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December planting day-by-day

December & January make up the planting season for longleaf pine.  We planted about 3000 in December of last year, another 3334 this December and will get another 3000 into the ground in January next year.

The kids planted most of the trees last December and will do again in January, but Chrissy and I planted the December 2019 tranche.  It took a whole week plus one day. I picked up the trees from Bodenhammer in North Carolina on Friday, December 6.  It is a long drive, and even though I got them early in the morning, I still had only the afternoon to start.
Winter is the time of short days.  The sun goes down a little before 5pm and it doesn’t get light again until 7am.   We also had a couple days of cold rain.  On the plus side, the rain makes the ground softer and so easier to punch the Dipple bar, but it also makes it harder to see, harder to get around and cold rain makes the work more miserable. I worked alone until Chrissy came down on Tuesday.  It was great to have her, nearly doubled productivity, and I just liked having her with me.

Below are notes from the planting days.
 
December 6-9

On my way to pick up the first tranche of this year’s longleaf. I stopped off at Freeman to check out the fire results. It is odd. Some places burned a lot and others not at all. It seems like there is dry grass that should have burned easily next to burned areas.

Will get my longleaf from Aaron Bodenhamer & Louie Bodenhamer, BTW. We got all the longleaf you see in the photos are from them.

The fire top killed brambles, but did not burn them away, so it is going to be hard going planting in some of the patches. I am going to be planting all next week and I will push through, but I will use my cutter to make easier paths for the kids when they come to plant. I want them to have good memories. They can get used to the brambles gradually, as I did.

Burning is good, but it always scares me. I inspected my longleaf most carefully. Some of the needles are singed and will fall off. I checked for the buds on some of the lower branches, figuring that that was most likely to be killed and that higher ones would be better. I found that middle was still green and will be growing, so I assume the tops are good.

Longleaf is fire adapted. The needles singe, but when they heat up they release humidity that protects the terminal buds. The buds are what count. If the buds are alive, the tree will grow again

My grass stage longleaf also have green centers. I might lose a few, but I think most will be okay.

First picture is the green center of one of the longleaf branches. Next is the burn-over of the 2012 pines and after that some of the grass stage nearby. Penultimate shows the burning under 1996 loblolly and the grassy hills. I planted some clover on the fire line bare dirt. I know that is not “native” but it is pollinator habitat and generally a good plant for that purpose. I scattered some of the native seeds that I gathers onto the burned areas. I got a lot of rattlesnake master seeds and scattered them. The flowers are not showy, but the bees and butterflies love them. A lot of the native plants come in when you burn. If you burn it they will come. I will plant longleaf in the clearings among the loblolly. Have to push through those brambles.

First planting afternoon

My imagined (wished for) capacity to plant trees is very much greater than my real power. I picked up 3000 longleaf seedlings this morning and got to Freeman around 2pm. I planted steady until almost 5pm. I got around 250 planted.

My challenge, beside being old and slow, is that the fire burned the ground but did not knock down the brambles. It really slows me down when I hit the bramble patches, but even the dog fennel, also often still standing. is a problem. Complain, complain. The weather also is not going to cooperate tomorrow or Friday. But there is nothing to do but go one. I used my Marriott points to stay 5 nights and six days down here, so I can get a lot done, if not all.

I have scouted out the better, i.e. less full of bramble, places to plant. I am going to hit them first. I can take my cutter to the less pleasant places and make paths.
Chrissy will come and help starting on Wednesday, so I may get er done despite the problems.

My first picture shows Aaron Bodenhamer. They grow the longleaf I use. Very friendly people. Next are the siblings of my pines on the Bodenhammer place. My few thousand trees are a drop in that bucket. We plant more than 2 billion trees every year in the U.S. South. Last are some of the pines I planted, in a fairy non-bramble section. If it all that clear, I would be much happier. I am planting them four step apart, but only where they are not directly under the loblolly. I am scattering a few in good places within the stand.

December 11

Chrissy has come down to help plant pine trees, so my productivity will double. Poor girl has blisters on her hands now, but will soldier on tomorrow anyway. I no longer get blisters.
Tomorrow will be a good day, sunny but cool. Chrissy also brought the cutter. I wacked a bunch of brambles. I didn’t have to do a very complete job, just enough to make it easy to get through, so it was well worth the time.

