Consider The Tannenbaum

Tannenbaum is a German word that translates to fir tree.  It is pronounced tah-nuhn-boum. 

It is that time of year folks - two weeks ago already I was returning home from a Lions Club meeting and took note that one of my neighbors had their Christmas tree up and lit already.  We'll have to see if we do the same.  For now there is this small specimen of retro craziness on the fireplace mantel.

Quite a few families prefer a real Christmas tree over an artificial tree made from PVC plastic in China.  

The reasons are multitude; and among them are getting out and selecting one from a neighborhood or church tree lot.  Or getting out to a tree farm and picking out a tree, cutting it down and dragging it back to be bundled for the drive home.  Most trees are grown on family farms.  They're natural, completely recyclable and renewable.  They smell terrific too.

Depending where you live the supply of farm-grown trees might be tight for the 2024 Christmas season.   Best practice for this eventuality are to shop early for best selection.  

Roughly 21.6 million real Christmas trees were purchased in the US in 2023 at a median price of $75, according to the National Christmas Tree Association.  It is the period of time immediately following Thanksgiving that is peak time for real trees.  With Thanksgiving coming late this year growers face a short sales season.  Compounding the situation is the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Helene on western North Carolina, which produces more Christmas trees than any state except Oregon.  Who knew?

Delivering one of the most popular Christmas tree varieties, the Fraser fir, is a real challenge. One out of four Fraser firs sold nationally - and virtually all the Fraser firs sold on the East Coast - are sourced from western North Carolina.  

Compounding this is the impact of Hurricane Helene will persist for years.  It takes roughly a decade to grow a full-size Fraser fir.  And many of the trees damaged were several years from maturity, impacting supply for years to come.  The loss of 200,000 seedlings to flooding is staggering to a family tree farm.  And unlike soybeans and corn difficult to insure.

Labor is an additional problem and North Carolina is one of the largest users of the H-2A visa program for agricultural workers.  It's one thing to crack-down on illegal immigration; however the heated rhetoric about clamping-down on legal immigrants has made the hiring of foreign workers fraught and increasingly burdensome.

Growing Christmas trees is a lot like any other agricultural crop - only it takes longer.  When The Great Recession of 2007-09 caused many growers to plant fewer trees or go out of business as consumers curtailed spending.  That resulted in a supply problem along with price hikes a decade later.

Farmed trees are also challenged by other shifting consumer habits.  Aging baby boomers are putting-up fewer live trees.  According to the USDA trees harvested in the US has declined 30% since 2002; despite a population increase of 16% over the same period.

So maybe we'll wander out back and cut down a live spruce - not too small and not too big - and string some lights on it for the holiday.

You can learn more about the impact of Helene here...

2021 Logging - Part 2

An update on the logging operation that was commenced on our forest to thin most (but not all) of the conifers so as to provide the more valuable hardwoods (namely oaks) an opportunity to put on additional girth and height having been rid of the pines that were competing with them for precious resources like water and sunlight.  Hardly random - the trees had previously been marked for removal.  In technical forestry terms this pre-commercial thinning is called a 'release'.       

This machine is called a 'harvester'.  It is operated by one individual.

The machine grabs a tree, saws-it-off at the base, flips it 90 degrees, and zips it into three bolts while removing the bark and limbs. Left on the forest floor is slash.      

Luke - the guy operating the harvester - can process two trees a minute. Which makes you pause and ponder the relative merits of felling trees with a chainsaw. One at a time. On your own.            

To the casual observer this may look a fright. My neighbor (and fellow tree aficionado) remarked the other day that opening the canopy is going to provide the hardwoods with an opportunity to really put on some height and girth all the while allowing spruce, tamarack, pine and cedar the opportunity to naturally regenerate in what had previously been a darkened understory.              

This is making my week. Exciting stuff.....

 

2021 Logging - Part 1

After three years of searching for a logger we've finally been able to pull it off.  A thinning of the forest we planted more than a couple of decades ago.       

We planted more than 40,000 trees on marginal farmland over the course of 1998 and 1999. The trees pictured here were planted in June of 1998. They were one and two year-old bare root stock making them about the size of a pencil. It's a mixed bag of native Wisconsin hardwoods and conifers.         

Machine planted in alternate rows it was the job of the bushier softwood conifers to 'train' the hardwoods to grow with nice straight trunks.

It is a successful planting - so successful that the forest had become virtually impenetrable and over-stocked with the conifers beginning to crowd-out and compete with the more valuable hardwoods for space and resources such as water and sunlight.    

It was time for them to go.     

