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Management Objectives
December 16th, 2010 Filed Under Blog
December 15, 2010 Today I had the good fortune to help with a site prep burn in Georgia East of Columbus on a deep sandy site that had been stocked with a dense stand of sand pine. That was probably a mistake that has now been hidden by the saw, herbicide and fire. Typical of many site prep burns, there was not a whole lot of broadcast fuels. There were lots of jack pot piles that burned hot. We had cloud cover, 40 degree max temperature and RH in the mid twenties. The wind was fairly light. The site is plantable but not “clean” by any stretch. The owner plans to come back on the deep sand with longleaf containerized seedlings. Hopefully they will be planted in the next week. Much of the adjoining property is stocked with natural longleaf, a much better species for the site than sand pine. The area had been un-burned for many years which resulted in a mess of scrub hardwoods typical of the sand hills. Fortunately for the land owner, they were able to have a “fuel wooder” work through most of the stands and clean them. The results are beautiful. The land owner did not receive any cash consideration for the wood but did receive a valuable timber stand improvement job. The stocking is probably 60 BA at the most. I see a lot of place like that these days. In order to keep the stands productive it will be necessary to use fire of a frequent return interval to maintain the pine component of the stands. Longleaf is the obvious species to work with on these sites. In places where there is still a fully stocked stand of loblolly, longleaf is actually invading the loblolly stands. How many times do you see that? Another interesting thing is the area is well populated with gopher tortoises. The owner wants to see the piney woods management of the area perpetuated so he has granted a conservation easement on the property.
The owner was very excited about the “new” management strategy. He stated that this is the first time he has received forestry advice that brought about the results he wanted. In the past he has been given forestry advice that was slanted toward strictly solid wood products with no considerations of the “other” production functions of the land. He felt like the people giving advice in the past did not consider his expectations.
The main management objective I was taught in forestry school was to work toward the landowner’s objectives so long as they were legal and ethical. Have foresters forgotten this primary objective?
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