Category: Virginia forestry

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Clean Water: Pass it Along

My quarterly contribution to Virginia Forests magazine. They will make it better but the raw deal is below. I get to write the tree farmer of the year article, plus three more articles talking about tree farming in Virginia.
Clean Water: Pass it Along
About half of Virginia’s timberland lies in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and most of that forest land is privately owned and a significant part is managed for forestry. Since forests are essential to protecting the quality of water that flows into the Bay, forest landowners play a special role in keeping the Bay healthy. Forests absorb nutrient runoff that would otherwise harm the ecology of the Chesapeake. They slow and often incorporate sediment. Tree farmers are committed to sustainable land use and a big part of this is sustainable water resources.
You cannot understand the ecology of the Chesapeake area without considering how humans have modified the landscape. As the first area of English colonization, nowhere in the United States has been altered more or for a longer time. Most of the Chesapeake watershed was deforested centuries ago to grow food and cash crops like tobacco. Tobacco rapidly depletes the soil and our ancestors understood less than we do today about how to keep soils healthy and in place. As Virginia soils eroded and became poorer and as richer soils became available farther west, many Virginia farmers went west for better opportunities. Much of Virginia returned to forest.
It is a gift of nature that trees grow rapidly and well in Virginia and that has allowed our forestry industry to thrive, but it is also a tribute to the men and women who manage those forests in ways that keep them productive – and improving – year after year. The forest industry employs thousands of Virginians and pumps more than a billion dollars into the State’s economy each year. But the forests value does not stop there, not by a longshot.
Our well-managed Virginia forests produce a variety of “ecological services” things like carbon sequestration, flood control, wildlife habitat, and recreation. These things rarely turn up on balance sheets, but you clearly see their value if you don’t have them.
Protecting the Chesapeake is like that. Clean water is one of the most important products of a well-managed forest. Water is almost always better quality coming out of the woods than it was going in, as the forest ecosystem absorbs excess nutrients and allows silt to settle. As I wrote above, about half of Virginia lies in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, but we also contribute to water that runs into the Atlantic Ocean, much through Albemarle Sound, in North Carolina, the Mississippi that runs into the Gulf of Mexico and there is even a little that ends up flowing into the Atlantic Ocean via the Pee Dee River in South Carolina. We are part of something big and important and we can be proud of the part we play.
The American Tree Farm System was established in 1941 to guarantee that in the future family forests could supply forest products while sustaining water, wildlife, recreation and natural beauty. We are living in that future the founders envisioned. We can best thank them for what they gave us by making sure we pass it along to our future.
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Longleaf pine regeneration

Longleaf pine was much more common in Virginia and the South in 1607 than it is today.  It is the classic southern pine and was a prime timber tree in the colonies and was important to the Royal Navy as a source of naval stores (pitch, tar, resin and turpentine).  It is a big and beautiful tree.

But it can be harder to grow because it requires fire to keep a longleaf pine forest healthy.  Fire in forests is less common today.  We put them out when they get near our buildings and roads tend to limit the extent of fires.  Before European settlement, Native Americans started fires all the time.  They didn’t have the capacity to put them out when they got big and with no roads to stop them they burned large areas.  The Native Americans also used fire to spook that animal in hunting and to keep down the population of bugs near their villages.   America was a smokey place. European sailors commented that they could smell the smoke before they saw the coast.

Fire often kills broad leaf trees and brush but southern pine is adapted to it.  The fires were common, but because they were common they tended not to get hot enough to be the disaster we often see today. Longleaf and other southern pine prospered.  When fires were suppressed, the forests became denser, shadier and dominated by other species.  In addition, foresters often prefer loblolly pine to longleaf because it is easier to grow and more developed genetically.  For these many reasons, longleaf is rarer than it was.
There is no chance that longleaf will disappear.  It is not in any way an endangered species.  But it is still a good idea to encourage longleaf. It increases forest diversity and provides an interesting landscape that favors particular wildlife species.

The problem for any mortal individual, me included, is that trees take a long time to grow.  When I plant longleaf today, I can be certain that I will not live to a mature forest.  Of course, everybody is always in that position and if nobody planted trees that he could not personally see mature, nobody would plant any trees.