This management technique (called a pre-commercial thinning) removes most (but not all) of the conifers so as to 'release' the hardwoods.  I blogged about this process more than a couple of years ago.     

Without having to compete with other trees we expect the oaks to literally WHOOSH with a flush of new growth. And in the years to come any scrawny less desirable hardwoods can be dropped for firewood or other similar uses allowing the dominant specimens even more room to grow.   

By then this planting will have become an acorn factory providing food and cover for the local critters.         

And, of course, there remain enough conifers to serve in the role of 'seed trees' so that natural forest regeneration will continue in the decades to come long after this old man is pushing-up daffodils.       

And so it begins..... 

 

 

Happy Labor Day

Since today is Labor Day it seems only fitting that I should publish some self-effacing imagery of a dusty, chaff-producing fall chore.  Namely completing the final brushing of the trails.  Not that I mind at all - I even took no small measure of delight in digging and hauling dirt on Saturday.  What sort of retired kid wouldn't?  It's one of the  last hurrahs of chores before bow season commences.  A good labor indeed.  And Sunday was a day of rest.

These were taken Friday and Saturday from a couple of the trail cameras - including this one....

And a two close calls with the video set-up..... 

    

The Mighty Oak

One of my goals in retirement is to expand my observations of the natural world around me.  To be more cognizant of what is going-on and make an attempt to understand and learn from it. 

Some of you readers know that most of the forested cover here at The Platz was planted there by us.  Historically, we have a general idea of the pre-settlement forest cover from reading the surveyor field notes when the Government Land Office surveyors cruised thru here the winter of 1836.  The notes taken by Sylvestor Sibley indicated the presence of black ash, tamarack, cedar, hemlock, sugar maple, elm and other species.  Of course, with the arrival of European settlers the land was cleared for agriculture and the wildness tamed.  By the time it fell into our hands there wasn't a tamarack to be found.  They'd all be transformed into fence posts and shingles. 

We planted a large number of tamaracks because our soil types are well-suited to the species.  And both the tamarack and northern spruce  have since been repopulating other areas in the forest as the parent trees matured and produced seed.  This seed is subsequently spread by critters and seasonal weather events and we're experiencing natural forest regeneration.  If the deer numbers could be reduced the regeneration would be wildly successful.  I digress. 

In any event, among the trees we planted were thousands of oaks - white, bur, red and swamp white oaks.  Oaks are a valuable tree when you consider their wildlife benefits and future commercial use.  And while once in the past two-and-a-half decades I observed acorns on the bur oaks I haven't observed any since.  Then this happened this spring.  These have been showing-up. 

click on the tiny tree for a closer look

 

Swamp oak seedlings! 

Well, I'll be switched.  Those trees have been producing some acorns and I never took notice. 

Tree Planting for Timber and Wildlife - Part 2

The ever-vigilant trail cameras recorded this guy in the woods marking trees for harvest.  It looks like retirement is also going to include firing-up the chainsaw and dropping trees from time-to-time.

This happens to be a professional forester and he is singling-out those trees for removal to favor adjacent trees for release.  In lay-person terms thinning the less desirable to favor the more desirable.  Sure, it's manipulating the forest canopy and that's OK.  As I mentioned in the first of this series more than a couple of decades ago all that grew here was corn and soy beans and such - today it is a forest.  Those trees slated for release are the more valuable hardwood species,  dominant examples of all those planted and specimens best-suited to produce seed stock for forest regeneration.

For sure this rubs certain urbanites the wrong way but if you're into reforestation practices and sustainable management over a period of years the results can be pretty dang good. 

Perhaps if I repeat this enough times those who are horrified by the notion of active forest management might come-around to understanding that it's not to be scorned and ridiculed. There are far more serious issues in the world worthy of getting your undies in a bunch.

Tree Planting for Timber and Wildlife - Part 1

click on the sign for a better read

The sign above is located on the east side of County Highway DK (formerly State Highway 57) north of the town of Brussels.  About the same time we reforested our former farm land a similarly-sized piece of sensitive farmland was also reforested.  

Water quality has long been a challenge on the Door Peninsula as a consequence of the karst rock formation that dominates the topography here.  I suspect that this planting in particular was a means to address a water runoff issue.  But I digress.  What I'd like to talk about is reforestation as a process and the patient succession that follows.

First steps include the following:

Site preparation in the year prior to planting.  In our case this included discing the soil to bust-up any compaction.  Not once - but twice.  This was followed by application of a pre-emergent herbicide.  When the trees are planted the following spring/summer the emergence of competing weed and grasses following tree planting would be discouraged.

