Forest Thinning for Wildlife: Balancing Timber & Long Term Habitat Goals

In habitat management we talk a lot about the benefit of forest thinning on forage and cover production, but how do you accomplish this while not hindering future timber value? The short answer, is that context is important and there are always tradeoffs to consider. On this episode we're joined by Jonathon Stoll, our professional forester, to discuss the pitfalls of aggressive thinning and what you should consider when deciding between a moderate and aggressive first or second thin in loblolly pine.

Transcript

Moriah Boggess 0:01

Welcome to Wildlife Investments, where we discuss wildlife research, habitat, hunting, and land management with our panel of leading resource managers. Wildlife Investments, resource management by scientists. Alright, we are back and we are talking trees today. Got Bronson with me. I'm Moriah. And then we've got Jonathan Stoll, our forester, and we are going to talk really lobbolipine management. But I guess Jonathan, you might want to delve into other markets. So, guys, thanks for for getting on today.

Dr. Bronson Strickland 0:40

Happy to be here. And this is a, in my opinion, a critical topic. A lot has changed in the last 10 years, especially in the last 20 years, and the the markets and the way people even value timber and the money they're they're getting from it and habitat management options, etc. So we just kind of have a whole new way of looking at how do we manage this timber resource. And so I'm glad Jonathan is here to help us navigate that. And Jonathan, you could even start by telling us what good is a tree anyway.

Jonathan Stoll 1:18

Well, not as not as valuable as it used to be, unfortunately. But but yeah, glad to be here. And yeah, it's probably not news to many folks listening, but the the timber market has been you know slowly receding for years, the last few not being good. So pulpwood's been extremely hard to move, small diameter timber, pine as well as hardwood, both both of those. And so we end up with a lot of a lot of acres on the landscape that are closed canopy, that guys are really wishing they could get some light through that you know almost impenetrable overstory down to the ground to grow uh we want to grow groceries for for deer and turkey. So so yeah, we'll we'll talk about that and how to how to approach that and some different things people are doing in pine as well as hardwoods. That's uh really a similar problem. It's not talked about as much, and I think some of the tools people use, like hack and squirt or hinge cutting, are maybe over over-glorified in some time in some places and and oversimplified in others. Yeah.

Dr. Bronson Strickland 2:29

Jonathan, would would you mind starting with just to clarify to everyone? And you know, we're located, you and I are are in Mississippi, so the reasons could vary a little bit whether you're in East Texas or Virginia. Big picture though, what is what is the reason? What has changed so much in the last two decades with with the the timber industry?

Jonathan Stoll 2:55

It's a lot of things, and and I'll start bottom to top, I guess, with the advent of email, I guess, everything going electronic, we're we're not making as much paper. So that's that industry's been slowly tailing off. Brown paper kind of keeps it hanging on. Amazon's not going anywhere, so we we do a lot more packaging, a lot less white paper. But even that, it's it's cheaper for industry to build a new paper mill in Brazil or somewhere. Some of that's EPA regulations. There's there's a lot of reasons for that. So the paper industry has driven the pulp. And and so that's kind of slowly receded. And while the demand for that's going down, the the cost to produce it goes up. And so that just squeezes out whatever surplus is left on the stump. It takes more to more to cut it, get it on truck, costs more to haul it to the mill, and there's just not much left to the landowner. And then as far as saw timber markets, that's that's very international. So the North American trade agreement has a lot to do with that. The the wood we get from Canada, housing starts, if if people are starting a lot of houses, then you can expect dimensional lumber to go up, and then a few months later uh we would always see round wood come up. Since COVID, that really hasn't been the case. We had such a slump during COVID that you end up with a lot of surplus on the stump. So that even when timber prices, I'm sorry, lumber prices really skyrocketed, we saw sort of an unhitching of lumber and timber because no matter how much lumber we're cutting, there's still a surplus out there on the stump. And so that that supply and demand on the front side of the mill is different than the back side. And until we chew through a lot of surplus, it's probably going to stay that way.

Moriah Boggess 4:54

So I'm aware of some like hardwood pulp mills closing up recently, and of course, that's kind of been I I know the softwood market down in the south has been tough from the pulp side of things, especially in there in northeast Mississippi. Is there any major differences in the types of products that you can develop from hardwood pulp versus softwood pulp, and then how is that affecting markets as well? It just at a high level.

Jonathan Stoll 5:23

Sure, and I guess I should define terms. So pulp wood is either wood that's too small to cut a board out of or too defective. So it can be a larger diameter, but if it's crooked sweep, whatever, that's pulp wood, that's round wood going into a mill. Pulp itself is its own product. So there's pulp in running shoes, baby diapers, a thousand other things we use every day. So pulp is its own product. It's it's refined, but not it's not anything, it's a raw material. And then the paper mill we we mentioned earlier, those do have different mixes. So depending on what you're producing, if it's white paper, you're gonna have a much higher percentage of hardwood. So we talked about that earlier. That's one reason the hardwood pulp market is really sliding away. Brown paper relies more on pine, and that has to do with the length of the fiber and how easy it is to stain or or bleach out and those types of things.