First picture is Chrissy wearing the blaze (hunting season) with the dibble bars. Next is me at the end of the day, followed by sunset on the farms, way to early this time of year. We went for supper at Cracker Barrel. You feel very young when you eat at Cracker Barrel, since the average customer age must be more than that proverbial four score and seven.

December 12
Chrissy’s help is helping get the planting back on track. If it does not rain all day on Friday, we should be able to finish by Saturday evening – 3000 little longleaf pine in the ground.

December 15

We went into overtime (extra day) but Chrissy and I got the trees planted – 3000 longleaf. We planted in openings and in the clearings on the west side of the property.
Google maps are great. I could track where I was in the woods. On the ground, it is hard to see where the clearing start and how to get from one to the others. The Google maps really helped. I think we got them all covered, but I need to get the ground truth. I am sure we missed some.

I constantly marvel at how things have improved. Some years ago I bought a Garmin to help navigate. It had primitive graphics and it was not very precise. And it was not cheap. Now we get a much better picture for free. We live in the best of times. This is just one example.

We planted four steps apart in the clearings and in under planting corridors. The kids will be along for the next planting. I am going to cut paths in some of the brambles so that the kids don’t suffer so much. The brambles were the worst, really slowed us down.

It was very nice today, around 50 and sunny, but Friday was miserable. It rained all day and into Saturday morning. The rain is the excuse for needing that extra day.

Other pictures are Chrissy and I at El Ranchero, a Mexican restaurant in Emporia. I really love being in my woods, but Emporia does not have a lot of things I like. As far as I could find, there is no place to get a good craft beer.

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What is the longest project you have ever worked on?

What is the longest project you have ever worked on?

My longest project is … me. I have been working on that literally my whole life, but the crystallizing moment. When I was going off to college, my father asked me what I wanted to be. Asking me a question like that is like trying to get a drink out of a fire hydrant. I recall telling him that I did not when I came to die discover that I had not lived. Of course, young men don’t talk that way. I didn’t either and when I went off to college, I had not yet read Thoreau for that cool quotation. What I really wanted back then was just to get a well-paying job where I didn’t have to work too hard. But looking back, it is what I wished I had said, what I should have said, and it was the start of my lifelong project. We all want to lead meaningful lives, but what does that mean?

It is actually very simple, if not easy. I am not going to lay out criteria, since each life is different. Everybody needs to find what is important for them but let me give you an example of a good life. There are many to choose from, but my example is someone I knew well, but did not grow up knowing.

Since I cannot be objective with my own parents, let me take Chrissy’s father as my example of a good man and a good life. Arnold Johnson was an ordinary guy. There is great nobility in being an ordinary guy, even if we do not often recognize it. He grew up in Wisconsin around friends and relatives. Worked hard and lived in a green and peaceful part of the world. The Driftless Area of Wisconsin is one of nature’s gifts to all who live or visit there.

When the call came to leave and to serve his country, he did so gladly, landing at Normandy and driving a tank across France with Patton’s army until he was severely wounded and sent to recuperate in England. He returned home after the war, married a wonderful woman, Pearl Olsen, and raised a family on the dairy farm where he had grown up, always providing for his kids and serving his community.

I knew him as an old man. Chrissy was child number six, born when Arnold was already forty-five, so he was about my age now when I met him (maybe not that old).

Arnold & Pearl Johnson retired from farming and move to the town of Holmen, right across form the Lutheran Church that was central to their lives. What impressed me about Chrissy’s parents was their rich social life. I don’t think you can have that anymore. People move too much. They saw friends and relatives that they had know for more than half a century. Arnold took “meals on wheels” to “old people” and was a valuable part of his community almost to the end of his long life.

He was mourned and remembered by many when he died and many more were grateful that he had lived.

The measure of a man is that simple. If lots of people are grateful that you lived, some not even aware BTW like my kids, you have had a successful life. This is available to everybody. It is simple but not always easy.

So this is my life project: to be a good man and lead a good life. If when I shuffle off this mortal coil, if I can be as successful as Arnold, I will be content.

This is my penultimate StoryWorth & this is a good question for the end. I think I will make up my own question for the last one. Not sure what that should be.

My first picture is Arnold & his older brother, Julian. Next is Arnold with his tank. Next is the Johnson Farm in Long Coulee. A coulee, BTW, is a long narrow valley caused by melting of glaciers. The glaciers skipped western Wisconsin, but their effects did not. Picture # 4 is Chrissy’s family. Chrissy is in the middle, stunningly beautiful. I always wondered how I was so lucky. And finally Pearl, Arnold, Chrissy, Espen & Alex.

