Do you plant trees?

[Jstpssng]

Here is an excellent article about why we don't plant many trees after a timber harvest.

Oh, You’re a Forester…Do You Plant Trees?

While planting trees after logging is common practice in other parts of the country and the world, here in New England tree planting as a part of forestry is unusual. Instead of planting, we typically rely on natural regeneration of trees.

extension.unh.edu

 

[oosik]

I have never replanted when a pine goes down. Five years afterwards I will be aggressively thinning the stand where the pine fell. Thinning from "hair on the dog" to twenty foot spacing.

 

[kenmbz]

Good article, but invasives and introduced insects are throwing the forests out of balance.

I am planting some common area trees to replace all the dead ash from EAB. The new ash coming up will not survive and repopulate with EAB still in the area.

Wish I could save some Ash seed for 20 years down the road when maybe they will have a chance. But we won't be a predominately ash forest again, maybe ever.

 

[Jstpssng]

Good article, but invasives and introduced insects are throwing the forests out of balance.

I am planting some common area trees to replace all the dead ash from EAB. The new ash coming up will not survive and repopulate with EAB still in the area.

Wish I could save some Ash seed for 20 years down the road when maybe they will have a chance. But we won't be a predominately ash forest again, maybe ever.

I know what you mean. I was just reading an article about the southern pine beetle, which was just discovered in the southern tip of the state. The EAB is just starting to work it's way in here but eventually will do to ash what blight did to the Chestnut 100 years ago.

Invasives are something we'll have to learn to deal with. Sometimes it's a lost cause, like when honeysuckle gets established near a stream. Once they start dropping berries into flowing water it's almost impossible to get rid of it.

 

[Oaktree]

I have never replanted when a pine goes down. Five years afterwards I will be aggressively thinning the stand where the pine fell. Thinning from "hair on the dog" to twenty foot spacing.

Pines (and other evergreens) around here don't come back from a stump like most hardwoods do. Still, they do re-establish rather quickly.

I know what you mean. I was just reading an article about the southern pine beetle, which was just discovered in the southern tip of the state. The EAB is just starting to work it's way in here but eventually will do to ash what blight did to the Chestnut 100 years ago.

Invasives are something we'll have to learn to deal with. Sometimes it's a lost cause, like when honeysuckle gets established near a stream. Once they start dropping berries into flowing water it's almost impossible to get rid of it.

Yeah, ask any southerner about kudzu. Yet home & garden shows/magazines still promote non-native shrubbery.

Elms are another tree that mostly got wiped out in the early 20th century. I have a few on my property, they get to a certain size, and go from apparently healthy to dead in a matter of months.

 

[Jstpssng]

Elms are another tree that mostly got wiped out in the early 20th century. I have a few on my property, they get to a certain size, and go from apparently healthy to dead in a matter of months.

I have a few also, but they never get to log size. I would like to saw one, just to see what it's like.

 

[TractorTYMe]

We've had some many old growth trees come down on our houses and vehicles the last 2+ years due to high winds, we will not plant ANY tree within 120 feet of a structure.

 

[newbury]

I started planting trees for pay about 1965 in Essex Jct., Vt. A bunch of us high schoolers would get dropped off by our parents at a local tree farm and put bare rooted Christmas tree seedlings in dirt. Pay was minimal, maybe $1/hr. My back would not let me do it today and just THINKING about it hurts.
About 1978 I bought 75 acres in Vermont and planted about 2 acres of seedlings. Now I tend to just let the trees grow.
We have about 400 acres of forest in Mississippi. Most obtained after about 10 years of growth after clearing-cutting and obtained about 10 years ago. It's a lot easier to just let it regenerate naturally.

 

[Bill Guenthner]

Here is an excellent article about why we don't plant many trees after a timber harvest.

Oh, You’re a Forester…Do You Plant Trees?

