One Example Of A Timber Harvest

In a recent private 40 acre, predominantly Red Oak forest, the objective of the landowner was to "do some thinning of the larger trees" and receive an income from the product removed. These 40 acres had never been managed in the four generations owned by this family.
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The evaluation showed overcrowded red oak of diverse ages, a small amount of white oak, some very large poplar among the hardwoods, some condensed areas of poplar and some young white pine. Due to  overcrowding, a percentage of the larger red oak was starting to decay and some had already fallen. In some areas the younger timber was actually starting to die off due to lack of sunlight as a result of the large crowns of the more mature trees.

On this particular 40, we were able to extract red oak at an 18'' breast height diameter (not all 18'' BHD trees were taken, red oak of this size was left throughout), and some very light thinning in overcrowded areas where the tree diameter was slightly smaller in order to create the proper amount of spacing and allowing sunlight to reach the foliage.

In regards to the concentrated poplar areas and due to the maturity of the stands, most areas were thinned extensively for regeneration. The mature poplar throughout the stand was selectively thinned.

Due to the number of white oak trees, although marketable, we felt it was in the best interest and ecologically beneficial to leave these trees stand, untouched. The young white pine was left untouched as well.

At completion of harvest the residual stand remained a diverse, healthy, aesthetically pleasing predominantly red oak forest consisting of various ages (ranging from saplings to maturity),  white oak (ranging from saplings to maturity), poplars and young white pine, along with various forest fauna and floras. The landowner can look to another future harvest in approximately 10 to 15 years.