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After burn December 2019

On my way to pick up the first tranche of this year’s longleaf. I stopped off at Freeman to check out the fire results. It is odd. Some places burned a lot and others not at all. It seems like there is dry grass that should have burned easily next to burned areas.

The fire top killed brambles, but did not burn them away, so it is going to be hard going planting in some of the patches. I am going to be planting all next week and I will push through, but I will use my cutter to make easier paths for the kids when they come to plant. I want them to have good memories. They can get used to the brambles gradually, as I did.

Burning is good, but it always scares me. I inspected my longleaf most carefully. Some of the needles are singed and will fall off. I checked for the buds on some of the lower branches, figuring that that was most likely to be killed and that higher ones would be better. I found that middle was still green and will be growing, so I assume the tops are good.

Longleaf is fire adapted. The needles singe, but when they heat up they release humidity that protects the terminal buds. The buds are what count. If the buds are alive, the tree will grow again

My grass stage longleaf also have green centers. I might lose a few, but I think most will be okay.

First picture is the green center of one of the longleaf branches. Next is the burn-over of the 2012 pines and after that some of the grass stage nearby. Penultimate shows the burning under 1996 loblolly and the grassy hills. I planted some clover on the fire line bare dirt. I know that is not “native” but it is pollinator habitat and generally a good plant for that purpose. I scatters some of the native seeds that I gathers onto the burned areas. I will plant longleaf in the clearings among the loblolly. Have to push through those brambles.
My last picture are rude motorcycle guys. they parked their bikes blocking the pumps. They were hanging around inside the Pilot. I was “scandalized” but didn’t have the inclination or courage to confront them. There were other pumps available and I filled up there.
Reminds me of the joke about the truck driver and the bike gang.

A truck driver is having his lunch when a biker gang comes in and starts to harass him. They take some of his food, spill his coffee. He just finishes, pays for his food and leaves.
The lead biker says to the waitress, Not much of a man, is he?” The waitress replies, “Not much of a driver either. He just backed over a bunch of motorcycles.”

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The stupidest things

What was the stupidest thing you have ever done? My StoryWorth for this time.

This is a hard one. I do stupid things all the time, but I often adapt and often make the dumb decision turn out better than an initial smart one. My philosophy is not to make great smart decisions to start but make lots of contingent ones and adjust until I come out right. You might call it sweet serendipity directed.

Generally speaking, you get either a good result or a great story to tell.

Hitchhiking with no plan
One of stupid thing I did was try to hitchhike to Florida on spring break, with no map and only $15. It made a good story that I have written about elsewhere. Suffice it here to say that I ended up sleeping in a graveyard in Alabama before high tailing it home. That was stupid, but I was only eighteen, so I can blame youth.

Streaking
Another youthful indiscretion was when a group of friends and I went streaking. I could never be appointed to the Supreme Court, now that youthful fun would be reinterpreted as something horrible and oppressive. Take that off my list of ambitions. It was in style back in the early 1970s. They even had a song about it.

There was a joke about two old ladies that decide to streak through the nursing home. They run past a couple of old guys on the porch. “Who was that,” says one old man. Responds the other, “I don’t know, but their clothes sure were wrinkled.”

International travel with no plan
When I was a few years older, I saved enough money for a flight to Germany. I had to stay a whole month, since it was a charter flight. Otherwise, I think I would have gone home, since when I got feet on the ground. I had one of those “oh shit” moments. I had a map, but not much of a plan. I spoke bad German and soon found I didn’t have enough money. I hitchhiked around, so I kinda ended up where the flow took me, sometimes sleeping in hostels, sometimes on the ground. I lost about fifteen pounds, since I economized on food. Still tried a lot of German beer, however. It was often cheaper than Coca-Cola and it had calories I needed (liquid bread), so it was okay. I got lots of good stories.