Soil maps from the county Soil and Water Department were critical to the selection of native Wisconsin species and where they should be planted.  Optimum growth is the desired result.  Moreover, selection of trees to plant is analogous to building a stock portfolio.  Diversification is important.  Ash was a component in our hardwood selection as it is a common and fast-growing species suited to our soil types.  At the time emerald ash borer wasn't on anybody's radar screen.  Decades later our well-intentioned ash has a death sentence.  

Our stocking rate (trees planted) was 800 trees per acre - give or take.  That's a large number of trees and you have to account for mortality due to animals (mice, deer and rabbits) and weather conditions (namely drought) in the early establishment of the planting.  If survivability is better than normal several thinnings will follow in the decades to come.

Trees are machine-planted in rows.  Sure, some urbanites find this practice not aesthetically pleasing to the eye but there is a reason for this. Row planting facilitates the establishment of the little trees.  Most plantings are of one and two year-old bare root stock.  Of critical importance in the early years (and until the trees grow beyond the height of the weeds and grass) is vegetation management.  Row planting allows for herbicide management of invasive shrubs and mowing the grasses without harming the seedlings.  Without managing the competing grasses and invasives - mortality of the little seedlings would be much higher and could result in a failure of most if not all of the planting.

Nevertheless, aesthetics also happens to be a concern of a large number of us tree farmers.  If you've ever been in a red pine plantation it looks like a utility pole forest with nothing growing in the thick layer of needles in the under story.  There's not much there for the critters and the only appeal is the future sale of tall, straight utility poles.  I get that.  The answer to the aesthetics issue is to plant a mix of conifers and hardwoods.  For instance - a mixture of various hardwood species per row alternated with a row of a single conifer species.  The bushier conifers help 'train' the hardwoods to grown straight stems in their formative years.

Planting on the diagonal (relative to roads and boundaries) and in sweeping curves also helps.  Later thinnings will remove a significant number of the conifers and selective thinning of the hardwoods will be performed to favor dominant and other favored trees. By the time you have a mature forest and natural regeneration is occurring most evidence of the rows will have disappeared. Here is a handy graphic:

click on image for a better look

This requires no small amount of patience as growing trees takes decades.  In a world of instant information and instant gratification it can be a tall order to wrap your mind around this concept.  Think of it like this - if it crosses your mind to plant a tree go ahead and act on it.  Every year you wait to think about it is one year of growth that is gone.  That's called opportunity cost.  I'm reminded that the oak trees we planted more than twenty years ago are likely going to be enjoyed by someone who hasn't even been born.  

Next week I'll publish more about the process of thinning.

Weekend Update

Quick update on a busy weekend.

click on images for a closer look

 

The 30th Annual Southeast Wisconsin Woodland Owners Conference went-off without a hitch.  Attendance was higher than previous years - maybe even a record.  And the consensus was that the absence of concurrent (breakout) sessions was appreciated.  Attendees liked the notion of having one place to sit, be attentive to the program, have lunch and chat with adjacent attendees. 

One of the terrific things about these educational programs is that you come away with at least one thing that you didn't know about before.  My big takeaway is I learned that coyotes will hunt cooperatively with badgers.  I'm not making this up.  During a presentation on Wisconsin's largest member of the weasel family a wildlife biologist spoke about this fascinating phenomenon of cross-species collaboration.  Seems that when a badger and a coyote team-up to hunt together their success rate improves by 30% compared to hunting solo.  That's big in a world where the strong survive and the weak are killed and eaten.  This subject is blog-worthy so stay tuned.

The Wauwatosa Curling Club's 2019 Chili Spiel was also a resounding success with twelve homemade selections of chili in the tasting competition and plenty of time on the ice.  I believe this was my third or possibly fourth entry in the chili competition and I have yet to place in the top three slots.  And I think I make pretty good chili.

Pardon me if I editorialize.  Chili is basic stuff.  Meat, tomatoes, spices and sometimes beans.  And not blazing spicy hot.  It is always easier to add 'heat' to an individual bowl of con carne with a few dashes of hot sauce than it is to make an entire batch unhot.  The trouble with a competition is once you've had a couple of tastes of someone's overly-spiced chili your palate is basically ruined for purposes of tasting the rest of the competition.

Moreover, there is no place for weird derivations like 'Italian beef' chili or 'bacon' chili.  And absolutely no place for macaroni.  Although Jill has gently reminded me that many people grew-up with macaroni in their chili as their families had to stretch the dish at dinner time.  My conclusion is that personal preferences for chili are similar to preferences for BBQ.  Texas is different from Carolina which is different from Kansas City or St. Louis.  Reminds me of politics.  Which can be honest and unpretentious or completely corrupt and dishonest or just plain weird.  Rant over. 

