....And spicebush. This deadly fungal disease came from Asia, in wood, as have many other forest pests. It was first found in 2002, and is now killing the sassafrases in our timber in Southern Illinois.

There is a reddish sassafras tree just to the right of the driveway, and a dead one to the right of it. Another is behind the one with fall colors. This Spring, all three of them are dead.

University of Kentucky has a good post (click) you should read about Laurel Wilt if you are a forest owner or just a tree lover. 

Spicebush is a site indicator of deep, rich, moist and well drained soil at the foot of slopes and adjacent to streams. Spicebush means that you can grow excellent black walnut, Shumard Oak and swamp chestnut oak. Foresters get excited when they find spicebush. The twigs traditionally have been used to flavor meat from wild game, especially groundhogs.

Sassafras roots and bark have been used for centuries to make Spring tonic and root beer. 

Another load of wood.

 

 Hamilton County IL Soil and Water Conservation District organized another tree planting project for the third graders this year, and we had perfect weather mid-day to show the kids how to plant trees. Good times! The kids all know how to plant a potted tree properly now, and will probably remember it for the rest of their lives.

 

We are brainwashed by public educators to think that trees are static. Nope, they grow, and they grow every year. You gotta loosen that belt at the end of every deer season.

 When doing your thinning, you should concentrate on dominant and co-dominant trees. Intermediate and overtopped trees have too much catching up to do, so if those trees are pushing on better crowns, go ahead and remove them. Sure, the tree is going to pass out on its own after several more years, after the dominant ones grow up and over it, but in the meantime, they are not expanding their crowns, and growth rings get narrower every year.

 The long branched thorns on honey locust are a curse to anyone working in the woods. They are notorious for causing flat tires, and can also cause serious injuries and infections. Loggers hate them, even thought the wood is pretty, because bucking and moving the logs is dangerous, and a flat tire on a skidder ceases production, and causes expense. Be careful when working around these pests, and especially, keep your safety glasses on!

 About thirty years after we (Susan and I) planted this little patch of timber I am now doing a much needed thinning. Can you bring yourself to drop trees you planted with your own hands? Sure you can! If you don't, your plantation will stagnate, and trees will drop out one by one from overcrowding. Thin it yourself and you choose the best ones to finish out. Now you just have to live long enough to send them to the mill. Let's see, these trees need another thirty years; I am almost 72 right now. Piece of cake. I just have to keep on with clean living and break that statistical ceiling!

 Not many things bother a honeylocust. I am guessing that a lightning bolt cooked the sapwood, and that was the end. Then bugs moved in, to ratify the decision. I will be busy with a chainsaw the next couple months thinning our plantations of thirty years ago, so maybe I can grab some forestry related photos for you all.  Back To The Old Grind!

Here we are looking at a stump from a harvest eight to twelve years ago. We were counting eight nodes on oak seedling sprouts, so we are pretty close on the timeline. Black oak stumps fall apart pretty fast, and you can see that the sapwood is almost totally gone, and bark is hanging on just at the bottom of the stump. One of the things you learn is to estimate the time since a tree was cut by the stump. White oak stumps last much longer, and down in the bottoms, stumps disappear quickly with rot and floods erasing them in short order. We figured out a plan of action for this timber, and the new owners will be busy. They will need to do two or three burns to bring up oak regeneration through the competition, but they have trails in place, so that will be easily managed. They can break up the woods into three burn units and rotate the burn to the next unit every spring. In ten or fifteen years they should see their young oaks popping up throughout their timber.

We spend time every Spring watching radar on our computers or phones. Sometimes the storms run over us and sometimes they miss. We have some limbs down, but have no real damage to our timber. I have seen limbs torn from trees that had been topped in the past, and that is to be expected.

This tree was in McLeansboro and it needed to come down. This is the type of tree that can really bite you when you have to drop it. It's always a good idea to give trees a few love taps to see if they might be hollow and dangerous before putting your saw them.

 

 I am seeing lots of widowmakers along the road. Emerald ash borer is the cause of many, and I have started taking photos. They are everywhere, and going into McLeansboro we look at an entire ash tree that is set to fall into Highway 242. Carry your chainsaw with you.

Back To The Old Grind!

 We really like August Hunicke and are learning from him, but I am going to keep my feet on the ground!

"See Good Trees" is my motto when doing improvement work in timber. Look for the good ones and get rid of trees competing with them. For timber growers, a good tree has a straight stem, good natural pruning, a wide healthy crown, and no forks or tight branch angles with included bark. This red maple demonstrates the danger of forks and tight branch angles. Trees like this one tend to be damaged by wind and ice.

Do we need to get rid of this tree now? We can utilize it for firewood, but currently we are covered up in dead ash trees, and those need to be harvested before we go after a live tree. Is it interfering with a good crop tree? If not, just leave it for the time being.  Rot is going to work its way down the stem, but there will still be a good log for ten or fifteen years. You can also leave a tree like this to serve as a wildlife tree. That break will work as a good nesting site, and possibly a den. 

 

Here's a bad fork with included bark and rot progressing.

Another bad fork with hidden bark included, but sound on top.

This one is a sound fork with both wood and bark where they should be. A fork is the top end of merchantability for sawtimber. You need a minimum of 8' 6" for a hardwood log to be merchantable. If a tree forks below that it will never go to the sawmill. 

This is a good branch angle with the limb going back all the way to the pith. The tighter the branching angle, the more likely bark will be trapped between the limb and the stem.

 After thinking on this a while, I think Susan and I planted these trees between 1995 and 2000. We are going to toss a bunch of walnuts in here and hope that the squirrels plant them for us.

 I visit Quora every day and answer a few questions if I have something good to say. Someone asked recently, "What is the most profitable tree to grow?" Susan and I have had quite a bit of experience in growing trees, and we are heating with trees we planted, plus we have had a few timber sales on our ground. Trees that we planted are now sawlog size, and it causes a feeling of wonder to go out and walk through them. Anyhow, here is my answer to that question. It has had more than 50,000 views in a few months, and that is better than any audience I have on this blog!

 Nectria canker is a fungal disease that attacks many tree species, but sassafras is the tree that really suffers from it. The effects are dramatic, and common, and you will see it frequently enough that it is an easy disease to remember. The tree will produce new wood around the wound every year, which becomes infected, and a bullseye effect develops over the years. 

 We are thinning one of our tree planting projects, and found a nice little lesson to share with you all. The trick to doing your TSI (Timber Stand Improvement) is to always be looking for your good trees. You want them vigorous, well formed, not forked, good branch angles, and a strong crown.

 We had some leftover chestnuts in the extra fridge, and I just noticed them about three weeks ago. We forked up a little bed, stuck some nuts in and put mushroom mulch over the top. I didn't expect any to sprout, but we have a nice Chinese chestnut coming up in the garden now. We will have to find a good spot to move it this Fall.