A fool & his money are soon parted
I had a few recoverable financial stupid mistakes. One that depressed me for a while was when I bought a whole-life policy. I was in grad school and I thought it was part of being a responsible adult. I was dumb. I didn’t understand what I was doing. I got a lot of coverage and a “savings plan” for very little money. What I did was take out a policy loan greater than the cash-value of the policy. Had I died, my father and sister would have got a good payoff, but the insurance company knew the actuarial odds. It took me a while to pay it off so that I could close the account. I suspect that sequence was part of their business plan and I think it was dishonest of them, even if I signed freely. A young person w/o dependents doesn’t need life insurance at all. Presumably some people would have been sad had I died, but nobody would have suffered financially and that is the only reason for insurance. It was a good lesson for me, however. A fool and his money are soon parted.

I coulda been somebody
I also have a financial missed opportunity. As soon as we paid off our student loans, I got a Charles Schwab 1 account. In those benighted days, you still had to call to make trades and I was thinking of my first purchase of common stock. I considered Microsoft & GE, but then I read a book about investing, learned about book value and ratios, so I went with IBM. This was in 1991. GE did well in the next ten years and Microsoft went through the roof. IBM underperformed the market. I feel bad now. I just figured it out. With the IBM, I just about broke even before I generally got out of individual stocks in 1999. Had I invested instead in Microsoft, I would have $88,235.23, but whose counting? Of course, such great gains probably would have made me arrogant and less prudent. Likely I would have taken more risks and lost all that money and more.

Love of the land
I have often said that buying forest land was an objectively stupid decision, but one I was glad to make and glad to have made. It was stupid to mortgage the house to buy land in a place I had never been before to work in a business I did not understand because I liked forests. I say objectively stupid, because subjectively it was one of the best decisions I ever made, something I long wanted to do and had thought about literally for decades, almost a lifetime, and it worked out.

Into the desert of Iraq
A lot of people told me that volunteering to serve in Iraq was stupid. I suppose it depends on the premises & criteria. I thought then and think now that it was the right decision. I got a lot of shit at the time, but none from anybody whose opinion mattered to me. Of course, a few moved from the “care about” to “not care about” because of giving me shit.

Ignoring life-threatening disease
I dodged the bullet with a stupid decision to ignore the pain in my leg that turned out to be peripheral artery disease. I limped around for a year and it eventually got better, but the doctor told me that it was the kind of thing that could cause you to lose a leg or even kill you. This is a kind of non-decision/decision. You cannot go crazy every time you get a little pain. I didn’t recognize the categorical difference. Eventually something will kill me. It will probably unexpected and I hope that it is. Better to go that way, before you have to worry about it too much.

Sometimes the bear gets you
There are bears prowling my land. I have never seen one, but I have seen tracks and the hunters capture their pictures on game cameras. One of my joys working on my land is not working. I like to relax in my folding chair, drinking a beer and dozing off before the next shift of work. I imagine the bear coming up behind, catching me unawares and swatting me. Not that this happens often, or ever, but I can imagine it. I told the guys at the hunt club that if something like that happens, they not tell people I was probably taking a nap after a beer. No, they should spread that story that I fought that bear, almost drove him off, and succumbed only after a protracted struggle.

That is the way to be remembered.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

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Burning Day 2

We finished our burning today in the clearings and under the loblolly. I will pick up the first 3000 longleaf seedlings on Sunday and plant them over the next week. I figure I can plant 600 trees each day. The professionals can do thousands, but they are skilled, besides being younger and stronger. The kids will help with the next tranche.

Espen helped with the burn today. He did a good job and persisted. Burning is fun, but it is also hard work. Adam Smith plus two other DoF guys did a lot of the heavy lifting, but Espen and I did a day’s work too. Glad to have Espen’s help and I think his first burn was good for him too.

I think this was good fire. It rained on Sunday, so the ground was damp and it cool with a decent wind. The wind pushed the fire, but the damp and cool protected the soil. I hope that it did not kill too many of the trees I want to keep and I don’t think it did.

We planted some longleaf under the loblolly last year. In theory, they can survive the fire. I examines some (see picture) and they seem green in the bud area.

We are burning for a few reasons. It is important for the southern pine ecology and we want to further the longleaf transition. We also want to encourage southern grassland in both in the widely spaced pine and in grass and forb in patches and under the power lines. The third picture shows Espen setting that part off. First picture is me and a little longleaf. Next is Espen and me. #4 is just a kind of artistic picture of the fire and last is a burned over section

Other pictures show the fire in process and burned over longleaf stands. Last picture is my prickly pear. I burned about it, so the fire was not too hot. I think it likely will survive. They are native to Virginia pine forests and they do survive fires, but since I have only one, I thought it wiser to give it special treatment.

