Starting my journey...Locust Hill Farms in the Piedmont of Northern VA

[John Paul]

Curious as to what your logger's market for poplar is?

G

Smaller stuff is just pulp. Not a lot of money in it for us but again something is better than nothing.

 

[bearcat]

I feel your pain on those cedars. I have never seen that machine. Down here we are usually g a CTL with a tree shear with grapple arms that looks pretty similar.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[John Paul]

I started at another part of the farm today. Trying to put in an oak savanna in this patch of woods. Cut for an hour and 95% of everything I cut was cedars and dead ash trees. Once we get a couple acres finished I think we are going to put a fire break around the cut area and burn it this Spring.

 

[George]

Looks like a beautiful oak savanna in the making. Don't let fire get hot around white oaks they aren't as fire sturdy as other oaks.

G

 

[Mennoniteman]

I started at another part of the farm today. Trying to put in an oak savanna in this patch of woods. Cut for an hour and 95% of everything I cut was cedars and dead ash trees. Once we get a couple acres finished I think we are going to put a fire break around the cut area and burn it this Spring.

So much right going on here!

 

[John Paul]

So much right going on here!

Maybe I’ll get done with it all in the next 20-30 years!

 

[John Paul]

Looks like a beautiful oak savanna in the making. Don't let fire get hot around white oaks they aren't as fire sturdy as other oaks.

G

Good to know. Small enough area it should be easy enough to make sure there isn’t too much stuff piled around the trees we are going to leave!

 

[Mennoniteman]

I started at another part of the farm today. Trying to put in an oak savanna in this patch of woods. Cut for an hour and 95% of everything I cut was cedars and dead ash trees. Once we get a couple acres finished I think we are going to put a fire break around the cut area and burn it this Spring.

It looks like a heavy layer of leaf litter in this oak savannah area. If you want volunteer forbs growing for deer food it would be good to do some scarification in this area with a piece of machinery. Basically any type of machinery like a skidloader or FIL pushing brush on piles would rip up the leaves enough to give grasses and forbs a head start.

 

[Gator]

I started at another part of the farm today. Trying to put in an oak savanna in this patch of woods. Cut for an hour and 95% of everything I cut was cedars and dead ash trees. Once we get a couple acres finished I think we are going to put a fire break around the cut area and burn it this Spring.

I want to help burn. Give me a holler when this is happening if you could use some unskilled labor.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[John Paul]

I want to help burn. Give me a holler when this is happening if you could use some unskilled labor.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Definitely!

 

[John Paul]

It looks like a heavy layer of leaf litter in this oak savannah area. If you want volunteer forbs growing for deer food it would be good to do some scarification in this area with a piece of machinery. Basically any type of machinery like a skidloader or FIL pushing brush on piles would rip up the leaves enough to give grasses and forbs a head start.

So you’re saying that just burning the leaf litter off won’t stimulate the forb growth? New to this so just asking questions.

 

[Mennoniteman]

So you’re saying that just burning the leaf litter off won’t stimulate the forb growth? New to this so just asking questions.

No, burning is just as good as scarifcation, but brings different results, fairly identical to tillage vs no-till in fields, and I like to do a little of both. Scarification brings fast regrowth of forbs by quickly releasing nutrients, while burning promotes slower regrowth of trees with more longterm potential by preserving the topmost layer of topsoil. Since you need some fields lanes anyway, there's your opportunity to provide a mix.

 

[Mennoniteman]

Here's an interesting read

• https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs_exp_forests/manitou/rmrs_2008_jimenez_a001.pdf

 

[George]

That publication is Rocky Mountains soils.

oak savannas are created and maintained by fire.

John Paul's potential oak savanna pictured above will be a very easy burn. A flat site that should give him a steady backburn. His burn will be patchy because cedar leaf liter doesn't burn worth a darn and the oak leaf liter doesn't look to be heavy enough to carry a good burn. Subsequent burns as grass starts to come up will help carry a burn. My one concern is the seeds that have been dropped under those cedars, he could end up with 10,000 autumn olive seedlings. Which subsequent fire would be needed at a more frequent interval to control. One burn could turn that spot into a food plot almost immediately.

G

 

[John Paul]

That publication is Rocky Mountains soils.

oak savannas are created and maintained by fire.

John Paul's potential oak savanna pictured above will be a very easy burn. A flat site that should give him a steady backburn. His burn will be patchy because cedar leaf liter doesn't burn worth a darn and the oak leaf liter doesn't look to be heavy enough to carry a good burn. Subsequent burns as grass starts to come up will help carry a burn. My one concern is the seeds that have been dropped under those cedars, he could end up with 10,000 autumn olive seedlings. Which subsequent fire would be needed at a more frequent interval to control. One burn could turn that spot into a food plot almost immediately.

G

No, burning is just as good as scarifcation, but brings different results, fairly identical to tillage vs no-till in fields, and I like to do a little of both. Scarification brings fast regrowth of forbs by quickly releasing nutrients, while burning promotes slower regrowth of trees with more longterm potential by preserving the topmost layer of topsoil. Since you need some fields lanes anyway, there's your opportunity to provide a mix.

We will get some disturbance once I bring a skid steer in to clean up around the trees we are leaving. Like stated above I’d hate to leave too much debris around a healthy oak tree then I kill it because I let it get too hot from too much fuel load underneath it.

 

[gut_pile]

How big of an area is this savannah?

 

[John Paul]

How big of an area is this savannah?

If I can get some real equipment in there it would total 10-15 acres. I’m just trying to get a couple acres done by hand and get burned off this Spring since I don’t know if we can get to the rest of it till late summer with some equipment.

 

[John Paul]

They started logging a 20 acre poplar forest today. Half of this will go back to row crop the other half will be a bedding thicket.

 

[Gator]

They started logging a 20 acre poplar forest today. Half of this will go back to row crop the other half will be a bedding thicket.

How are they getting stumps up?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[John Paul]

How are they getting stumps up?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That’s our job. Lots of excavator work!