do it all over again in about 10 to 20 years or so”.
That method of tending the forest sounds intuitive enough and quite good and reasonable, but unfortunately in our oak and pine forest systems, its just not that simple, and quite frankly, slowly degrades forest production and quality.
In a generally even aged forest (for which most of the central hardwood forest is comprised) its important to understand first, how these 4 concepts below interact:
How trees grow
Shade tolerance
How trees interact with each other
Tree age
How trees grow – Trees are like factories, where production is dependent on how many workers (leaves) can gather sunlight, convert carbon, and store it in the warehouse (trunk or stem) as wood.
Shade tolerance – Not all trees respond to light and shade the same way throughout their lifespan.
How trees interact with each other – If a tree doesn’t have enough light it will either not grow at all and die, or it will grow slowly and with poor form.
Tree age – Certain species of trees will only live to a certain age range, and must interact with other trees to gain a competitive advantage to become a large productive tree.
If two or more trees start as seedlings with plenty of light, generally a few of those trees gain advantages by either genetic superiority or a localized patch of good soil to get started. Once those few trees gain the advantage, the advantage carries with them through most of their growth and life.
More sunlight means more workers (leaves) to invest in, and therefore bigger roots, more branches to support more leaves, more height, more sunlight to catch, and the process gains traction from there into a big dominant tree.
The trees that don’t gain the competitive advantage early, fall further and further behind and go into survival mode, which means they only invest in enough leaves and growth for the limited light it receives under the shadow of the bigger trees.
For these suppressed trees, this means less branches, smaller root systems, and ultimately a smaller stem. These trees do this and ride it out until they don’t get enough sunlight at all and die, or until they reach the end of their lifespan (maturity) and then die. Often times, these suppressed trees are mistaken for younger trees, and its assumed that if given room to grow, they will grow into a big old tree.
Lets look at a live example:
If a black oak tree can only live 90 – 100 or so years on a fair growing site, then both of these trees only have 10 to 20 years left to occupy the growing space.
There are many factors to discuss here, and many of them to long winded for a blog post, as if this post wasn’t already long winded enough. But a few take home points from all this information would be:
Don’t assume a small tree is a young tree, and it will grow big if you cut the big tree next to it. Often times, it wont!
Evaluate which trees to cut in a stand based on their ability to provide the most return and value for you and wildlife in that limited growing space for the long haul.
In an oak forest, don’t let suppressed trees get to old or die before they are cut. Oak trees can sprout from a cut stump using the existing root system and will contribute as a future tree in the forest. If a tree dies, the root system dies with it. Use that process to your advantage.
Use a trained forester with experience to help you manage your timber. It pays now and into the future!