Moriah Boggess 6:27

I see. Okay. So that that does make sense with some of the broader trends that we see.

Dr. Bronson Strickland 6:34

So I guess we we are here. Our our job for the next few minutes is to to advise people. We've had this change in in markets or the system is a little bit different, and we can't possibly tackle every single, you know, scenario. But I guess what we were wanting from you, Jonathan, is in the last several years, what might be some mistakes that you have seen? You know, it was done, it's too late, can't correct it now. But if we were advising people going forward, things they should consider given the markets, given the situation, what are things that you were seeing that you don't say it to the landowner, but maybe to yourself, you go, wish we had talked about this ahead of time, because I'd advise you a different direction.

Jonathan Stoll 7:26

Even stepping back a little bit from there is is we see a lot of we we have a lot of clients ourselves that are in a situation where I wish I could have got this timber thinned three, four, five, six years ago, eight years ago, even, and your your timber that you want to thin at 16 is now in the you know well into its 20s. So there's a there's an element of desperation almost where I'd really like to utilize these acres for something besides growing more tonnage of worthless pulpwood. And I I 100% get that. I I'm asked that question weekly, if not daily. You know, I come come thin my timber. And and what I don't want folks to do is feel that pressure and finally get somebody there and just let them have at it without some sort of end goal in mind. And the situation we've seen a couple times and and really try to steer people away from is where I I go in and thin, and maybe I've you know listened to some podcasts or done a little bit of research on basil area, and so I have a a number in mind there, and then my the other thing in my mind is while he's here, cut everything you can. And so two two cautions with that. If if you've got somebody there, there's a really good chance he's there for a certain amount of volume. He he maybe was across the road and you snagged him, or he finally got to you, or whatever, he may be there for a certain tonnage. And so he he may not tell you that, but if he can thin 20 acres all the way down to 30 basil area before the mill says, no, I can't take your product anymore, then you got a really good treatment on 20 acres. Maybe you wanted that quail, pine prairie, savannah kind of look. You could take that same tonnage off of 40 acres and maybe thinned it only down to 60 basil area. And but now you've got now you have twice the acreage that's open and available. And so that's one one thing I want people to understand is that that guy's not gonna be there as long as you want him almost never. He's getting called every day, come thin my timber, come thin my timber, and then he's getting pressure from the mill for you know, this week he worked four days, the mill filled up, next week he works three days, the next week he works two days, and then he just can't make a living, he's got to go find something else to do. So that's that's one thing I want folks to keep in mind. The other thing we can get into is what density am I thinning down to? And if you understand, we talk about basilary a lot. If you bring it down as as far as you can on that first thinning, you're gonna risk a lot of doodling over. Those trees are really used to leaning on each other in the wind. And so it's it's gonna be ugly if if you pull it down that hard the first time. And my my recommendation, not not as a timber beast, I'm not trying to grow production timber, but but where we sit managing for wildlife, I still like a lighter thin, leaving more trees that first time, especially if that stand is up into its low 20s in in age. You're gonna have a lot of suppressed trees, they're they're gonna want to noodle over, they're they're gonna have some issues with all of a sudden having all this growing space. And two other things I want to think about is what does that give us from a fire standpoint coming in next? So we can we can cut cut down to a super low basal area, and then we almost have no needle cast to help us maintain that opening with fire. And so you're you're kind of by leaving a few more stems, you're buying yourself some insurance there to get a couple of good fires established before before you can get that good plant community that's that's gonna be good fuel to sustain that opening with fire. So those are some considerations just from a habitat management standpoint. From a timber standpoint, anytime I thin timber, the first question I should ask myself is am I going to thin this again or not? And if if it's the first time you're thinning it, the only reason I would not thin that again is because I'm planning on clear-cutting it in 10 years or so. If you're not willing to do that, if you if you want to maintain timber on that acreage, then you can get yourself in a bad place by thinning too heavy. Eventually that site's going to recapture with trees, but you don't have enough timber out there to thin again. Your options are either clear-cut or sit at this awkward, you know, 70 square feet of basal area that's starting to starting to impede on the amount of light I want on the ground, but I can't get anybody out there again because it's not enough volume to move somebody. So beginning with an end in mind and getting the right forester involved where he understands what you want from that stand, a timber and and coach and a logger on how to get there.