We put in longleaf on a five acres a couple years ago.   (I plan to put in more longleaf on maybe 50 acres of one of our other farms in 2016, after we clear cut the mature lobolly that is now there.) My friends and neighbors prepared the land burning the land before planting, recreating the conditions the pines need.  You can see from the pictures that some of the pines are doing okay.  I will see in a few years how well they will do.  They are pretty trees, even at the smaller stage.  Loblolly have filled in by natural regeneration.  We will be seeing a mixed loblolly-longleaf forest, much like you might have found in 1607.   I will have to burn under the trees to make it right.  I hope and believe I will live long enough to do that once or twice.  After that, it belongs to the kids.

In my pictures you can see the little longleaf pines. It is hard to see some of them in the grass.  I am not sure how to handle this.  I read that a quick and cool fire will take care of this and it is part of longleaf management, but I want to ask actually fire practiti0ners.  Things on the ground don’t always work the same way the books say they will.

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First tree farm


My first farm is still my favorite.  I have had the pleasure of watching the progress.  The plantation trees, about 110 acres, were planted in 2003.  They were the loblolly super trees of 2003.   New varieties have since been developed, but these are good.  There were also some management benefits.  We did pre-commercial thinning and applied biosolids back in 2008.  I thought that this was good timing.  There is enough fertility in the soil for the first five years because the young forest is living off the decaying brush from the cut.  The biosolids gave the boost when needed in the fifth year.   We can probably do the first thinning early.

2014 was a good year.  It was an unusually cool and wet summer.  I was surprised this morning when I went out and actually wanted to wear a light jacket in the early morning.   This is August in Virginia.   It is supposed to be hotter than this.

The trees have gone through a phase transition this year.  They have now mostly closed the canopy, i.e. they are shading out the lower branches.  You can see the difference now because you can see into the woods.

About a third of the land – 68 acres out of 178 – is contained in stream management zones or other non-commercial uses.  This part changes less.

One thing I have noticed is that there is generally less water in the intermittent streams.  I think this is because the pine trees have grown.  Their branches are intercepting more of the rain and their roots are soaking more of it up.   Nevertheless, it was been wet and you can see the evidence of lots of water.  There is mud and sand pretty far up the hills and even on the little stream, you can see that the water flowed over and around the usual beds.

My top picture shows the trees from one of the food plots, now a bit overgrown.  Right below is the plot when it was first established with clover in 2008. Below that is Genito Creek.   It has a muddy-sand bottom and flows back and forth, undercutting each bank in turn and meandering across a fairly wide area.  Next is my road. You can see the way the water made ripples with the pine needles.  Below are the sycamores along the path. The path is now covered with vegetation.  Finally, the bottom picture shows how the water ran out of the stream bed and over the bank.  This little stream stays where it because the lower bed is solid stone.  This is one of my favorite places.  The water makes beautiful music.

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Virginia tree farms

Coming up from North Carolina, we arrived today at the tree farms. It has been a cool and rainy year in Brunswick County and the trees have done very well.  They are clearly bigger.  The trees on the CP property have reached the stage where the canopy is closing.  Above is the property now and below is the same view nine years ago.

The road is overgrown.  I like it.  The surface is still hard underneath and you can drive on it w/o any trouble, but the vegetation is holding the dirt down a little better.  I expect that it will get worn down during hunting season, when the road gets more traffic from the hunters’ trucks.

Speaking of hunting, the local guys think it will be a good year for deer.  And several members of the hunt club are going after bear.  We saw bear tracks on the farm for the first time.  They have seen a big bear near the farm and one of the guys in the club got a picture of four bears with his wildlife camera.  Bears were gone for 100 years. They are making a big comeback.  I am not fond of them.  I don’t like anything in my woods that could beat me in a fair fight.  They say that the bear is more afraid of me than I am of the bear.   I don’t think that is true.

