Wood lot harvesting

[gmcooper]

Not sure what is driving it or the timing but there are a lot of wood lots in my area getting cut hard the past couple weeks. One large landowner usually select cuts pine every few years but this past week they have been cutting everything that grows. Lots of hard wood pulp leaving along with chips. This lot is on major road so posting would not be an issue an a few weeks. A couple other wood lots in the area have been cut very hard as well. I know mud season is coming but with lumber not moving and paper mills shutting down or cutting way back wood can't be bringing much. Spent several afternoons the past week working near a major road and volume of log and chip trailers was amazing. Lots of maple and oak in 8' lenghts. Several potential sugar bushes bit the dust this winter.
Anyone else seeing this trend?

[Flat47]

I hear ya. Everything I hear, too, is that the market is way down. Just like you said - mills closing and curtailing. I think some motivation may be desperate people looking for money, and/or desperate loggers looking for money. Seems like as times get harder, so does the logging. Lots of poor quality logging operations going. I'm tired of seeing it. Thing is, it's their land, not mine, so they can do with it as they want. AND, (mostly) it's within the law. Unless they muck up a stream, steal the wood, or don't pay for what's cut, the hard cutting is mostly legal. That's a real shame.

Sure Maine has some tough logging laws (and law enforcement), but the education is really lacking. Not many think about what a woodlot may be worth in ten more years, especially if they'd consider multiple use, like sugaring, cross county skiing, etc. All that pays now and then.

I could keep ranting, but I know I'm preaching to the choir here. I know thinning and harvesting are good in specific applications, so hopefully no one is offended.

[KenWP]

There are close to 50 trucks a day drive past my place loaded with hardwood logs. They must come out of Vermont as I am only 8 miles from the border and they show up on the highway in Stanstead. What I haven't figured out is I have never seen a empty truck driving south.

[Bucket Head]

I see the same thing around here. There is a large wooded area near where I work that has been logged non stop for months now. Pretty soon it will just be a large underbrush area. I could'nt begin to guess how many maples went out of there.

Everybody is just peddaling whatever they have, for whatever they can get for it. All you can do is shake your head in disbelief.

Due to last seasons fuel oil screwing, many folk's got woodburner's,...and chainsaws. Then they looked at their front yards and decided to cut all the tree's down. Now, where beautiful maple tree's once stood, they have an impressive collection of stumps. It took decades, and centuries for some of them to grow that big. Then in a few minutes of sawing, all was wiped out.

Unbeleivable, and unbelievably sad at the same time.

Steve

[markcasper]

Our 42 acre woods was put out on bids in December after the forester marked it in November. We did not recieve 1 bid, along with 7 of 9 landowners not recieving one either. It is bad. We did have one millowner approach us in January. He went back, looked at the woods and said noone would be interested and that there was not enough big stuff marked.

I assumed he was referring to some of our bigger maples, thats what he had his eye on. We did not discuss that, but I did tell him what I grossed per tap last year. He outright told me that for that kind of $$$ over 50 years, you'd be further ahead to make syrup.

[TapME]

Mark, the yards here are full but the trucks keep going by the house here in the Falls at a clip of 50 to 100 a day. Its a mix between 10 and 16 wheelers. I have seen in the last 4 months is amazing. Just on my ride from the fall to South Paris there are 4 active yards now and 6 that are done. Just remember that last year I asked a land owner to tap his sugars and he shook to it and then 2 months latter they cut every last maple there.I was bumbed about it but nothing can be done. I just think that people need the cash to run there equipment and pay their taxes.

[gmcooper]

My thought was that it was just the land owners needing some cash. Not that most of us couldn't use some right now. Just seemed like a major shift here in the past few weeks. Most of what is see going by is junk or fire wood not quality logs. It is sad to see a large area of maples get wiped out a few years before they could be tapped.

[Haynes Forest Products]

Could it be Dieseased wood that has to be removed and chipped up.

[Logscaler]

This crazy economy plus the weather is driving what is currently happening in the woods. Sawmills cannot sell any lumber at any price - let alone at a profit. Loggers in New England have the best logging conditions - extended cold and frozen ground - they have had in years. Landowners are scared and financially pinched so they are turning their timber assets into cash at a severe discount just to have the $$ on hand. The sawmill I worked for has closed the gates at one yard, shut down operations at the main mill, and is down to less than 10 people from 50. On wednesday this week my position was eliminated and I scaled my last log on Thursday morning. Looking for work and collecting - I am trying to prepare myself for an extended stay at home. Now I can get some work done in the sugarbush!

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

Logscaler,
Sorry about the loss of your job. Is your sugaring operation large enough to provide a few months income while you look for other work? About the only logs coming off this farm at this point are for personal use ( I have my own bandmill). I couldn't afford to cut sawlogs to sell for what return there is on them. I will do some thinning and sell firewood or utilize it myself.

[jdj]

I live in a small town in northern, NY about 20 minutes from the Canadian border and there is hardly a sugarbush left standing. It bothers me to see them cut off but nothing I can do about it. My father and I just bought a bush last fall and had to outbid the logger to get it. Luckily we were able to get it and save it from being slaughtered! There was a sugarbush down the road from me that got flattened a few years ago and the people didn't even take down the pipeline, the logger just ran it over. I guess if you like to make maple syrup you have a totally different outlook on a maple tree than someone who is just looking for a quick buck.

[markcasper]

jdj, That is sad! I have seen the same thing in a couple bushes in my area as well. There was one bush they didn't take the tubing down, they just ran it over. On top of that, there was a bulk tank in the woods and the logger dropped a whole tree on it. Another bulk tank they took the skidder and pushed the whole tank over and down a ravine.

[gmcooper]

The one big wood lot near us getting cut hard has been managed fairly well in the past but this cut looks to be total opposite of anything they have done. Looks like most of what is left is pole size and under and junk. Different crew working as well. A hard wood lot I have driven by for years further up the state had a good amount of tappable sugars on it with some nice oak as well. Now all that is left is brush and scrub.

[OGDENS SUGAR BUSH]

got to rember treat maple syrupa as a hobby and you wont get hurt

RICH

[Flat47]

As sugarmakers, we are all many things.

We are farmers, historians, forecasters, plumbers, carpenters, etc, etc, and foresters. To some degree, each one of us is a forester looking out for the health, longevity, and production of a woodlot. We look at stand rotation on a much much greater scale, weighing many considerations simultaniously (taps, firewood, wildlife...).

Given that a good minimum sized production sugar maple is 10" to 12" or about 40 years old, that's right when most woodlots are considered for harvesting. So just when some trees are set to be removed, we're just set to begin production. There are maples out there that have seen generations of tapping.

There's a nearby hardwood processor that won't take anythng bigger than 24" because the machinery can't handle it (the grapple loaders can, it's the computer sensor, cutting head, and chipper that can't). To me, that's a real bad sign of where we're headed for (ie - over-cutting). Not too long ago, mills wouldn't consider anything less than 12" and there was no upper limit.

I'm tired of seeing poor quality, short rotation forestry.
It used to be that forestry was silviculture-based (harvest based on what will benefit the stand), but now forestry is mostly market/wallet-based (harvest based on what the market will pay most).

So, I hate to see (and hear about) a sugarbush get cut down.