Moriah Boggess 12:49

So I obviously we have old fields and you see very very low density pine stands that burn just fine. But a good point to make with that is that like what you're saying, that first thinning not being as intense, carrying needles through until that maybe second thinning when you bring it way down allows fire to be carried through with those pine needles, which helps develop a plant community that will carry fire. And the more you burn an understory, the more likely it is to burn winter fire creating more grass that will carry a fire and that sort of thing. So, like not to confuse people that obviously you don't have to have a pine tree to carry a fire, but there's a lot of times when you have nothing on the understory and you get rid of the ponds suddenly you're you're really dependent on whatever that first flush is that comes in. And if it's all burnweed or dog fennel or you know, something like that, it's not going to carry a fire.

Jonathan Stoll 13:44

Yeah, and we even see in some of those managed openings, it it can it can bust out and be great, be something we can burn the first year. And and some openings for whatever reason, soil, plant interaction, the history of that previous stand, it's very difficult to get a good fire regime established on something that's wide open. So almost anything will burn, you know, on that 18% 20 mile an hour day. Maybe you shouldn't be burning, but you have so many more days available with some good fuel on the ground. Now, now instead of those two or three perfect days, I've got 10, 12, 15 different days in this from February to March that I can get a very good fire.

How Hard Should You Thin the First Time?

Moriah Boggess 14:28

So, Jonathan, help us out here with some rules of thumb. Because I think folks who listen to us, people like Bronson and I hear us always talking about thinning way down, right? And we're guilty of do you know saying that, like thin it way down, that's usually the problem. Like we we often talk in broad strokes, those don't apply in every context. But we're always talking about thinning way down, and then now they hear you saying, hey, don't thin as way down for all these reasons coming out of the gate. And maybe maybe we're guilty of causing this, but I think sometimes landowners, you know, they they might be in that situation where they're having a logger come in the first time, and they're a little suspicious that they're not gonna get it thinned down as much as they want, and then they hear Bronson and Moriah in their ear and they're like, oh, I'm just gonna thin it way down. What does Jonathan say is a good rule of thumb where, hey, I understand that timber's not my highest priority, but I don't want all these issues with wind throw. I don't want short, stubby trees. I want to be able to carry a fire, but I want to try to lengthen out the positive effect of that thinning as long as possible and and still carry a product where hopefully down the line I can get a logger in there to sell and maybe clear cut or or thin once more, something like that. I'll have a product, but I'm sort of I'm sort of playing both sides. What would you say to that person?

Trading Future Timber Value to Keep Loggers Coming Back

Jonathan Stoll 15:50

Sure. Unfortunately, like a lot of things, it depends. You're what I what I want people to think about again is what is not just not just my three-year plan or my five-year plan, but over if I'm say 55 years old and I want to hunt this area for the next 20 years, how do I get the most light on the ground for the most years? Does that make sense? And if thin thin it one time is not gonna be the answer to that question, I don't think very rarely. I want to still see timber when I'm 75. I want to sit under a big pine tree and call a turkey, but but in between there, I'm probably gonna need more than one management activity. And so that's where cutting it so low the first time, then you then you get some needle drape and some wind throw, and you're even lower than you wanted to be. And now I can almost never get back in there, or it's uneven, or I've got, you know, got I've incurred other issues that were preventable. I would say thin it low enough that when they come back in, I'm moving very little pulpwood, if any. So I'm thinning it hard enough that the next time I get a logger in here to second thin, it's almost completely small logs. And if this is where the foresters will come after me, but if I need to flip our typical thinning on its head, so usually I would tell them take your small trees, your fork trees, your damaged trees out first, and then whatever else you need to remove to get to the target basal area on that second thin. If my goal is to have some trees and and shoot deer and turkey, I may let them take bigger material, preferably. Again, that's that's very unconventional. We call it a high thin. It reminds people of high grading back in the day. But if that's what it takes to get him back in there the second time, it's actually gonna take longer for those sort of intermediate trees to respond. But I've still got a stand of timber out there. Most of those defects and forks and all that should have been removed in the first thin. So I should have a pretty uniform stand. And the the lower end of that bell curve is not gonna be super, you know, super suppressed and damaged and should should not be severely inferior quality. So that's that's an option too. Some people will not like that, but I as a forester, my job is to get out of that sand of timber what the landowner wants from it. And if that's the best way to do it, then then I'm happy to do that.

Dr. Bronson Strickland 18:30

Could you go go through that a little bit more, Jonathan? I'm pretty sure I understood. But so why would you do the the high thin versus your normal conventional? So what what is the trade-off there? Is it is it when they enter the stand again for another harvest, or what are you giving up? What are you trading off?

