150 Acres need clear, need qualified consultant/contractor make woods healthy again

[1greenmachine1]

I recently purchased 150 acres of wooded land that has been damaged by an ice storm and also has not been maintained in 10 years. Part of the land has been stripped mined for coal about 40 years ago and the coal company never reclaimed the land. The stripped mined land is over grown with less desirable vegetation, since it does not appear that any trees where planted after the company moved out.

My question is, does anyone know of a reputable person/contractor in the midwest (IN/KY/TN) area that would do an excellent job with consulting and then clearing the woods without damaging the desirable trees. I would like the woods to be thinned out enough that a person could actually walk through them, and allow more room for the desirable trees to grow and fill out. I would like the land to be a healthy forest and not a Park.

I'm also concerned that I may damage the habitat for wildlife, and do not want to disturb there habitat enough, that may encourage them to find a new woods.

I love nature, but find myself unqualified to manage a mulching contractor. I'm afraid that I may hire a company that would destroy my woods. I do not want have this happen and take the rest of my life to repair the damage. repair.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[texasjohn]

Wow...big task.... I don't know about your area, but if that were here, I'd recommend having the soil conservation people come take a look and make recommendations. Their advice is free and comes with the weight of much experience and seeing what is accomplished by various practices in your area.

The task will begin with defining, carefully, by what you want regarding wildlife habitat and the aesthetics you are seeking. Given a chance and time, nature is very forgiving...a little help from you should set things aright.

 

[smstonypoint]

In addition to your local USDA NRCS office, you could call the state forest ranger.

 

[Reg]

There is a little bit of a collision between your goals.
Cleaning out "Woods" enough for walking through DOES mean stripping out some of the low cover that some of that wildlife has moved into.
It depends who/what/which wildlife you consider "desirable" to stay and which you want to 'git gone', but just about anything you do will disturb some of them.
OTOH, different species may move in - gee, the new tenants may be better or worse than the old ones (-:

 

[dave1949]

I agree with the others, it would help to get more advice/input before doing anything. And, whatever you do, it will disturb the existing habitat.

150 acres is a good sized area. Plus you said part was unreclaimed strip mine land. It might help to break the lot down into a couple different zones and have varying goals for them based on their present condition. Some areas may be showing excellent tree growth for example that you wish to manage for timber.

Look for areas of healthy trees of the species you might want to favor based upon your goals considering timber value, wildlife food (acorns, beechnuts) or winter shelter trees like spruce. It's more productive and better to work with the natural tendencies of the soil types and moisture levels in a given area within your lot once you identify them.

If you have any creeks or drainages, those need special care. If there is no water supply nearby, you might want to create one.

The current wisdom is to make small clearcuts or openings of 1/2 to several acres in size. Allow those areas to provide early successional habitat like deciduous browse, shrubs, brambles and ground cover. You could select your opening locations based upon what habitats you want to encourage. The surrounding trees continue to mature and provide edge habitat. Eventually, you will have created several openings of different ages.

If you are having trouble walking through it, I would guess you are probably already hosting lots of wildlife. If you bush hog some walking trails through the property; deer, fox, coyote and ATV's will naturally use them. What could be missing more than anything are the old snag/standing dead trees that attract birds and critters that use the hollow cavities or woodpecker holes.

It's a great project and I hope you have fun with it.
Dave.

 

[1greenmachine1]

At this time the property is difficult to walk because of briar batches and undesirable growth. The property does provide home to lots of wildlife including Deer, Turkey and snakes. The property has 6 lakes and is surrounded 75% by water. It truly is a hunters paradise, so I'm also working to secure the property from trespassers, by installing gates, fencing and game cameras. Trespassers have been a problem and I hope be can get this under control, if not I look into digging a ditch and a berm in selective areas.

My goal is to live on the property and to use the property to enjoy wildlife, so I would like to walk the property safely. Dave had mentioned, "breaking the lot down into a couple different zones and have varying goals for them based on their present condition." I think this is the direction that I would like to move towards. If needed I plan on planting some food plots, trees and shrubs for animal shelter. A few friends and relatives are hunters, so it would be nice to manage Trophy Deer, Wild Turkey, Quail, Dove, Ducks and other wildlife that may be desirable.

We are in the process of opening up all previous horse/ATV trails and may create a few new ones. I'm ready to go, but do not want certain I take the steps in the right directions and not do something I regret. I'm tempted to call a timber mulching contractor to get started, but really need to put much more thought into this project.

I've been surfing the web and have found a few companies that offer consulting in wildlife/timber management.

The Management Advantage Wildlife and Land Management Consulting Services
Ohio Foresters - Selling Timber, Forest Management
Custom Land Management

Thanks for all the great advice, I will begin making contact with the following state offices.

soil conservation people
local USDA NRCS office
state forest ranger.
local cooperative extension (ask them if state has a Master Forest Owners program)
USDA NRCS staff will prepare a farm plan for you and advise whether you would be eligible to apply for WHIP cost sharing.


Please let me know if there are any other contractors, consultants or state employees that may be able to offer advise.

 

[cbturf]

This is what I do! My company is Environmental Land Clearing. I will PM my contact info.

 

[HCJ]

You must also define "healthy". The "briars and undesirable growth" may be unpleasant for you and impede your walking through the property, but that is exactly the type of habitat that many species thrive in, especially deer and rabbits and many birds. A mulching contractor who would go in and open this up for your pleasure and ease of walking will destroy it in terms of providing sanctuary and browse that many animals need. Here in the South, clear cutting of timber is very prevalent. Most uninformed people decry this as ruining the mature "virgin" forests that are so beautiful to us. But clear cutting, resulting in inpenetrable briar patches, dense regrowth of browse, and piles of debris from timbering creates deer heaven. They thrive in this, hence the explosion of the deer population in the Southeast. Conversely, the forests in parks here that are protected, where most hiking trails exist and that have beautiful stands of mature timber, are devoid of most species. Forest fires and avalanches do the same thing out west, and the windstorm damage you describe creates blowdowns for bedding and lets sunlight in for new low growth and browse.

So be careful in changing things for your ease of use, because it may have just the opposite effect for the wildlife you desire. By all means create trails and pathways, plant some foodplots for deer and turkeys, and plant the edges with plants that quail desire. But leave the briarpatches and thickets alone.

Our property was clearcut 15 years ago. Visually it was a real mess. But amazingly in the years after the cutting, the deer population boomed. Now that the forest is healing and the canopy is beginning to shade out the undergrowth, you can now walk through it without bleeding to death from the briars, and the visibility is increasing. But the deer are now much fewer, but the turkeys seem to like it better. So beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so try to look at your property fron the perspective of the species that you are trying to enhance. The property you describe seems better for wildlife than you may believe.

 

[smstonypoint]

I'm not sure about the current funding status of WHIP (Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program), but you may be able to obtain some cost-share funding through the USDA. The USDA NRCS staff will prepare a farm plan for you and advise whether you would be eligible to apply for WHIP cost sharing.

Steve

 

[ToadHill]

Check with your local cooperative extension and ask if your state has a Master Forest Owners program or something like it.

If they do a volunteer MFO will come out and go over your goals with you and walk to land with you even if it is hard to get through. These volunteers know what assistance you will have available in your state as well as the foresters qualified to handle the tasks you want done.

If the land has been dorment for 40 years like you said it may have some timber that is of value even while clearing out the ice related damage, and improving wildlife habitat.

I've been a MFO for a number of years and have had a number of calls from people with concerns such as yours (not including the strip mine) but with damage from ice storms and from poor foresters who high graded the woods. I've been able to put them in contact with the right people to solve their problems in almost every case.

Good luck.