One of the hunt club guys killed a bear with a crossbow last year.  It took five shots to finish it off and it was still trying the chase the guy up a tree after the fourth shot.
Chrissy insisted that we buy a can of bear spray when we were out west. We didn’t see any bear, but I still have the spray.  Maybe I will start taking it with me.

The local forestry business is good. Markets are good for wood and wood products.  A big help has been chips and pellets.  We are exporting pellets through the Port of Chesapeake.
I talked to a woman whose father buys white oak for Jack Daniels to use in its whiskey barrels.   I have white oak.  I don’t think I can make too much money from it, but I think it would be really cool to know that my wood was used for making whiskey barrels.  She gave me the contact and I will give him a call.

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Forest visit February 2014

Went down to the forest farms. This is not the prettiest time to visit.  In fact, it tends to be the ugliest time of the year.  Lots of the plants are dead or brown. The pine trees are a little anemic; they will become much more brilliant green in a few months.

On the plus side, you can see better, since leaves and growing plants are not there to obscure. I was happy to see my longleaf pines are still there and doing okay. A few have really started to grow, as you see in the picture.  Most are still in the “grass” stage.

They are building a big new natural gas fired generator near the Freeman place. They are going to expand the transmission lines and lay gas pipelines.  It won’t affect my land directly, but I am not enthusiastic about any changes.  I like things to stay in forestry. But I recognize that development happens and it is probably a good thing for many people.  As I wrote in a earlier post, this part of Virginia is poor.  My forests create few jobs.  The gas generator will do better.

The top picture shows Chrissy on the CP forest road. Trees are getting bigger.  Notice on the side of the road are sycamore trees.  They grew by themselves, but I cut out the brush and thinned them into a nice colonnade. They are growing very rapidly.  I am mildly allergic to sycamore. When I do a lot of cutting, I have to cough a lot.

The middle picture shows one of the longleaf pine seedlings.  I doubt I will ever see this forest mature, but it will be magnificent.  Longleaf used to be very common in the south.  The State of Virginia is working on restoration. My five acres of longleaf are a drop in the bucket, but better than nothing.  Below is me in the new forest.  I think we will cut that this year or next and plant some genetically strong trees that will grow even faster and better. 

The State of Virginia is now also advocating shortleaf pine restoration. I don’t know much about them, but I will see what I can find out. I want to have more diversity in my forests in order to make them more robust and useful for wildlife.  I have to admit, however, that I really cannot identify a shortleaf pine.  I may have some and not know it.  I think they can hybridize with loblolly. 

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Something to Share

I wrote this article for “Virginia Forests” magazine. Presumably a similar, maybe improved, version will be out soon.   

People who own or work with forestry are in a controversial business. Whether or not we want to acknowledge it, most (not some most) people misunderstand what we do and a significant number of people consider a term like “logger” a type of insult.  

This point of view is mostly based on ignorance, but it is ignorance that we cannot ignore.  In a democracy, policies are based on the desires of the majority and, yes, on their misconceptions and prejudices too. If a majority does not understand, they can be pushed into doing dumb things by vocal minorities. As development comes closer and even into our forests, more people are interested in what we do; it is our interest to make sure their interest turns into understanding.

I was reminded of this need while reading about the recent disastrous fires in the West. One article talked about the need to thin forests in order to improve forests’ health and make them more fire resistant. I didn’t learn much that I didn’t already know from the article itself, but the comments were very enlightening. By the time it was all done, there were dozens of comments. Some  readers were evidently appalled that anyone would even suggest that a human activity like thinning would be proposed for nature’s forests.  Others thought they might accept thinning, but wanted to make sure that nobody made a profit from it.

Comments are not necessarily representative of the general population, but they do come from people who have an opinion and who care enough to take the time to write about it, in other words, motivated people more likely to take action.

Our problem seems to be that a significant number of people view forestry as a kind of mining.  Their attitude seems to be that nature provides forests that humans disrupt and exploit. And then they are gone, maybe for years and maybe forever. This is a silly idea to people who work in forests, especially older people who might have seen several thinnings and harvests on the same tract of land. We must not overlook, however,  that the narrative of loss, destruction, exploitation and the heavy footprint of man is firmly and passionately believed by some people who vote and influence policies toward forests. We should also accept that their passion is based on good will. They think they are the good guys. The facts are on our side, but that doesn’t diminish the intensity of their passion.