Jonathan Stoll 18:53

We just as a as a forester, you're trained from day one to take the the inferior trees, this if it's smaller or has any kind of defect, and that should be on a first thin, you're gonna remove probably more than half the stems. But if I've thinned it down to say 65 baselary the first time, I've got 200 trees out there per acre, then at that point you're still gonna have a bell curve on diameter. Not everything's gonna be the same. So if I grow that out six, eight years, and my largest third of my bell curve, those trees are in the 11, 12, 13 inch range, and my small end of the the other half of the bell curve is still eight, nine, ten, then by letting him select that larger material, that's all going to a small log mill, and it's usually a lot easier to move. You're not back in that same boat of trying to move pulpwood again. So as long as there's a threshold of about 25 to 30 tons an acre that you can remove, it's a whole lot easier for them if it's all going to the same the same place.

Dr. Bronson Strickland 20:06

So it's about increasing the odds of you getting a logger on site and having a viable operation.

Jonathan Stoll 20:12

Correct. Okay. Correct.

Dr. Bronson Strickland 20:15

And giving them enough good material to entice them to come cut the trees.

Jonathan Stoll 20:20

Correct. With the understanding that I'm giving up value in the future. It's going to take eight or nine-inch tree a lot longer to reach saw log potential than that that 11-inch tree going to a you know premium saw mill. And again, I could hear the I can hear the foresters in the comments, but if that's your objective, it may be beneficial to me for that eight or nine-inch tree to take a little bit while take a little bit of time to rebuild a crown and be able to respond to that growing space, whereas the winners in that stand are going to respond immediately. They already have the crown built, so they're going to start putting on diameter much faster and recapture the site faster. So that's that's an option, and it needs to be kind of carefully thought through with each situation. I would never recommend that in a hard hardwood stand.

What Happens to a Stand You Thin Way Down?

Dr. Bronson Strickland 21:13

Well, I think, you know, I I think you you classify that or provide the context perfectly. I mean, it's subjective driven based on what the the landowner wants and the the the monetary return, the the value, the hunting value of it, etc. What if you had a scenario where the end product was gonna be once I have done all of my thinnings, and I want to maybe not maximize completely maximize value, but I want to get as a lot of value out of this monetarily, but I'm gonna end up with a pine savanna. So when I do this last thinning, I'm gonna be 70 years old, I'm not gonna replant again. And go through all that. I'm gonna ride it out turkey hunting, quail hunting with a pine savanna. Would that be an example of on that last thin taking the best trees just from a value perspective, monetary value? And the trees that remain, you really don't care as much about are they a a prototype of a tree that a forester or a logger would want monetarily? Does that make sense?

Jonathan Stoll 22:30

It does. And again, by the time you thinn something, you're you're talking about maybe even a third thinning. So I've thinned it at say 19, I came back in at 28 and got it down pretty low again. Now the stand is 40. It's it's closed back up to maybe 80 or 90 basal area. And and I really want a pine savannah now. By the time you've thinned it twice, there shouldn't be that many inferior trees left. So at that I wouldn't worry about it as much on that that third thin. If you're gonna go for a real hard pine savanna on your second thin, you're gonna have to take a significant portion of the material anyway. You're you're removing so much at that point. I don't know, it's kind of a mute point, if that makes sense.

Moriah Boggess 23:17

So on that note, like we we've worked with some properties and some people do this where on their second thin they'll they'll bring it down so low where, or maybe it's their their third and they they don't clear cut it, they just thin it down. But it's it's so low, it's 30 basal area, it's it's wide open, it's very low canopy cover, and these trees sit there and they just get bigger and bigger. And this creates a really beautiful stand, you know. People call them quail woods or whatever you want to call it. It's a very picturesque stand and it and it's it's pretty easy to manage with fire once you've, you know, at that point you've been burning it for for decades, and that's essentially just how it's managed long term. But Jonathan, I just want to work through the imagination here. What happens to that stand in the future? And and obviously we're probably talking about a future landowner, but for sake of this, let's let's just say that, hey, someone did this, and 20 years later they said, hey, I I want to put this back into into production. You've got very large diameter trees at a low density across this acreage. Are there any harvest options? And if not, what do you have to do in that situation?

Jonathan Stoll 24:30

No, there's not there's not going to be much much in the way of harvest options. And that again, that's something to know on the front end. If that's if that's what you'd like to do, it's it's your property and and there's beauty in that, there's values in that. Those at some point, when you when you thin it that low, one tree falls over, and that could equal growth of the rest of the stand for the year. So I'm not really worried about the site filling back up with trees either. You you do want to remove those before you would spend a bunch of money to site prep and replant, or those are gonna be seed trees. Essentially, they're gonna they're gonna seed in. You spend a bunch of money putting good genetics underneath them. They're just gonna seed in around it because you can't burn anymore. So, so eventually you're gonna get to a point where no harvesting's not an option. I would just like to push that out much, much longer. And you those those stands tend to get some lightning strikes, some things like that. So you'll you'll incur some natural mortality uh at that density from wind throw or whatever, and it's there's just so few trees that that will almost equal your growth for the year.