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Burning day 1

We took the opportunity to burn a section of the farm this afternoon, only about eight acres, so Adam Smith and I did it ourselves, although the bulldozer was nearby freshening up lines, so could have been easily available.

This section is unusually easy to burn correctly, since it is bordered by steams and a fairly wide dirt road. I also had laid out and cut paths, so we got it all done except for the mop up in just over an hour.

The wind whipped up a little, creating spectacular but short-lived bursts of flame. I tried to take pictures, but since I was also starting the fires and managing them, it was not that easy. I did get a few. Also took pictures of the pre-burn.

We will burn the rest tomorrow. Espen will help.

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What was your life like in the 1970s?

What was your life like in the 1970s? Another StoryWorth

I am generally satisfied with the economy and society of today because I spent my early adult life in the 1970s. From the bottom of a hole like that, everything is up. The 1970s were objectively a bad time – the energy crisis, stagflation, fall of Saigon, double digit inflation, long lines at gas stations, Iranian hostage crisis, dollar weakness … Baby Boomers like me had no experience with hard times. Our parents told us about the Great Depression, but that seemed like ancient history, certainly a different America.
A messed up decade
To clarify, what we call “the 70s” didn’t fit neatly into the decade. More appropriate to mark the period from the start of the energy crisis in 1973 until the economy really started to work well again and American confidence returned about ten years later. 1973 is also a convenient starting time for me too, since I graduated from HS that year and that is where I will start my story.
Graduating HS
My mother died the year before, but my aunt Florence attended my graduation along with my father. She was proud also to be a Bay View graduate and commented that the music was more triumphant when she graduated. I responded with youthful ignorance that times were so rough for us. She pointed out that she graduated HS in 1939. 1939 was not an auspicious year.
Milwaukee was still an industrial city in 1973. We had the industrial pollution to prove it, and we had the jobs. Unemployment was a little higher than it is today, but guys like me had a better chance in those days than now.
With a mind that’s weak and a back that’s strong
Strong young men did many of the jobs that machines do today. Lack of experience was no disadvantage when success depended only on the capacity to wrestle heavy, dirty and/or hot stuff from one place to another. In fact, ignorance was an advantage. We loaded bags that weighed 70-94 pounds at the cement company. You were almost sure to develop some sort of work-related injury, usually a bad back, if you did this work more than a few years. The work kinda chewed up each new generation of young men. This and the 12-hour days meant that fresh guys like me didn’t have to compete with most men and with no women at all. Call it strong male privilege. The work was amazingly hard, but I made good money and got 20-40 hours of overtime every week, so it was like packing two summers’ work into one. I earned and saved enough money to be content and comfortable over the school year. I still worked in the fast-food and hospitality industries during the school year, but did not depend on that income.
State colleges
In fall, I started at University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point (UWSP). I didn’t take school very seriously, and neither did most of the people I knew. Our problem was lack of preparation and available beer. Most of us were first generation college students, but with family beer drinking traditions that went back to the middle ages. Drinking age in Wisconsin in those days was 18. That is too young, and we were too stupid to drink responsibly. I learned to sing drinking songs in English & German (actually the one song In heaven there is no beer/ Im Himmel gibt’s kein Bier), but my academic mind was wasted.
I didn’t get my act together unit well into my second year. By that time, I got a girlfriend, who helped civilize me, and most of my drinking friends had left school, voluntarily or at the urgent request of school authorities. Not sure how I survived, but I survived, started to study and started get good grades. I believe in redemption. I still graduated on time, four years after I started.
Water finds its level
UWSP was good for me. I had the test scores good enough to go to a “more competitive” school, but not the habits, skills or culture needed for success in school. Those things I learned at UWSP. Thanks. In the course of learning how to go to college, I decided that I liked it so much that I never wanted to leave college. I did have to leave Stevens Point, however, and go to the bigger and more sophisticated University of Wisconsin-Madison for graduate school. UW was the best university in Wisconsin & non-Wisconsin institutions were largely precluded by my low budget and abysmal grades left over from my time of troubles.
Dreams of an academic life
My dream was to be a history professor, ancient history. It took me a couple years to know for sure that was not a practical option. Ancient history was not a growth field and all the good jobs were taken. I was a little more than a decade late. Universities had expanded a lot in the 1960s to accommodate students like me. They needed professors of everything and a guy graduating with a PhD in 1965 was golden. Lots of students piled in to fill the gap. The Vietnam war made it worse. Students avoiding the draft wanted to stay in school as long as they could; student deferment kept the out of the draft. This led to an unusual boom in advanced degrees. The first ones out took all the jobs and quickly locked up the supply, and since they were not much older than me, I couldn’t wait them out. I ended the decade with a MA in ancient history. I could read Greek & Latin, but otherwise nothing for employers might want, and Greek & Latin were useful in a very narrow set of circumstances. In fact, an MA in ancient history was worse than nothing even in a normal job market, and I was heading into the worst job market since World War II.
I figure whenever you’re down and out. The only way is up.
I am not saying the 1970s were all bad. I was healthy and young, and got to experience all those “firsts” of a young man. Nike invented “waffle stompers” in the 1970s and I took up running, which I enjoyed for decades after. There was good music, some good TV programs and they made “Star Wars” & the Star Trek movie. Most important, I became an educated man in that decade, even if my erudition was not immediately useful for getting a job. Besides that, however, the 1970s sucked. On the plus side, it was a good immunization against hard times in the future. It has been up ever since.
I Don’t have many electronic pictures from the 1970s life. My first picture I took a few days ago. Picture # 2 is my father on my UWSP graduation day. Next is me lifting weights in the back yard, maybe summer of 1974. Picture # 4 is my old dog Sam, our dog of the 1970s. Last picture is my sister, me and her then boyfriend Joe. She wisely got rid of him.

