Category: Virginia forestry

Grassy wetlands
To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven. The more you observe in nature, the more sense that old wisdom seems. Last time on the farms I found the value of the devil’s walking stick, for which I never had much previous use. Last time, they pollinators were swarming those plants and the rattlesnake masters. Today I found that pollinators had moved on to the joe-pye weed. The joe-pye is a perennial plant that loves full sunlight and perpetually moist soil.

The cycle and the swerve
In the shade of the thickly planted 22-year-old trees, these herbaceous plants could not prosper. They waited. When we harvested the 22-year-old loblolly last year, they suddenly had a bonanza of sunlight and water, as the pine trees no longer blocked the sun or sucked up the water. The harvest has created temporary wetlands, temporary because they will dry up again when the forests regrow and demand more water.

Impermanence
Everything is transient and their wonder lies in their impermanence.  I am sure the joe-pye were were present but suppressed. Now they burst forth in glory and will do for maybe another 5-7 years. How many times has this cycle repeated?

It was an interesting day weather-wise today. I arrived at the farms around 8am. It was partly cloudy and already hot and humid. I got through two rounds of cutting and was taking a break with my can of Coors when I notice the wind was cool. I heard the thunder and noticed the storm clouds rolling in. It dripped for a few minutes and then poured down a Noah-level cloudburst. This lasted for around 45 minutes, followed by intermittent rain for maybe an hour more. After all that, we got more glorious sunshine.

Dog fennel – What is it good for?

I spent the last hour of the day, and my last tank of gas for my cutter, going after an obnoxious patch of dog fennel. It was thickly covering several hundred yards of former fire break. I know that dog fennel must be good for something, but I don’t know for what. It smells bad. It is of no use to pollinators. Birds don’t like it; deer won’t eat it. It is kinda the a-hole of the plant community, and it grows profusely enough to block paths. It gets 7-8 feet tall in one season. At least it doesn’t have thorns. I cut a path through on Brodnax it for our next fire run. I expect it will grow back next year.

Quail forever
After the day’s work was done, Adam Smith invited me to a meeting of a local Quail Forever meeting. People who love quail love quail with real passion. Quail used to be very common in Virginia. They are not endangered now, but there are not as many. A couple reasons for that. One is a “good” reason. There is less disturbed land. Quail thrive in early succession habitats. As our forests have matured, there is less quail habitat. The other has to do with the culture of agriculture. Used to be that farms were messier. There was a lot of tall grass and weeds along fence lines and roads. Quail like this mess. More mowers and chemical herbicides have changed that. Maybe just let it go. Sometimes doing less is better.

I have fallen & I can’t get up
One last little story. When I was working among the joe-pye and the cypress, I wore my knee-high rubber boots, since there was a lot of mud and water. There was more than I thought. I stepped onto what I though was marshy grass only to sink into water above my boots. I awkwardly stood with my cutter strapped to my shoulder as my boots filled with water. I had to laugh. I kept on thinking of that commercial, “I have fallen, and I can’t get up.” For a little while I thought that might be me.

First two pictures are the joe-pye wetlands. Next shows the storm rolling into my longleaf, followed by looking the other way at the loblolly. Last is the bald cypress on Diamond Grove. That is one of my “personal” trees. I planted it in 2007 and have tried to protect it from the vicissitudes of fortune. It is getting big enough not to need that protection. I thought the picture was cool. It has a primeval character.

 A few problems in the forest. Looks like we have some turpentine beetles. As far as I can tell, only two trees are affected, but no reason to not to react quickly. I called Adam Smith from Virginia Dept of Forestry and we will go and inspect them tomorrow. The trees affected are in the SMZ with lots of hardwood around and some distance between them and other pine trees, so I think we can control the outbreak. Will see what Adam recommends.

Otherwise things are good on the farms. We will do brown and burn in fall and winter and then plant longleaf in the quarter acre openings we made last year. Right now they are full of brush, hence the brown and burn. I took some pictures.

We will also burn under the longleaf. This is their second burning. I noticed that there was a greater variety of flowers int the burn year. Hope to get that again.