Moriah Boggess 25:45

So I, you know, and I think I think it's a conversation worth having. Because that is a very like that is a very real result, is that now what you're talking about is those trees to to even start over, now they are an obstacle where we have to spend money getting rid of them so that we can do our site prep so that we can replant.

Jonathan Stoll 26:07

Can be. As you mentioned, typically that's not the same landowner. Whoever made the decisions to get it to that point is is probably happy leaving it right there. And I that is what you're saying, is there a liability if you were to purchase a property like that and want to want to get it back into production? And that that's true, that's 100% true.

Dr. Bronson Strickland 26:27

Remember, Jonathan, you may not, but it really impressed me years ago. It was one of those moments I'm like, Dad Gummet, he's right. You and I were jointly managing a a property, and I had in my head, as Moriah referenced earlier, you know, to hammer everything's a nail. And so I'm just we gotta get sunlight on the ground and we gotta get some of these trees out of here. And you understood my vision of what I wanted to accomplish. But where I had mapped out this harvest taking place, you soon educated me that you're not gonna be able to do that because at the time there wasn't enough volume there within the area that I wanted to harvest that was gonna be able to get a logger out. And so what you did essentially through the area and volume like you were talking about earlier, we can get that, but we're gonna have to shift it over here to this stand. And I'm still getting what I wanted. I'm getting deer cover, deer food, turkey nesting, etc. I'm getting getting all that stuff, but we had to change the plan. And I I really remember at that point how important that would be for a landowner to meet with someone like you, a forester, that that understands the the timber market and the harvesting and the logistics and what a logger needs for this event to happen. But doing it in a way where you are meeting the objectives of the landowner from the habitat and and the wildlife standpoint. And so that that really made a big impression on me, even though academically I should have known that. But I guess you calling me out and saying, you can't do that, you can't do that, that has always stuck with me, and I really like it when we're working together recently with hardwood stands. And to me, of course, I'm not looking at it like you, I can't grade the timber quality, you know, like like you can. But me looking at quote, a timber stand of hardwood, and you saying there's not enough in there to get a logger in here. And so to the untrained eye, even me, I'm like, you gotta be kidding that there's trees everywhere. What you know, like you you can't get them in here viably, financially viably to do that. And and the last scenario that you you have trained me has been, let's do this, this type of treatment, this type of harvesting. And you can kind of pull me aside and go, now realize if you do that, you're never going to get a logger in here again. You have not left enough material, even a decade or more from now, there's not going to be anything of quality or the number of trees of quality to ever get them back in here. Really helps me think, you know, and going back then to the objectives of the landowner, of what exactly do they want, so we can be sure to provide that for them. So thank you for educating an old deer guy.