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Land w/o people

Chrissy’s parents were dairy farmers and the family farmed in Wisconsin since their first ancestors arrived from Norway in the 1850s. She can trace her ancestry back in Norway to the 1500s. They were farmers there too at least that far back. It ended in this generation. Farming is hard work and it is easier to make money off the farm. And the economy has changed forever. We can grow more on fewer acres with a lot fewer people.

This is good for general prosperity. Yet we lose a lot when too many of us lose our connection with the land, with productive land. Visiting parks and hiking in the mountains is great. It is great to be IN the natural world, but not the same as being OF the natural world. That requires (IMO at least) a steady and interactive relationship with the land, one that persists for years.

I don’t know how we can achieve or maintain this in our changing world, but I think it is important to try.

As Aldo Leopold wrote, “There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.”

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Notes from longleaf academy

There was a lot more to the Longleaf Academy than I will report. This is not a summary, but rather my take-aways. This was the first Longleaf Academy in Virginia, but there were literally a hundred before. 2600 people have graduated from “longleaf 101.” I attended one in Georgia a couple years ago. This one was different in specifics, but similar in the basics.
More longleaf growing
First the good news. We (longleaf advocates) are succeeding in bringing longleaf back from the edge of the abyss. Longleaf today is the second most planted species in the USA. About 1.5 million longleaf seedings were planted last year in Virginia (and I understand 60-70 million in the USA total). There is nothing like the extensive longleaf ecosystem that covered southeast North America when the first settlers arrived. Longleaf ecosystems will never again be as extensive as they were and it will take many years to restore something even approximating the full-complement of species, but it is a good start. `
Only 200 Virginia native longleaf survived in 2000. From this base, Virginia Department of Forestry has been gathering seeds and last year the Garland Gray Nursery produced 126,000 native Virginia seedlings. That is still not enough to satisfy demand in Virginia, and most of these seedlings go to official plantings, not individual landowners, but it is getting there.
Longleaf on the Virginia piedmont
Let me voice an apostate opinion. The trees I plant on my land are from North Carolina. I am unconcerned about the “native” factor. My thinking is that nature doesn’t recognize that line separating Virginia from North Carolina. Ecological conditions matter. Virginia has roughly three regions: tidewater/coastal plain, piedmont & mountains. There are subtle differences in climate and more significant ones in soils and topography. My land is in the Virginia piedmont, less than fifteen miles north of the North Carolina border. I can drive 100 miles south along I-85 and not see significant differences, but If I drive 50 miles east along US 58, conditions are very noticeable different. My land features more of the clay soils of the piedmont than the sandy ones found on the tidewater. Conventional wisdom held that longleaf prefers sandy soils because they were usually found in sandy soil, but they also thrive in heavier clay soils. My own longleaf are a testament to that. Maybe they are found mostly in sandy soils is just because sandy soils were not good for agriculture, so they left them alone.
My part of the Virginia piedmont is more like the adjacent North Carolina piedmont than it is like the Virginia tidewater, where the current crop of native Virginia longleaf come from. Botanists tell us that the northern subspecies of longleaf pine grew from the Neuse River to just south of the James River. These North Carolina trees are native to my land as far as I am concerned.
The piedmont longleaf pine ecology must be different from that of the coastal plain for a variety of reasons. Besides topography and soils, the ground vegetation is different. The classic coastal plain longleaf system features wiregrass, for example. Wiregrass grows naturally in no part of Virginia. It was never part of our pine savanna. Ours would have featured bluestem and lots of transitional plants like broom sedge. I observe on my land sumac and brambles that seem much less common on the coastal plain. The piedmont longleaf ecology was likely less purely longleaf and more likely mixed more with shortleaf, loblolly and oak. We just don’t really know.
Burning is not a disturbance; the disturbance is suppression of fire.
Something not seen for 300 years and maybe something new
One of the exciting things for me about growing longleaf on the Virginia piedmont is that nobody really knows what it will become. I planted pollinator habitat, but w/o much success, but nature picked up the slack. The area under the electrical wires is a great seed bank and has/is providing all my land needs. All we need do is burn it periodically and we will soon have a beautiful northern pine savanna. It is what we have now is some pockets.
Some longleaf natural factors