My first picture is the beetle tree. Next is one of the 1/4 acre plots were will burn and plant this winter. Picture #3 is my prickly pear and rattlesnake master, more garden for me than forestry, but interesting. Next is the longleaf-loblolly border. I assert that the natural boundary of longleaf goes exactly through my land in Freeman at exactly that stop. It’s science.

For longleaf enthusiasts, notice that the longleaf are as tall or taller than the loblolly. They were all planted at the same time, i.e. 2012. Longleaf have more variety of sizes. Some are still small and some are tall, but it is a myth that longleaf all grow slower than lobolly. IMO, site prep is the key. That area was browned and burned prior to planting and then burned 4 years later. We will burn again this late year or early next.

Last shows the longleaf stand with a shiny sumac understory. They are getting big.

Alex & I went down to the farms. Unfortunately, my cutter did not work. I tried all the mechanical skills at my disposal, i.e. I made sure there was gas and that nothing was obviously loose, and failed, so we had to spray instead of cut. That is easier physically, but less immediately satisfying. I also cannot use it everywhere. Don’t want to make my bald cypress or white oaks collateral damage, for example.

We also got to “inspect” more, and the pictures are from that.

The first picture is one of our big white oaks. I have been thinking about oak regeneration. I decided that I do not need to plant oaks. All I need do is identify patches and favor them. I started to do that by cutting the gum, poplar and red maples to allow the oaks more space and light.

When I was up at Aldo Leopold Foundation, I led a discussion on his essay “Axe in Hand,” and I have thought about it every time I make choices as the above. Leopold wrote – “I have read many definitions of what is a conservationist, and written not a few myself, but I suspect that the best one is written not with a pen but with an axe. It is a matter of what a man thinks about while chopping, or while deciding what to chop. A conservationist is one who is humbly aware that with each stroke he is writing his signature on the face of his land.”

Next picture is our open pine forests at Brodnax. Alex is in the middle for perspective. He is standing among the unattractively named dog fennel. I am not much fond of dog fennel. It is not pollinated by pollinators and it does not smell good. But it does grow fast and six feet high in a couple months.

I heard bobwhite quail the whole time I was on the Freeman place. I really don’t care that much about bobwhite per se, although I do enjoy hearing them. I care about bobwhite as an indicator species. Their abundance indicates the our land management is working.
The two pictures on the left show the open pine on Brodnax. Top is last year at this time. Bottom this year.  Next shows more of the open pine on Freeman. The last picture is a flowery slope on Brodnax. We plan ted pollinator habitat various places on the farms. We planted none of what you see in the picture. All you really need to do it burn it. The seeds and roots persist in the soil and given the opening, they burst out.

We did not stop at Diamond Grove today.

Fire encourages flowers in the fields. I notice that our Freeman place has fewer flowers than it did the season after the fire. We have plenty of wildflowers, as you can see in my pictures, but some of the patches are those we planted for pollinators. Left alone, the fields come to be dominated by brambles and sumac. These are fine in themselves, but they form monocultures.

We will burn this winter in Freeman. I hope it will be fun.

I left home at about 4:30am, so I got to Freeman in the early (ish) morning. Lots of birds and I heard bobwhite quail all over the place. I am not managing FOR quail, but I consider quail a marker species for the type of environment I am working to (re) establish, so I am glad to see and hear them.

What I want is a patchwork diversity. We have thick mostly hardwood forest in the stream management zones. We have maybe 40 bald cypress in some of the damp lands and I planted 200 more anyplace my feet got wet. We are making pine savanna over the bulk of the Freeman and Brodnax places.

There is the story of the pond covered by lily pads. It seems to happen overnight. It happens in a month, but nobody notices at all until day 28. This is how exponential factors work, and this is how the Diamond Grove is going. “Suddenly” the canopies are close and the woods are dark.

Diamond Grove is ready to thin this winter. We had canopy close a couple years ago and now it is too dark, as you can see in the picture. This thick monoculture is a legitimate way of forest management, but I am not very fond of it. Diamond Grove features five wildlife/pollinator plots. My friends in the hunt club planted pollinator habitat last year, as you can see in the pictures.