Hardwood Management: Why It's a Completely Different Problem

Jonathan Stoll 29:43

I'll uh I've learned a thing or two about deer from you too. Yeah, I remember that well, and that's kind of a perfect example of where we started where that that landowner had actually spent a lot of resources marking several hundred acres to to bring to bring those basal areas down, you know, 10 or 15 square feet per acre, and it just didn't equal the volume that was needed, as you said. So so we just made an adjustment and and it pretty much came out the same, just a little different. We use the term basilary a little bit and or a lot, I should say, and just a a good visualization of that for me when I'm explaining it to folks, there's a lot of math involved. There's prisms, there's everybody, everybody talks about it, I guess. And so to me, an easy way to explain it is I think of it like fish in a pond. If I if I have a certain amount of growing space in a pond, that pond's one acre and the fish people can come after me. But let's say that that catfish pond can hold a hundred pounds of fish. Well, if I put a hundred little fries in there, when I get to one pound times a hundred fish, that's that's all the growing space that's in that pond. Nobody can get bigger until somebody dies, essentially. And that's how that's how forest ends work as well. We also see trees really starting to suffer at 50% of that of that total site occupancy. So if you think of it like that, where all my you know, all my fish got to the the size that they're that they're filling up the site, and so I'm gonna it's time to remove some. That's where a lot of us are. And what we need to understand is if we pull 50 of those fish out and they all grow back to two pounds, and then we realize up the market around here is for two and a half pound fish. Well, now I'm in an awkward position where I I've got to take a few more out, or I've just got to wait for them all to grow, or I've got to do something to get everybody to two and a half pounds. And so what we're trying to do is stay stay within the left and right bounds of production forestry, where the the high side would be more on production, the low side would be on on wildlife management, but we're still within the the operating range. And then at some point on that third thinning, we say, okay, we're we're done. We're just gonna step completely out of normal forestry, and we're we're really managing this as an opening with a few trees in it, essentially. So back. And we like that. And that's just fine. If that's what you want to do, that's that's just fine. There, there's there's a lot of benefits to that. It's beautiful. I love burning. You know, there's a lot of great benefits. Um y'all want to talk about hardwood management some and kind of how that differs a little bit? Yeah, that'd be great. So again, I'm I'm deep south, and this may this may vary a little bit as you get up into Tennessee, Kentucky, Midwest. But hardwood management down here is typically in the in the bottoms, and so that provides some pretty unique challenges to when you go in and do a do a harvest, maintaining that opening can be very difficult. Fire is essentially not an option, and so you have to find some other tool to to be able to do that. And it's something we should think about in pine, but but if you have a large hardwood track, I like to tell people to to really think about not managing every acre at the same time. I want to schedule those out so that I always have something that's got a lot of ground for food. I have something that's you know, maybe three or four or five years past that, that's good bedding cover. And then I've got something else that's that's close canopy, deer walk around it, but I'm growing to a point where I can manage that as well. And that's those are long time horizons with hardwood, and that's frustrating to people at times. Some things we we can sort of give those a shot in the arm with things like hack and squirt and and remove a mid-story, but that'll I think that gets misused sometimes. We we think that removing the mid-story that is intercepting a lot of light, but not it's not the same as a as a pine thinning. And you know, somebody sees a reel on Instagram or whatever, uh, these before and after pictures, and if you look at, if you look at what's left, it's usually almost nothing. And then you, oh yeah, all of a sudden you got waste-high vegetation. Well, think about what that's gonna do in three, four, five years if I can't burn that and maintain that low vegetative cover. So I I like to think of hacking squirt as a shot in the arm to prolong the the uh efficacy of a previous treatment a little bit longer. It's also a good precursor to doing management on the on the timber side. So if I'm gonna plan to come in and thin that timber in a few years, I don't want that mid-story to immediately recapture the entire site. I don't care how many times you run over and cut and do whatever to a horn beam. If you haven't put poison in it, it's coming back. Your elms, a lot of your sweet gum, even small oaks and whatnot, which which we'd prefer. But all the small diameter trees are coming right back. So I think of hack and squirt really as a as a trajectory shifting type treatment where that stand was going in one direction, and now I've turned it in a direction that I want it to go. I'm gonna shift those species over to more oaks and primarily oaks, but other other shade intolerant species that have value versus letting it, if if left to itself, it's gonna want to fall to elms and dogwoods and maybe a little bit of sweet gum, all those shade tolerant species that can regenerate under that canopy. So I hope I hope folks understand that some of these real, real charismatic type videos that you see this huge transformation when somebody girdled something with a chainsaw and sprayed a bunch of poison in there. That's fine. But you've essentially done what we were talking about in pine, where uh timber's no longer a management option there. You've you've almost completely reset that stand. And if you don't have a plan to keep it there, it's a very short-lived treatment. So either you're gonna have to wagon wheel those around and do a few acres every year around your property, or in five years you're gonna be kind of in a pickle looking for what now where can I put light on the ground?

Moriah Boggess 36:39

Yeah, there's a very high input for the amount of of return you get for sure, especially when compared to a a marketable timber harvest. Agreed. Yeah. You know, one thing about especially bottomline hardwoods, and you start talking about going in there and cutting a little bit out, and you know, like mid-story treatments and stuff, is that you know you're saying like the difference between that versus thinning a pine stand in the understory, the understory response is gonna be wildly different what the in the plant community that we get in there. Like we're not gonna generally get a bunch of goldenrod and you know, perennial forbs like that, one just because of uh hydrology and just being too wet, but the other is because again, not having enough sunlight to actually promote that type of herbaceous response. But what you will see a lot of, now you'll see this in unmanaged bottomland hardwoods, but I've seen it where someone goes in, they do a little bit of hack and squirt or a little bit of management of some sort, kind of haphazardly, and they walk away and you come back in a year or two and it's waste tall Japan grass everywhere. And that that stuff was already there, but it just loved that little boost of sunlight, and and it does really well in low light, intermediate light. It's very shade tolerant and it can outcompete a lot of things. And it will grow in full sunlight, but what you see in in full sunlight is that other things can compete and even outcompete it, especially when we have fire and we get some of the you know for perennial forbes like goldenrod and and tall ironweed and some of these things that shoot up from their roots, they'll just overtake Japan grass and get out in front of it. But that's the other thing that comes to my mind when you're talking about managing these bottom one forests, and a thing I see as a pro for your case about active management with timber harvest is that you're kind of bypassing that intermediate light stage where there's just a little bit coming through from a whole bunch of sweat equity with Hack and Squirt that created this jungle of invasives.

Dr. Bronson Strickland 38:44

What do you think, Jonathan? If it what whether you won the lottery, long lost uncle from Kansas, you know, you you find out that you just inherited, you know, 500 acres. Two scenarios here based on where we live, let's just say the current conditions in the south, and the two scenarios being the the land was primarily open, so let's say pasture, versus the land was in you know, pine forest. On on the open land, are are you planting pine trees on on what you know now? You like to deer hunt and you like you like to eat venison, I know, and you like to turkey hunt, etc. etc. Are we at a scenario where you would recommend that someone just don't even plant trees from here on out until something changes? Or is it just calibrating their expectations about the financial returns?

