The economic and ecological considerations of clear cutting wooded acreage.

Many forest owners value their forest for wildlife habitat, recreation, and aesthetics. Given accurate information, many want to manage their woodlot using sound silviculture but clear-cutting as a regeneration method may not be visually acceptable. While a profitable timber harvest is of interest, a visually pleasing residual stand may be more important. To meet this objective, Stand D1 of the SVAREC forests was selected to demonstrate All-Age Management using group selection silviculture and individual thinning of select trees to create four age classes.

Most forest owners value their forest for wildlife habitat, recreation and aesthetics. Given accurate information, they may manage their woodlot to achieve these and other goals using sound silviculture. Thinning over-stocked woodlots is one silvicultural management tool. Thinning can modify spacing and diversity of species to meet desired goals which may include timber, wildlife, aesthetics and more. Thinning also improves woodlot vigor by removing over-mature, suppressed, defective or weakened trees. To meet theses objective, Stand D2 was selected for a thinning research & demonstration site.

We all depend on and benefit from the woods every day, whether we know it or not. The trees, shrubs, plants, animals, and soil that make up your woods provide you, your neighbors, and your region with a host of environmental, social, and economic benefits.

Research into the attitudes and actions of private forest landowners shows that although very few own their forestland for the purpose of producing timber, most will sell timber at least once in their lifetimes. Private forest landowners sell timber for a variety of reasons that range from purely financial to solely for management purposes. Often landowners do not consider selling timber until they have an immediate need for cash. Other times the landowner has planned an immediate commercial thinning with a full timber harvest scheduled in 10 years. Whatever the reason(s) for a timber sale, careful consideration of objectives is paramount.

Timber harvesting is a valuable tool to help forest landowners realize certain financial and land management goals. Following are some suggestions to consider before selling timber.

Silvopastures intentionally integrate trees with forage and livestock production in a rotational grazing system. These systems have the potential to improve animal comfort, increase farm resource use efficiency, boost income, and mitigate environmental costs.

Silvopastures — integrated tree-forage-livestock production systems — have the potential to boost farm resource use and income. These systems take advantage of the beneficial interactions among system components, add biodiversity, and increase animal comfort. The intentional and careful combining of trees and livestock in time and space can yield both short-and long-term returns and have positive environmental outcomes.

Emerald ash borer (EAB) is found in all regions of Virginia. Some areas have established populations with a high level of ash tree mortality and other areas are seeing it for the first time. With a wider spread of infestation many homeowners are seeking methods to protect their ash trees.

Planting trees in pastures may seem counter-cultural to many forage-livestock producers, but it’s receiving interest as a means to achieve several outcomes. In this video, we illustrate two methods that have been shown to successfully protect growing trees from livestock.