Example of Forestry Work Done Right

[BigHornRam]

Well at least sort of.

I, for some reason am having a hard time getting people to understand what poor forestry work looks like, so I'll try a different approach.



This project is on the UM experimental forest called the Bandy Ranch. The land was gifted to the UM years ago. Other side of the fence is the Blackfoot Clearwater Wildlife Management area.



Several years ago this stand was in need of a commercial thinning. Thinning would have provided a modest amount of revenue to the University. Higher ups resisted doing the thinning and soon after the mountain pine beetles came along and made big mess of things. Sorry I didn't take pictures of the control area to post here. It was a mess.



Peter Kolb, MSU Extension Forestry, (pictured here conducting a tour while work was in progress this summer) proposed a project with a number of demonstration plots in an attempt to salvage what was left of this stand. University of Montana agreed to it as long it didn't cost them anything to do the work.



Extra care was taken not damage the patriarch of this stand.



This is what paid to get the work done. The big pile is beetle killed pine that went out for pulp. The other piles went to a mill for saw logs. There were several more stacks of logs like this through out the project area. Slash was raked and piled a few weeks later, to be burned in the future when conditions allow for it.

 

[BigHornRam]

Now, this project had a number of advantages going for it to make it successful.

1: Ground was very flat

2: Pulp buyer and mill were in a reasonable trucking distance of site.

3: Trees were of a decent size.

4: Serial litigants like Matt Koehler could not sue to stop work.

5: Peter Kolb devoted a lot of his personnel time to get this project to completion. Montana is damn lucky to have Peter working for us.

If you hire dedicated people that know what they are doing, good chance you will get good forestry work done on your public lands.

Changes are coming. Bank on it.

 

[Straight Arrow]

BHR, Thank-you for a positive, well-described logging project story.

 

[Northwoods Labs]

I guess forestry projects depend on location, your perspective, and goals, because this example of a "good" forestry project looks terrible compared to what a good forestry project would be in my area of the country. From a wildlife perspective the park like atmosphere created by this project would be devoid of game here and worthless for species like grouse, deer, rabbits, etc. Now I am not familiar with species out west. Would this be considered good habitat for western species? Or is this project labeled good only in a monetary sense?

 

[Straight Arrow]

Northwoods Labs, the photos depict a recently cut project. The undergrowth necessary for good habitat for the species you listed will grow back in a relatively short time ... plus more abundant grass for ungulates.

 

[Northwoods Labs]

I see. I was confused about the examples provided of good forestry and bad forestry projects. Where I am from a lot of scrap is left in the woods after a forestry project (in most cases). This provides decent cover for small game and is a good winter food source for deer

 

[shoots-straight]

Where's the Pulp mill location?

 

[sbhooper]

There are some good places where management is getting better. The time that I spent on the Mescalero Apache Reservation kind of impressed me. They had a very good harvest/management program going on and that was a number of years ago. I would like to go back and look at it now.

Too bad that more of this was not done 50 years ago.

 

[Sytes]

This related to the Lubrecht forest, like minded studies both under UM? I personally really value the thinning process. I hope this re-opens our industry to our own renewal commodity. Work within our own forests versus US and Canadian log, chip and shavings trucks picking up in Canada, transiting to US.

Side note and off topic though maybe one knows: I would imagine this freeze will be great to see if it hammered the beetle kill that is tearing through this experimental forest and elsewhere.

 

[BigHornRam]

Where's the Pulp mill location?

Bonner. Then the chips go to Washington by train.

http://www.kpax.com/story/30310827/...-awarded-for-contributions-to-lumber-industry

 

[BigHornRam]

I guess forestry projects depend on location, your perspective, and goals, because this example of a "good" forestry project looks terrible compared to what a good forestry project would be in my area of the country. From a wildlife perspective the park like atmosphere created by this project would be devoid of game here and worthless for species like grouse, deer, rabbits, etc. Now I am not familiar with species out west. Would this be considered good habitat for western species? Or is this project labeled good only in a monetary sense?

Western ponderosa pine forests were open and park like, and had frequent under burns which removed needles and small shade tolerant saplings before we started controlling fires.

 

[BigHornRam]

This related to the Lubrecht forest, like minded studies both under UM? I personally really value the thinning process. I hope this re-opens our industry to our own renewal commodity. Work within our own forests versus US and Canadian log, chip and shavings trucks picking up in Canada, transiting to US.