An interesting permutation on Diamond Grove is that the roads are covered with lespedeza. Lespedeza (this variety called Chinese bunch clover) was introduced by government scientists in the 1950s. These days, some people say it is invasive and want to extirpate it. I don’t know about that. Lespedeza grows where other things will not, on the forest road, for example. Quail are fond of lespedeza. It is just right for the baby quail to hide under. Lespedeza is a nitrogen fixer and it does an excellent job of holding soil. I am glad to have it on my road, but I did not plant it. The story is that one of hunt club guys was moving the brush on the road right after he came back from mowing a field of lespedeza. The seems and stems came off and rooted. As I said, I am glad to have it. Nothing else has ever been able to stabilize that road. Not native? Who the heck cares? It fills a proper niche. Given time, it will be “native.”

My friend Adam Smith just sent some pictures of our Freeman place. We are experimenting with longleaf pine restoration. To do this, we thinned all the trees to 50 basal area and then made 1/4 acre clearings in each acre. We are planting in  longleaf, creating an uneven aged stand.

It would be too much to say that it is based on the Stoddard-Neel approach – we cannot do that in Virginia at this time – but that was my inspiration. We will try to create the pine grassland ecosystem, once common in Virginia.

Philosophy of  Stoddard-Neel
Rather than a formal silvicultural system, the SNA is as much a philosophy of how a forest ecosystem — in its entirety — should be managed and nurtured while still deriving economic benefit. Inherent in a landowner or manager’s decision to practice ecological forestry is a strong land ethic and an appreciation of the multiple values of the forest ecosystem.

Logger Kathryn-Kirk McAden did a good job, as you see in the photo. I understand that the request was unusual.

Mike Raney and the hunt club might be interested to see what they are walking across.

You can never win the battle against brush & brambles, but you can hold them at bay and try to establish competing system that you think are more appropriate

Open pinelands
In my pinelands, I have two options of appropriate, and lots of other choices. The two appropriate ones are closed canopy, where they trees are so close together than nothing much grows on the ground and open woodland with grass forbs and some bushes. My preference is for the latter because I think it more ecologically balanced. Getting there is a fight.

Landscape painted by fire

In “nature” open pinelands are maintained by fire and this is ultimately how I want to manage mine. But fire is a dangerous tool. I am not competent to use it as much as I think I should. In the meantime, I depend on chemical and mechanical tools.
I spent all of yesterday and a very long day last week cutting with my brush tool and accomplished not very much. It is physically difficult work and there is more to be done than I can do. I think I will hire someone to spray the Japanese honeysuckle. They use helicopters and can get at all those parts I cannot.

My goal is to get at an open forest, as I mentioned. My longleaf experimental patch is doing well in that respect. An interesting development is sumac.

Sumac
Wrote elsewhere that sumac is nearly fireproof. It burns to the ground and comes back stronger. You can see in the first picture, we have a thicket developing. We have both shinny (winged) and staghorn sumac. The shinny are the ones making the thickets. The pines are up on top, so I don’t think they will be harmed. The sumac shades out brambles, which is good. Having patches of sumac could be good for wildlife I want to encourage, like bobwhite quail. And sumac are attractive in the fall (beautiful red) is good for bees and provides food for wildlife.What’s not to love.

Prickly pear and the rattlesnake masters
My prickly pear and rattlesnake master are thriving, as you see it the next picture. Both these are native to Virginia pinelands, but I have never seen any. Chrissy got them for me and I am trying them out.

Bald cypress
 I also did some work cutting around the bald cypress in the marshy area long side the longleaf. My friend Eric Goodman planted them at the same time (2012) as the longleaf. The biggest are around 10 feet high, but some are only about four feet. They were sandwiched under some unthinned loblolly. When we harvested the loblolly last year, they started to get a lot more sun and are doing well, but so is the competition. I helped them out but cutting back the gum and poplar. There are maybe 30 of them. Some/most are okay. They can survive with their feet wet and most others cannot.