While planting trees after logging is common practice in other parts of the country and the world, here in New England tree planting as a part of forestry is unusual. Instead of planting, we typically rely on natural regeneration of trees.

extension.unh.edu

Natural regeneration works if they leave some mature trees, and ideally enough mature trees to support a sustainable squirrel population. Unfortunately what I see is people cutting everything the mill will buy.

 

[Jstpssng]

Natural regeneration works if they leave some mature trees, and ideally enough mature trees to support a sustainable squirrel population. Unfortunately what I see is people cutting everything the mill will buy.

That's a landowner's choice... often because they waited too long before cutting anything. Trees need light to grow. Most forestland here has been cut before at some point; supposedly 100 years ago 90% of the state was cleared.

 

[Bill Guenthner]

Good article, but invasives and introduced insects are throwing the forests out of balance.

I am planting some common area trees to replace all the dead ash from EAB. The new ash coming up will not survive and repopulate with EAB still in the area.

Wish I could save some Ash seed for 20 years down the road when maybe they will have a chance. But we won't be a predominately ash forest again, maybe ever.

Ash trees are pretty much wiped out in KY. I have dozens of dead ash trees. Now the White Oaks are under threat from a fungal disease. I have an enourmous old white oak that isn’t leafing out this year. There may come a day when hardwood trees are rare.

 

[Bill Guenthner]

That's a landowner's choice...

It shouldn’t be, anymore than it would be a landowner’s choice to cull deer out of season or take more than the bag limit. Just because trees can’t move between properties doesn’t make them any less of a natural resource.

 

[ericm979]

If you clear cut a big area, natural regeneration may not get you the forest you want. In a lot of areas out west you will get brush first. Left alone for a century or two, natural succession will turn it into forest but most people can't wait that long.

The front part of my property was pasture in the 1940 air photos we have found. You can tell they stopped grazing it in the '50s or so because the brush starts moving in. It's super thick brush now, except the parts I have cleared, with forest invading around the edges.

 

[Jstpssng]

If you clear cut a big area, natural regeneration may not get you the forest you want. In a lot of areas out west you will get brush first. Left alone for a century or two, natural succession will turn it into forest but most people can't wait that long.

The front part of my property was pasture in the 1940 air photos we have found. You can tell they stopped grazing it in the '50s or so because the brush starts moving in. It's super thick brush now, except the parts I have cleared, with forest invading around the edges.

That's why the purpose of the article in my link was to explain why we don't plant many trees in this part of the country... too many people think that because it's done out there, that's the way that it should be everywhere.
We have laws restricting true clearcuts anyways... we have to file anything over 5 acres with the state. Anything over 20 acres needs a written plan. After 5 years they need to have adequate regeneration.

 

[m7040]

We planted about 5000 trees mostly oaks, walnuts and locust funded by a state program to easy water run off and clean up the streams.

 

[Thomas]

Oaks and maples grown very but apple trees whole another story here.

 

[MossRoad]

It shouldn’t be, anymore than it would be a landowner’s choice to cull deer out of season or take more than the bag limit. Just because trees can’t move between properties doesn’t make them any less of a natural resource.

Deer are owned by the state. Trees are owned by the property owner. If you're suggesting that trees on private property should be owned by the state, yikes! You're gonna get roasted.

 

[Bill Guenthner]

Deer are owned by the state. Trees are owned by the property owner. If you're suggesting that trees on private property should be owned by the state, yikes! You're gonna get roasted.

I’m saying that logging on private land should be regulated to keep it sustainable. Trees are a crop. Lots of crops have their production limited. I was talking to a logger who bemoaned the fact that his children probably won’t be able to make a living as loggers in this county. This same logger removes every tree that’s big enough to get a board out of and the trees he doesn’t cut he damages to the point that they die in a few years.

 

[Mtsoxfan]

my property, my trees. I just cut (guessing) 700 maple saplings. Nature will do its own thing...

 

[71bronco]

Yeah the state does a great job of regulating everything. Just like out west where you're not allowed to even cut up dead stuff and they have wildfires, burning thousands of acres. I'll take care of own thanks.

Jeff