Agenda - 05-26-2015 - C-1 - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

52 cannot support ice damage or very high winds well. The loblolly pine and shortleaf pine are of good to excellent duality and would bring ul revenues, if harvested, that would assist in paying for reforestation as well as additional improvements across the property. Below are 3 options for management. These options coincide with your objectives to provide the students with a safe learning enviromnent and educational opportunities while also erfliancing wildlife habitat, forest health, and biodiversity. Option #1 —Cleat-cut harvest(including removal of potential hazard trees),prepare the site.for planting and subsequent planting of either shortlenf pine or loblolly pine seedlings. I recommend that you hire a consulting forester(see information below in plan on consultants) and elearcut harvest this area, which would include harvesting all merchantable and unmerchantable trees. Harvesting should occur when the soil is dry to prevent soil compaction and rutting. I have also included an abundance of information in the plan below about harvesting timber. Once the trees have been harvested, ideally some type of site preparation should occur. Being that this is a small area, a back pack spray application of herbicides to kill any reproduction would aid in future tree planting. However, I understand that you are not interested in applying chemicals to your property, so a site preparation burn may be a more feasible practice. A site preparation burn would help to clean up the site, consume any Virginia pine seed that is on the ground, and also recycle nutrients back into the soil. If either of these 2 practices are not possible,then you will have to plant the pine seedlings without site preparation. However, if this occurs, it will take a lot of timber stand improvement to make sure survival of the seedlings is achieved (i.e. cutting undesirable competition with brushsaws, etc.). Site preparation (chemical application and burning) should occur during the summer months. Once the site has been prepared, I reeonunend that you plant either loblolly pine seedlings or shortleaf pine seedlings across the entire area. The trees should be planted on a 10 X 10 foot spacing, yielding 436 pine trees per acre. I would recommend hiring a tree planting crew to complete this work; however, if you want to make this an educational opportunity,you could have students and/or faculty plant the trees under the supervision of a professional. Tree planting typically cost around $80 per acre to plant loblolly pine seedlings and around$100 per acre to plant shortleaf pine seedlings (trees and labor). The seedlings should be planted during the winter months (December through March) of the year following harvest. 4