Moriah Boggess 39:52

Oh, you're working them into a corner over there. That's a that's a tough question to ask a forester.

Jonathan Stoll 40:00

I'm gonna again take a step back and and use agroforestry as an example. Seems like since the dawn of ag schools and forestry schools, we've been trying to grow crops and trees together. And it's either an ag person trying to jam pine trees into their into their system or a forester trying to grow corn under his pine trees. And I think the lesson is grow your crops over here and grow your trees over here. And so what I would what I would answer is if it was mine, I I haven't talked to many people that don't like big trees. And so I'm gonna the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, right? I'm gonna go on and stick those those acres that I want woods, I'm gonna go on and plant them, understanding it's probably zero return. Best case scenario right now, zero return on a first thin and very marginal on a second thin. So we're looking for 25 years before I'm getting anything back. But I'm probably not gonna plant every acre. I'm gonna leave some large openings for food plots. I'm probably gonna tweak that that planting instead of the old, you know, spray it and and plant eight by ten and have five hundred trees out there. I may do a very rectangular planting. I may, I may pull that density way down with some, instead of putting money into trees, put money into really good genetics. And now I have trees that at a lower density, if if the site prep and the the site is there, I can grow fewer trees per acre and still get good pruning, good branch angle, and that kind of thing. So I would I would make an investment on the front end, and then I would definitely leave some areas open if that's my goal, because I know stick a tree in the ground, I've got four or five years of groceries, and then I have a decade of closed canopy. So I just need to understand that and understand that I've got to grow my groceries somewhere else for that decade.

Dr. Bronson Strickland 42:09

What is the what what do you recommend as the the homogenous unit now, acreage-wise, of being a under normal circumstances of a stand? So if you're forecasting, and this would depend on the the size of the property, but the number of different stands that you would want on that property to forecast out that every five years, every 10 years, whatever, I am gonna have enough volume for a sale to get a logger in. What what is that minimum acreage for a stand nowadays? Is that is it a minimum? Because I've heard 50, I've heard 100. Where are you at on that?

Jonathan Stoll 42:53

Again, it depends. If I have a property that's large enough that one thing you've taught me is to think in 200 acre blocks. So if I've got 500 acres, I may want to keep that down to 40 acres over here and 40 acres over here that are the same age, and I'm gonna manage them identically at the same time. But now in this 200 acres, I've got, you know, four or five blocks, and in this 200 acres, I have four or five blocks. So that's that's kind of an ideal scenario for a intermediate landowner, is to, yeah, you're still at 80 or 100 acres in in one operation. They're just gonna have to move a half mile down the road, and that's that's not as as taxing as some loggers make you think. Frankly, you know, they they have to move a lot and they want to minimize that. It's extremely costly to put four machines on a flatbed and total them across the county. So if they can grab that knuckle bean with a skitter and pull it down the road, that's a much easier day for them. If you know, more on the hundred acre. if it's if that's my entire land base, then at minimum 50, and that's going to be difficult. Talk to your neighbors. See if you can do that same strategy with your neighbors where when I thin he's going to thin and and be better off that way. If that answers your question.

Dr. Bronson Strickland 44:20

It does. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense.

Moriah Boggess 44:23

So I I know there's not a good answer here, but I've got to bring it up. I mean for somebody who has 20 acres of ponds, what do they do? Go out, cut them down by hand, leave that stand, forget about their 20 acres. I mean I'm thinking about someone with, you know, they they don't have a lot of acreage to start with here. They want to maximize it.

Jonathan Stoll 44:43

You're if you want a commercial operation, that's going to have to be homogenous. You know, that that's all going to have to be one unit to have even a shot at getting somebody at it. But and if that's my 20 acres I want trees on it. I like to walk around around trees not not bare ground or you know early field or whatever. But but look at your neighbors. What what do you have around you? Because that deer's not going to stay on 20 acres. What do you have around you and how can you how can you draw those deer or turkey to your your property? And that's something where I might be willing to do sort of an uneven an uneven density where I have yeah it's all getting managed together but I'm going to thin a little heavier over here and a little lighter over here so I at least have some variability for the height of cover for turkeys through the year or a little bit more bedding centered and a little bit more food centered, that type thing. And that that scales with treatment or that that's different with treatment. So I'm if that's mine, I'm probably going to burn half of it at a time.

Minimum Acreage, Thinking in Blocks & Coordinating With Neighbors

Dr. Bronson Strickland 45:49

But I'm going to have to manage the timber altogether Well is there anything else Jonathan that that that we haven't asked you? Something important that we need to cover and we have failed to talk about it so far?

