Re: Woodlots

Posted by Billy NY on March 04, 2014 at 06:43:23 from (66.67.105.23):

In Reply to: Woodlots posted by sixtyninegmc on March 03, 2014 at 21:50:32:

I've lived long enough to see this place here, go from nothing but single row hedge/fence rows, clean fields, to forest, some of it young, but forest, there was at least 60 acres tillable here, some marginal with shale outcrops, but nice top soil in between and in most of the fields.

Wildlife is abundant, I've seen birds here that I never saw before. Deer and turkey thrive, I have a flock of 45 running the place, I've counted over 30 deer in the herd this winter. There are grouse or quail, can't recall which is which, but they have enough cover to make it, I always see them. Trees, there is a mature stand of 11 acres, old ones in hedge/fence rows, and what has grown in, provides in expensive heat, for the work of gathering it and processing it. So, the transition is something to appreciate for sure, but by the same token, I would like to see all those fields producing something, darned taxes drives that rationale, good quality hay would be a good crop, the fields always produced here, are well drained and with the soils that have built up, I am sure it would be great. To clear all that back, and clean the soil of roots, stumps and any large rock that may appear, would be an undertaking. A large dozer would knock it down quickly, but the clean up would be intense, hired out, sure they would fell, bunch - stack or grind, you still have stumps, roots, so a D8 size tractor with a Fleco type root rake would be the next step.

I've often thought of expanding in sections, where the vegetation is the thinnest, but leaving the rest for future consideration, there is a lot of birch and poplar, but I have some nice oak coming in and black cherry is abundant, so is apple, I have a 15 acre hill side loaded with black cherry and apple, haven for wildlife. That was an open field/pasture we used to keep it cut, I just cut a logging path through it, to clean out all the recent dead elm, 20" 30 + years, sad, real nice trees too, but I got them all out, maybe the others won't get D.E.D., I had hoped to leave them be.

What is amazing to me, is that this place was idle for a very long time and even around where the house and barns were, is wooded and not young trees. Areas that were clear, in use, I have photos that are incredible, late 60's everything was clear, now its like a jungle, canopy and all. So I've lived long enough to see it from open and clear to be able to harvest 30+ year old 20"-24" elm (D.E.D. caused) and other hardwoods such as hard maple from just the old barnyard, I've got a huge cluster of hard maple, several cord in there right now, whole thing blew over last September in a heavy storm.

I too am hesitant to clear cut now, because its got some resource and wildlife value, the latter of which fills my freezer. I don't believe that even with some clearing, the wildlife will be less, so somewhere there is a happy medium. Ideally if it was all in hay, I could pay the taxes off with it and pay for the expense of doing the hay, equipment acquisition would figure in one or 2 years depending on what was bought, would need a pole barn too, so the initial costs would be significant, the pay off with all the work, would take a few years, + weather + repairs, maintenance etc. I don't think the trees would be able to provide that income annually, even with all thats there, selling saw logs or firewood, including low price softwood, which actually does sell, still not enough and there is a finite amount, even with regrowth, its more of a limited resource as I use it to heat.

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