Preferred way to get your forest thinned

Jack180570

A lot of forestry is ready for thinning at the moment and I'm wondering from a forest owner point of view, what is their preferred way of getting the job done?

timfromtang

I for one prefer to do it myself, just keep tippin away at it an it gets done.

TheBody

I have a small forest that is due to be thinned. I had a guy from Teagasc out having a look at it to make sure everything is ok.

He recommended that I thin it myself if I can, as the contractors don't do a good job. He hadn't many good words to say about contractors!!

Jack180570

Thanks for the replies lads. Just to say that my question relates to conifer plantations. I am surprised with the feedback so far (assuming that the plantations are conifers), for the following reasons;
1) is it possible for a person to thin a plantation with a chainsaw at a lower cost than getting a harvester thin the plantation?
2) if thinning with a chainsaw will the operator not need to have training so as to be able to maximise the high value categories an profit from the thinning?
Just a few thoughts

Blackcurrants

Try getting in touch with your local producer group. Usually free advice and minimal commission on organizing operations in your forestry. Last port of call is a management company who will dain to pay you some of the profit from your woods after they've had their slice of the pie.
It all depends on how large the plantation is and what you want to spend. A forestry consultant would help you make informed decisions with the security of business indemnity insurance. Organizing a harvester is the most economic option but the plantation needs to be over a certain size to attract someone willing to harvest for a fee. If a neighbour had a plantation of a similar age and was ready to thin then you can pool your resources to make it more attractive for a harvester.
what ever you decide to do mark your best straightest and least branched trees with a positive colour like white or blue. Then you thin the other trees to promote those final crop trees. In second and third thinnings you should be looking to take about every 4th-6th tree. This will give you the greatest return at the end of the plantations harvesting plan.
To make the most out of your forestry keep the pulp and sell it at a premium as season firewood or wood chip. Always remember that the lower the moisture content, the higher the price you should demand.

Oakleaf forestry

Hi Folks,

The reason harvesting contractors are getting a bad name for thinning is the equipment they tend to use. If you try to use big machines on a small plantation it just is not economically viable. It will cost too much to shift the machine to the site and to run on fuel and do too much damage to the ground and retained crop.
In normal spacing you would need to remove two rows just to operator the harvester and forwarder in and out and then they just reach as far in on each side as the machine allows and cut trees that they can reach without actually being able to see if they are damaged or diseased trees, so they could be removing health trees and leaving marginal ones instead. then you have the added damage to retained crop with the trees being struck while extracting the harvested trees and the ground damage and roots systems damage because of the weight of the machines being used.
We work with Low Impact machinery from Sweden - Hypro for harvesting and Vimek for extraction. These are Perfect for the first and second thinning here in Ireland as they are suited perfectly to our trees and ground conditions. You can continue to thin using a chainsaw as it is by far the lowest impact method but if you want to get the job done quickly and profitably then you should look at the Hypro machinery. Small diameter round wood if now in big demand for firewood / biomass as previously mentioned in another post so the recovery of the cost should be pretty easy to calculate.

Boards.ie: Niamh

Oakleaf Forestry, can you please email hello@boards.ie about an official account to represent your company on the site? Thanks

$kilkenny

when you say the Teagasc guy had nothing good to say about contractors then he obviously is using the wrong ones, this is the price you pay for getting contractors that either do the job cheap, or don't have adequate experience at thinning, its not easy, takes years of training and experience.

conventional harvesters come in different sizes, the small ones being 180 horse power only need 1 row removed to get around. damaging the odd tree is unfortunately unavoidable because of their size.

Someone suggested joining a Farm/ forestry co-op.... this is by far the best idea. do not go thinning it yourself a lot of people don't fully understand the idea of thinning, thinning densities and all that, get people that know what to do.

if its a small forest then you cant of course expect to make a huge amount of money out of it.
I have seen forests done right, done wrong in both hardwoods and softwoods.

when your car needs a service you bring in to the most trusted and experienced mechanic you no, not just little joe down the road who thinks he knows a lot about cars and will do it for half nothing.