Side note and off topic though maybe one knows: I would imagine this freeze will be great to see if it hammered the beetle kill that is tearing through this experimental forest and elsewhere.

This link might answer your questions about the Bandy Ranch and Lubrecht Experimental Forest.

http://www.cfc.umt.edu/research/properties.php

Long periods of very cold temps have been thought to knock the pine beetle populations back. I'm hoping the mountain pine beetle outbreak has run it's course around here. Their running out of pine trees to kill. Pine beetles have predators, just like ungulates do. Big increase in pine beetle numbers brings a big increase in pine beetle predators, so that's helping as well.

 

[TheTone]

I think the "look" of this project ahs a lot to do with it being a school forest. The school forest near me has similar projects. The school forest near me has a different management philosophy, not being all about making money and a ton of available student labor. I've never seen another forest near me be it private, state or public go to the same levels in dealing with slash, cleaning up junk (bar oil jugs, hydraulic fluid, broken chains and cables), leaving snags, trying different stump heights, etc, oh and being run by someone with a PHD in forestry.

 

[BuzzH]

Western ponderosa pine forests were open and park like, and had frequent under burns which removed needles and small shade tolerant saplings before we started controlling fires.

I think if the goal is to replicate pre-settlement conditions of a P. Ponderosa stand there's probably at least 50% too many stems per acre...

 

[kenton]

looks great, I will add that it looks like the work was done while the ground was dry. I've seen some logging jobs turn out terrible because they rutted the whole place up. Sometimes you have to but its so much better when its dry.

 

[Nameless Range]

Long periods of very cold temps have been thought to knock the pine beetle populations back. I'm hoping the mountain pine beetle outbreak has run it's course around here. Their running out of pine trees to kill. Pine beetles have predators, just like ungulates do. Big increase in pine beetle numbers brings a big increase in pine beetle predators, so that's helping as well.

The Pine Beetle epidemic has been over for four or 5 years now. For a lot of reasons - one being most of the vulnerable trees are dead. This is a map using data from the USDA's National Disease and Insect Risk Map. It represents a percentage of Basal Area Loss( the area of a given section of land that is occupied by the cross-section of tree trunks and stems at the base). I live in the heart of it and my observational take away is that we've lost over a million acres of trees, largely ponderosa and lodgepole, and for a lot of reasons the big beetle kill is over. Sorry but this is a screenshot of a web map and not the best quality.




Lastly it's worth mentioning that this is just the damage caused by Mountain Pine Beetle, and only goes as late as 2012. There are many other infectious bugs that kill forests (Southern Beetle,Spruce Beetle, Spruce Engraver, etc)

If you are interested click on this link. Then, at the top of that page where it says "View In", click on the ArcGIS.com Map. It's an interactive map with lots of layers to turn off and on and will give you an idea of what the bark beetles have done. I would say that over half the infected lodgepole from the big die offs of 2006-2010 are on the ground, and greater than 75% of the infected Ponderosa from that time are now dead on the ground. Big changes in the woods along the continental divide since then.

A beetle-kill affected lodgepole stand today:



Ponderosa woods:

 

[2ski]

Its crazy to see pictures from way back when in the late 1800's and early 1900's of the Bob Marshall area. The poderosa forests were so open. None of this thick timber that you look for elk in now. There was tons of room between each tree.

 

[hank4elk]

I have a book,Fire in the Sierra Nevada Forests. Has the 1st pictures taken 1800's then same place in 2000.
You see just how choked the forest is from the same spot original was taken,or as close as they could with all the overgrowth.
Some of these pics are from 1st railroad const. pics & you can see very few stumps besides within a couple hundred yards of right of way.

 

[BigHornRam]

I think if the goal is to replicate pre-settlement conditions of a P. Ponderosa stand there's probably at least 50% too many stems per acre...

The goal was to go from this picture, to the pictures shown earlier while setting up a number of different plots, and doing it with the revenue provided by the logs removed from the site.

Do you have any positive comments about the work Buzz?

 

[BigHornRam]

Here is a good book about ponderosa pine forests that covers the history, how we got into the mess we are in, and some ideas of how to get out of it.

https://www.amazon.com/Ponderosa-Carl-Fiedler-Stephen-Arno/dp/0878426388






Here is one of the authors, Stephen, conducting a tour of his place in the Bitterroot last fall. Very smart guy.