Jonathan Stoll 46:03

Not that comes to mind. I the biggest things for me are just think about think about the next three to five years. Also think about the next 10 to 20 years. Where where am I where am I going long term if you're not if you're not going to be around what am I leaving my kids? Have I backed them into a corner where timber operation is no longer viable and you may have to talk to them about that. You know that's that's just the way foresters think is a much longer time horizon. All the trees I'm managing somebody else planted I'm saying on their shoulders. So just just start with an end in mind. And if that's something you need help with then we're we're glad to look at it and get a get a good forester involved that that understands what you want out of the stand. Most foresters are going to say oh you wanted a little thin okay well instead of 75 we'll pull it down to 70 and they're they're going to be very much in that normal commercial range and that's where the logger's going to fall also that's just what they're used to.

Dr. Bronson Strickland 47:07

So you need you need somebody that understands your goals and understands how to manage people to get there think you s said that perfectly it it's all about getting advice people that understand the the trade-offs very very well the relationships between sunlight timber sunlight on the ground habitat for the critters looking at your vision in the short term looking at your vision in the long term what you want out of it recreationally but now also looking at the economics of what are going to be those inputs that are needed what is going to be the acreage necessary the volume necessary to drive all of those economic decisions you you really have to lay all of that out and forecast it over decades. And so it's it's it's more complicated than a lot of people envision and and and it becomes a lot more complicated when you add wildlife in the mix. I'm not going to say it's easy forecasting just on the timber side that's very complicated too.

Jonathan Stoll 48:15

But when you start factoring in deer and turkey and quail another layer of complication certainly it it is but it's not you know usually what you were going to do anyway we can just like that scenario you mentioned we didn't tweak it that far and we we were so much farther ahead at the end we removed the same amount of volume we just you just need to know how to turn the dials so it's i if you if you see it a good bit and you know what you're doing it it's not impossible and usually it's not that far from what you think you want to do.

Dr. Bronson Strickland 48:49

Just just got to do it right well thank y'all I really enjoyed the discussion and you know it seems like at least podcasts I've been involved in over the last year or two there's been a tremendous amount of doom and gloom with with timber and and and some of that is real but it's very reassuring talking to you we just might have to do it a little bit differently landowners may have to recalibrate their financial expectations it may take a longer amount of time to get it done but it is still a at this point in time it it is a a viable product and a product to be managed and financially rewarding. So great discussion and appreciate you educating all of us on this topic.

Moriah Boggess 49:39

And I'll I'll throw out one thing for pine stands because I think we sometimes hate on them a lot. One thing I love about managing a pine stand is that it's you're not going to get the same understory every time but it's as close as you can get to a cookbook. Do these things in this you know hit these general benchmarks and you will get a good response. Manage with this fire frequency and you will get a good response. We love to talk about managing old field early successional plant communities sometimes dabble into hardwood stuff. Those are so there's so many more variables there's so many things that yeah you just kind of have to tend to it and make adjustments and tweak and old fields I mean there's all kinds of stuff that you know all kinds of interventions you may or may not have to take depending on the response and it's never the same one to another and they take a lot of attention but man pine stands they they carry the south with when it comes to forage production and providing good cover. Like I I love managing pine stands. They are they provide very good cover when in food when managed properly so I feel like I have to say that because we we hate on them a little it might sound like we hate on trees a little bit I uh I I put the armor on my Lorax before this podcast because I knew Bronson was gonna kind of beat up on trees.

Jonathan Stoll 51:00

No they're they're a good tool and they're a great they're a great aesthetic benefit if even if I'm not getting the timber prices I want they do provide that very consistent understory response and at the end of the day if I have to give it away I'm still getting a heck of a treatment for free versus pouring money into it and that's that's really what I want to keep people from falling below. Yeah.

Wrap-Up: Why Pine Stands Are Still Worth Managing

Dr. Bronson Strickland 51:26

And they're still good for a climbing stand too that too and probably a tree saddle if you you know you swing that or a saddle that's exactly right yeah yeah okay gentlemen well thanks a bunch enjoyed it thanks for having me hey and guys one last thing before we jump off here for everyone listening first off thanks for listening and hopefully subscribing to the Wildlife Investments podcast we really appreciate that. If you haven't please leave a rating and review and then lastly this is our first podcast on forestry topic and there's of course more of those coming and we have some ideas that we want to have Jonathan on for talking more about you know the silvicultural side of things but if you have any topics that you're curious about related to forest management definitely drop those in a comment section and let us know if there's something around pine management or hardwood management that you would like us to talk about and we can cue that up for the future. Thank you. Thanks for listening to the Wildlife Investments podcast. For more information on these topics or to see some of the projects our team is working on follow us on Instagram and Facebook at WildlifeInvestments or visit wildlifeinvestments.com