Unfortunately I had to skip the last curling event to return home to let the dogs out.  Jill stayed for the bitter end.  She is a trooper.

And after 20 years of volunteering on the winter woodland conference I have decide not to retire and to stay active on the planning committee.

Raising a toast to sustainable forestry and good curling. 

And eat more deer....

Progress

FB shared a memory with me the other day – a photo I posted four years ago of a rain-sodden deer camp in November of 2005.  We had just moved back into the house the previous week and you can see the yard is still quite torn-up from the construction crew.         

The view is from the second floor blue bedroom looking west.  The trees on the horizon are my neighbor’s woodlot a quarter mile distant.  The arc to the right defines the border of the prairie planting and center-left you can clearly see rows of machine-planted trees.  One year-old bare root stock when they were planted in 1998 they were about knee-high when this picture was taken  At the time I thought I wouldn’t live long enough to see them grow to maturity and amount to something.       

Fast forward to today – fourteen years later.  Here is a photo taken from the same room and an additional picture looking west from the front yard.  Everything has grown into an almost impenetrable thicket of young forest that is now home to all manner of wild things.  With natural regeneration occurring you can barely locate where the original rows are.    

click on images for a better look

Raising a toast to sustainable forestry!

Anatomy of a Clearcut - Part Two

In last week's post I outlined the basics of a cutting of aspen – known as apatch cut – that Jill and I performed during the winter of 1997-1998.  Speaking of which - it is a little-known fact that our wedding gift to each other was a brand-spanking-new Husqvarna chainsaw.  Yup, nothing says love like gasoline power tools.  

I digress.

The results of that patch cut project are in the lovely fall foliage in the photo. 

In case you are wondering - that also happens to be mighty fine wildlife habitat. 

In any event we felled 200 very old aspen along the north property line of our tree farm as a means of regenerating the stand.  Aspen requires disturbance in order to regenerate and without beavers or a big fire or windstorm we mimicked natural disturbance by means of cutting and dropping the aging trees.  The following photos chronicle the spring clean-up, construction of brush piles, skidding of logs and forest regeneration.





New aspen suckers sprout from roots and can put on 6 to 10 feet of growth in the first summer following a winter cut.  As a rule of thumb the suckers will materialize a distance from the remaining stump equivalent to the height of the tree that was dropped. 






Alternatively, if left undisturbed aspen live about to about fifty years of age and then decline and die to be replaced by shade loving species that have established themselves in the understory of the older aspen.  As aspen converts to its shade-loving successors the wildlife community associated with it will also change.   

Following a carefully planned clearcut within very short order - literally months - the site is lush with new growth that all sorts of critters love and with no resulting harm to the environment. 

White-tailed deer are attracted to the nutritious twig litter leftover from an aspen clearcut.  Later, the deer return to feed on the sun-loving plants that invade the newly harvested area.

The thickets which quickly sprout provide excellent hiding places, not only for does and their fawns, but for ruffed grouse. 

Grouse raise their broods in young aspen stands where they find both food and shelter from hawks and owls.  Other species benefit from the new growth including black bear, rabbit, woodcock and butterflies. 

click on images to enlarge

Many species of songbirds benefit as well.  This would include song sparrows, towhees, indigo buntings, chestnut-sided warblers and yellowthroats.  These are songbirds that seek both shelter and food sources in young, regenerated forests.  If you build it they will come.

Jack pine is another tree species that can only regenerate by means of disturbance.  In the natural order of things it would be wildfire that regenerates jack pine.  

However, since we suppress forest fires only clearcutting will regenerate jack pine.  While we don't have jack pine growing around here it is instructive to note that the Kirtland’s warbler - one of the rarest of Wisconsin warblers - requires young stands of jack pine.   

Forests are continually evolving.  One method of forest management is to do nothing at all and allow nature to take its course. 

For aspen the forest will change in a different way.   The trees will die of old age and lose their natural capability to sprout from the roots.   Making wise management decisions to actively manage your forest will keep it productive and beneficial for both you and for wildlife.  It is hard work for sure - yet the results are worth the effort.

From little sprouts...

spring of 2008

Grow healthy tree stands...

autumn of 2013

Raising a toast to sustainable forestry.

Anatomy of a Clearcut - Part One

The delightful stand of Bigtooth aspen you see in the photo wasn't always there.  This winter/spring celebrates the twentieth anniversary of its rebirth. Allow me to explain.

Fire, hurricanes and beaver activity are all forms of natural disturbance that contribute to the creation of young forests in both predictable and unpredictable ways. 

Keeping an open mind consider this - clearcutting a forest is a way to mimic natural disturbance – yet on your own terms. 