Longleaf cones are big, and they take a couple years to develop. They are not serotinous, i.e. they do not require fire to open. This is an important indicator of the tree’s habit. Trees like jack pines & lodgepole pines have serotinous cones. They open after hot fires that have killed most of the trees in the stand. Longleaf is adapted to regular but cooler fires. Fire rarely kills mature longleaf. Longleaf regeneration is irregular, very heavy in some years, almost none in others. The seeds are big and do not fall far from the tree. 71% of the seeds fall within 65 feet of the parent tree. They fall in November and germinate right away, sending down roots during the cooler, wetter but rarely freezing southern winters. All this contrasts with loblolly. Loblolly is a prolific seeder every year. The seeds are light and carried long distances by the wind and they germinate in the spring of the next year.
Aspects of longleaf management
Ad Platt advised that we plant longleaf tight, 600-700+/acre. This is different from specifications I heard and read about before. I was aware of the disagreement about how thick to plant loblolly but thought that it was settled that we should plant fewer longleaf per acre. His logic was that you can put them in tight and cut back later, but it is harder to add more if you don’t have enough.
We have been planting at around 500/acre and I thought that was tight. As Big Woods, they planted at around 600. If you plant around 600/acre that means that you plant one tree every four steps (at least four steps for me). The picture of the longleaf plantation shows 500/acre planting at about ten years.
Longleaf has denser wood than loblolly and one reason is because it grows slower, at least at first. Longleaf grow significantly slower than loblolly and are not as valuable as pulp. At about 20 years, longleaf & loblolly will be about the same size, but by then they will have missed the first thinning for pulp. That is in ordinary or poor soils. Longleaf is well adapted to poorer soils. Loblolly will outcompete longleaf in better soils, since it responds better to fertilization. Longleaf is not competitive with loblolly in the pulp or fiber market.
Longleaf has better economic value than loblolly in that it is more likely to produce saw timber and a lot more likely to produce poles. Poles are the most valuable use for pines. That is a long-term investment, however. Poles are harvested when they are around 45 years old. It is important not fertilize or thin in the years immediately before harvesting for polls. It is important to have tighter rings at the end.
Speaking of harvesting, for ordinary timber trees can get too big. Really big logs don’t fit into the processing machines and so are worth less than slightly smaller ones.
Pine straw can be a big source of income for longleaf pine growers. Ad Platt said that you can make as much as $200-300 an acre every year, more than the annualized timber sales. I have mixed feelings about this. Raking needles means a closed canopy. The big advantage of longleaf ecology is that the open canopy allows a lot of diversity on the ground. The needles also carry the fire necessary for the total ecosystem health. Ad Platt says that you can gather needles in moderation, not raking by picking them up with pitchforks taking some leaving others. He calls it lifting and flipping. I still am not convinced.
Southern pine beetle
Southern pine beetle is the most destructive native pest in southern pine forests. They are endemic, usually killing only weakened trees, but they can break out and kill healthy trees too.
Fortunately, the beetles have not been very active in recent decades. From 1960-1990, there were major outbreaks every 5-7 years. There have not been any big outbreaks in Virginia in more than 20 years. There are lot of theories about why.
Genetics have improved. The new generation of pine trees grow faster and stronger. This allows trees to mount a more aggressive defense. They push out sap and resin that kills the beetles. Another factor is forest fragmentation. This is usually a bad thing, but it does make it harder for the beetles to act.
Maybe the biggest factor is spacing. Trees are planted less densely and thinned earlier. The beetles are not that mobile and the farther they need to do, the less likely they are to be successful. The way the beetle works it that a female establishes on a tree and sends out pheromones that attract males. The more distance between trees, the more the wind can disperse pheromones and confuse the bugs.
We also did field trips to Garland Gray nursery and to the Piney Woods preserve, owned by TNC, where they are managing for the red cockaded woodpecker. The red cockaded woodpecker prefers to nest in longleaf more than 70 years old, but they will nest in big loblolly, as you can see in one of the pictures. We also went to the Big Woods state forest, where they are planting longleaf.
Pictures – the first picture shows cones at Garland Gray. Next is Bobby Clontz talking about his work at Piney Grove. Bobby has more on the ground experience with pine savanna and prescribed burning than anybody else in Virginia. Picture # 3 is a RCW nest side. After that is an example of longleaf underplanting. In the shade, they stay in the grass stage for a long time. That one is seven years old. After than is a “Sonderegger pine”. This is a hybrid between a longleaf and loblolly. That one you see is only a year old, less since it spouted this year. It grows very fast, but w/o strong wood and with little resistance to fire. Speaking of fire, the picture after that shows some ten year old longleaf harmed by fire. Longleaf are not immune. The stand had a lot of Chinese lespedeza. That burns very hot, too hot on that day. The picture after that shows a longleaf “forest” that had no site preparation. They just let it grow. This situation is good for wildlife, but not so much for timber. The last picture is a longleaf plantation – ten years old, 600/acre.