This is not a discussion we can or should want to avoid. We are doing the right things and trying with each planting and with each harvest to do them better. Tree farmers act today with the promise of the future firmly in mind.  Sustainability is our concept, one practiced by foresters long before it was stylish or even described. Each of us lives from the gifts of the past and leaves more for those who come after us. This is what sustainable means. 

Our story is important and we should tell it with eagerness and vigor, not just to each other but to all who want to listen, and maybe even to some who don’t. Our narrative is not one of “leaving a smaller footprint” or “reducing damage.” Ours is the affirmative story or renewal and regeneration, of imagination, intelligence and innovation making things better. Generations of tree farmers have been protecting water, soils and wildlife while producing wood and forest products.  It is what we do. We know it works because we see it, smell it in the air we breathe and feel it under our feet as we walk across the land. It is something to share.

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Forest visit 2013 September part 2

These are the pictures from the other farms. Above is the boundary between the two regimes on our new forest.  When we harvest the bigger ones, they will essentially trade places. Below is a food plot in the new forest.

Below is the food plot on the Freeman place. 

Below is a longleaf pine.  We planted four acres of them. They are a little too far apart to produce a regular timber plantation, but they will be really nice trees.  I am happy to see many survived.  They are in the “grass stage.” What happens generally is that they take a little time to establish and then they shoot up. 

Below is tobacco growing near the Freeman farm. The Virginia economy used to be based on the horrible weed.  One reason land is relatively inexpensive in Brunswick County is that the tobacco industry collapsed a few years back.  Much of the farmland was replaced by trees like mine. 

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Forest visit September 2013

We went down to the farms. Trees are looking good. I don’t have any real news beyond the pictures.  Above is the CP road view. That I take for reference.

Above is my reference picture from 2013 with me as reference.  Below is the same place in 2009 with the truck as reference.  The trees are getting too big for the pictures.

Below are the food plots cut for fall.  They are full of bobwhite quail. 

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New forestry developments in SE Virginia

We went down to the farms.  The boys came with on Saturday. I stayed an extra day to talk to our local friends. Trees look good. They have only just started to grow for this season, so I look forward to seeing them again next month.

Lots of things are happening in this part of Virginia. An old International Paper Mill was repurposed for fluff pulp in 2012.  Two new wood pellet plants by Enviva are opening this year. Some of this is sold to the EU as part of their renewable requirements. And Dominion Power is converting some of its plants to biomass from coal. This will create demand for wood chips. 

If the housing industry picks up a little, we should be in high cotton (or high pine) by the next time we harvest some of the trees.

The top picture shows the boys plus their friend Colin at a stream crossing on the new farm. Below they are near ten year old trees at CP and the bottom is Espen in the truck.

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Gains and losses

It is colder than I thought it would be, but I expect spring will come while I am still in Virginia.    

I counted the rings.As well as I can count, the tree was about chest high in 1900. It probably took a few years to get there, so it was an acorn maybe in 1890. Oak trees require some cover but a lot of sun.There are other big oaks nearby.My guess is that these oaks were on a property line, where there were other trees but cleared fields in both directions.Fairfax County has good soil for pasture and was an area of mixed dairy farms before it became urbanized.There is a good chance that was this, but I really don’t know.The big tree was actually two trees that grew together.It looks like there might have been a third tree in the middle. 

How different this place was when this tree started to grow. 

I felt bad when I saw the tree was gone, but I don’t want to make this a narrative of loss.  It is easy to fall into a narrative of loss when you really have loss, but we don’t think of the gains. The forest around is growing. Light that now gets to the formerly shaded ground will let other things grow faster and better. There really is no loss.  Back in 1890, a big tree may have fallen down to allow this big tree to grow.  The rings clearly show differences in the decades of growth. The likely cause is other trees crowding in and then being cleared. 

You can see the stump up to, rings next and some other trees growing together, maybe forming future big trees.  On the stump picture, you can see a dime, which gives some perspective.