Nevertheless, clearcutting happens to be one of the most publicly maligned, emotionally-fraught and misunderstood of forest regeneration prescriptions known. 

As a consequence I want to talk about beneficial clearcutting.  Not wholesale cutting of the rainforest to create farm or ranchland. 

Not reckless deforestation practices or profiteering with no regard for the consequences to soil, water resources or wildlife. 


Rather, clearcutting and shelterwood cutting as part of any responsible overall forest management plan to make sure that the forest is sustainable and balances the needs of both forest owner and forest wildlife.  This would be cutting with the principal objective to regenerate the forest with healthier trees for both timber harvesting and wildlife.   

Jill and I conducted a small cutting of aspen – known as a patch cut – the winter of 1997-1998.  We felled 200 very old aspen along the north property line of our tree farm as a means of regenerating the stand. 

Aspen is Wisconsin’s most well-known tree managed by clearcutting.  This species is valued for its pulpwood and it provides outstanding wildlife benefits.  Sure, I know that with the mention of a clearcut some folks cringe.  They think they are unsightly and harmful to the environment.  

If conducted correctly clearcutting aspen can provide a variety of benefits.  Moreover, most people are stunned at how quickly the forest grows back. 

This and a follow-up post documenting the before and after are intended to dispel any dark and sinister preconceptions a reader may harbor about active forest management.  The truth of the matter is that actively managing a forest is hard work and the end results include many appealing benefits.

One benefit is that after a long day dropping trees, limbing branches and hauling brush - at quitting time the resident tree farmer gets to kick back in the winter sunshine and indulge in an adult beverage.

 

click on images for a closer look


Stay-tuned for a follow-up post.  Cheers!

Seedling

In the big city there is a small - yet loud - group of grumpy people who seem to have a peculiar aversion to sustainable forestry.  And tree farmers in particular.  I know it sounds wacky but for them the term Tree Farmer has become a pejorative.  I am not making this up.  They disparage tree farmers much like some people disparage certain ethnic groups. 
 
The uncanny thing is that when level-headed people witness this behavior they scratch their level heads and dismiss the small, loud, group of grumpy people as a cranky collective of malcontents that are truthfully better-off ignored.  Which is sad because once in a while they might come-up with a good idea or perhaps a worthy cause and as a consequence of their off-putting behavior fewer than expected individuals are going to come to their aid.  That's the way things work in life.  Word gets around and people gradually become disinclined to contribute.
 
Nevertheless, this Tree Farmer is quite comfortable in his skin and knows that here on the peninsula there is a natural affinity and appreciation for individuals and families who plant and grow trees.  Which would be a consequence of the fact that growing and harvesting trees provides direct employment for plenty of men and women in northeast Wisconsin and plenty more in secondary, related employment.  Moreover, working forests are good for the environment because they provide a renewable resource, clean air, clean water, wildlife habitat, recreational opportunities and carbon storage.  The mix of economics and the natural, renewable world is positively sublime.  Tree farmers are real tree huggers – not pretend tree huggers.  Don’t take my word for it - Green Bay remains a mill town that also happens to be home to a pretty slick professional football franchise.   

I have digressed. 

Yesterday the girls and I went for a long walk in the woods and among other things found a surprisingly large population of tiny white spruce seedlings growing in the understory of a bunch of bur oak trees.  What the heck. 

 

I guess what happened is the critters or Ma Nature Herself have been spreading the seeds produced by a thousand white spruce Jill and I planted twenty years ago.  The curious thing about trees is when they mature they begin to propagate quite naturally – and in the space of ten feet or so you might count a dozen or so of these poking-up thru the snow.  

 

In case you’re wondering - this native Wisconsin tree is valued in the forest because of the cover it affords to wildlife of all sorts.  If it walks, saunters, climbs, flies or flutters plenty of critters make their home among white spruce.  If you are in the woods and you want to verify the identity of this tree take some of the needles and crush them between your fingers and give them a sniff.  The strong odor reminds many people of skunk.  This would explain why this species is sometimes called Skunk Spruce.  

 

In any event feel free to ignore anyone who might imply that tree farmers are dreadful individuals. They don’t know what they’re talking about.  And being the naturally optimistic tree hugger that I am - I'd like to think perhaps one or two people from that afore-mentioned group might actually read this and be reminded that like most everyone who plants and grows trees our environmental cred is solid. Tree people may be natural allies for something important you might wish to advocate-for. 

If you care to plant a seedling - all you have to do is ask.  After all, tree farmers are the good guys.

Raising a toast to sustainable forestry. 

 

Cheers!