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Leopold landscapes

Aldo Leopold Foundation is asking people to talk about their encounters with Leopold’s ideas in 500 words or less. This is my contribution.

My high school biology teacher introduced me to Aldo Leopold. I don’t recall that it made much an impression on me. I went to college in Stevens Point & Madison, Wisconsin and spent a lot of time in Leopold landscapes. His influence on me was subliminal and indirect, drawn from the places he lived and worked (Leopold designed parts of the Wisconsin Arboretum) and from people who knew him, likely some people who knew him personally. After all, I was at the University of Wisconsin less than thirty years after the publication of “Sand County Almanac,” but I didn’t think much about Aldo Leopold specifically.
It turns about that Leopold’s effect on my personal and spiritual ecology needed time to manifest, decades as it turned out. In my work as a U.S. diplomat, I always made a special effort to get to know local environments and meet conservation leaders. We designed public diplomacy programs about environment in Brazil, Norway and Poland, where I was assigned, and my contributions always had elements of Leopold’s thought, but – sorry to repeat again – w/o a conscious component.
I always wanted to have my own forest land and finally got the opportunity in 2005. I now have 435 acres of land in southern Virginia. Owning that much forest land is not common for guys like me, ones that do not inherit land or have other background in land management. I was a professional in the Foreign Service, not the Forest Service. When people asked me why I did what I was doing, I found myself talking about Aldo Leopold’s land ethic.
It had been decades since I had read “Sand County Almanac,” and I had long since lost track of my old copy. Was I was getting it right? I bought a new copy and got reacquainted with Aldo Leopold and with my younger self. The reunion was good.
Leopold’s “land ethic” is both simple and profound. We all live in the natural world and should be mindful of our choices, action and inaction. Things tend to improve the biotic communities on the land are good and those that harm are bad.
I apply Leopold’s wisdom on my own land every time I set foot on it. His “Axe in Hand” essay is my special favorite. As president of the Virginia Tree Farm Foundation and board member of the Forest History Society, I spread the word to others. In Virginia, we are developing a landscape management program to encompass our tree farms on the ecosystem level. I had a lot of input into that, and Leopold had a lot of input into me.
As Aldo Leopold says, land ethics are written on the land and informed by what the land tells us. I have been developing, continually developing, my own specific land ethic. I integrate the biotic and human communities related to my land.Most of all, I use the Leopold method: observe – participate – reflect – observe … It works.