A prairie ecosystem with trees
Next picture shows the milkweed/butterfly bush. I am trying to encourage plants like this under the pines. Next is how that goal is coming along. Last are just pretty flowers. I think they are black eyed Susan.

As a gentleman landowner, I am unaccustomed to actual work. Today was a lot of actual work in the forest.

I had some success and some not success. I cleared a couple acres of sweet gum and poplar in order to give oaks a better chance. This took two tanks of gas on my machine, i.e. a little over three hours of cutting and another hours of pilings and pulling. I think it will work.

Next I went after the gum and popular in my 2016 pine plantation. Here I ran into Japanese honeysuckle. This is a beautiful plants with a wonderful fragrance. It is also a horrible invasive. It can overwhelm, cover and kill small trees.My machine did not work well against them – too many stems, too close the ground and the vines move when you cut at them. I worked hard but accomplished little of value.

The only viable option is chemical warfare. I am going to have to spray them or maybe get someone to do it for me with a helicopter. I have around 30 acres of this 2016 pine. Not all is inundated with honeysuckle, but a lot of it is. I am not sure I can take it all on with my backpack sprayer. Actually, I am sure that I cannot. I will need to call in air support.
Also checked out the burning. The winter burn is looking good. I don’t think we lost any pines. We will need to burn a couple more times to establish a nice grass and forbs layer.
The burn from May of last year killed a couple dozen trees. It got too hot. I was very depressed when I saw it, but now with the passage of time it has become a kind of science project. I planted some longleaf under the dead trees and I am using this as one of my oak regeneration experiments.

Biochar is one of the parts of the science experiment. I have long been interested in “terra preta” in the Amazon. This is anthropogenic soil created by the natives by mixing charcoal with soil. It holds water better and produces a lot more plant life. We created some terra preta by accident. When the fire looked like it might escape, DoF pushed a line and trapped lots of wood in with dirt. It burned slowly and turned to charcoal and dirt, i.e. biochar. I will watch how it does.

My first picture shows the honeysuckle. Next shows the dead trees from the May burning, follow by the biochar heap. Picture # 4 shows the winter fire result – live trees and quick recovery. Maybe too quick. It did not burn enough. Last is some of my oak preference. I knocked down the gum, red maple, popular and sycamore anywhere near an oak. All the time I was working out there today, I was thinking of the Aldo Leopold essay “Axe in Hand.” –
“When some remote ancestor of ours invented the shovel, he became a giver; he could plant a tree. And when the axe was invented, he became a taker; he could chop it down. Whoever owns land has thus assumed, whether he knows it or not, the divine functions of creating and destroying plants.”

Feeling overwhelmed today. Visiting the farms. So much to do. I have an idea what I want, but there is so much land and so little me.

I know this happens to me every spring and I will get over it very soon. But just now I am down. I also picked off two ticks. Generally my Repel works to keep those little nasty things off, but it seems a season of numerous ticks. Maybe all the rain.

Some of my wildflower/pollinator flowers are coming up. My plan was/is to plant patches in hopes they will spread. The seeds are very expensive and I could not cover all the territory even if seeds were free. Give it a month.

I am staying down south tonight. Tomorrow I will use my power tool to clear around some white oaks, so that I can help with oak regeneration on the Brodnax place. I identified the places last time and now I have to do the work. I dis like the power tool because it makes so much noise, but it sure is faster. I can clean off several acres with the tool. With my hand tools I can maybe do 10%.

My first picture is one of my “wildflower nodes”. I don’t know what flowers those are, but the are nice. I planted the seeds in handfuls of dirt. It seems to have worked. I have lots of those pods around. Hope they proliferate. Next shows the problem with longleaf. One is a longleaf in the grass stage. The other is actually grass. It is hard to tell the difference visually. If you touch them, they feel very different, but it is hard to find your new longleaf. Picture #4 are the longleaf now in going into their 7th year. The new growth is nice. Last is my prickly pear and rattlesnake master. They are growing.