TomOnBoard

Jack180570 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies lads. Just to say that my question relates to conifer plantations. I am surprised with the feedback so far (assuming that the plantations are conifers), for the following reasons;
1) is it possible for a person to thin a plantation with a chainsaw at a lower cost than getting a harvester thin the plantation?
2) if thinning with a chainsaw will the operator not need to have training so as to be able to maximise the high value categories an profit from the thinning?
Just a few thoughts

1) Yes... Absolutely! Much depends on the amount of time you can provide-- i.e Labour input. I limited, then you may need to buy it in which may blow the possibility of self-thinning out of the water, from an economic standpoint..

If you have the time, there may be no form of labour on this Earth that represents a more diligent adherence to principles of self- sufficiency than the management (including thinning) of your own wood. You will never be happier than you will be on the day that you thin your first acre- see the outcuts, the hugely increased levels of light, and the produce for your wood- stove.

2) Chainsaw training!

Best investment you will ever make... If you value your lower limbs, life, hearing, balance, sight as well as produce output, that is!!

John Kelly of

Hi guys my dad has 35 acres of sitka spruce which is now due for 2nd thinning.
I don't like the idea of contractors doing it as I think they might take the best timber out.
The plantation is easily accessible with good road access to its own forest road.

After doing a little research I am thinking of a couple of options:

Would it be worth the hassle to thin it myself with a chainsaw and extract it to the roadside and then sell the stacks to the highest bidder?
Anyone know approximately how long would it take 1 man to do that per acre say?
Another variant of this is to buy a log splitter and process it into firewood.

2nd option is to spray paint and mark the trees I want removed and then get some contractors or sawmills to bid a price to take the rest.
However it might take a long time to do that for 35 acres and I would also have to watch them closely when harvesting as they might take too much.

3rd option is to join local group and go along with whatever contractor they recommend, can they really be trusted though?

Blackcurrants

You should be able to get through between 2 and 4 acres a day if you are thinning yourself. Even if you do it yourself you should mark the forestry before as it will increase your productivity a lot. If you have not been part of felling operations before you should definitely get some advice from an independent consultant ( aifc.ie ) or forester. Make sure you have your C30 & C31 certs for your woods sake, your sake and the sake of others around you (speeds you up, makes you safer and maintains your saw better).

If you go with the second option you definitely need to mark your trees. If you have not done this before i highly recommend getting some advice professionally or attending some of the open days the Teagasc and producer groups run on marking to thin. Selling to Sawmills/timber companies usually involves a standing sale (price per m3 uncut) and they pay you for what came out (% sawlog, % box wood, % pulp wood). Unless you have a professional involved or some way of establishing the volumes of the grades you will have to trust the sawmill to be honest with you. There is little transparency in this system but takes the least of your time and if you are happy with the price and have confidence in the people you are dealing with, is a good option and the established system in ireland.

In some areas in Ireland the producer groups are in their infancy but all should be able to advice you on the best course of action. In other areas the producer groups supply a range of services. Most of these groups are not for profit and run by forest owners. The producer group option is half way between the two other options as you should have more control over what happens to the timber. Friends have sold pulp that they dried down over 5 months and then had chipped. They had to wait a while but got a much higher price than selling it standing.

A lot depends on the site, quality and location of the plantation. You should start seeing some money coming out of the plantation with this second thinning. Unless you do it yourself there has to be a certain amount of trust involved. Foresters and consultants have insurance and years of experience, their advice isn't free but cheap on the grand scale when you think of the life span of your plantation and the cost of poor decisions. Don't sign up with a management company. Pay people with a fee for a job not a % a total output as this will discourage individuals from creaming the best from your woods.

Hope this helps.

$kilkenny

John, what part of the country are you based in?

the thing everyone forgets when going down the self thin route is how to get your timber to roadside. cutting it is the easy part but then when it comes to getting it out, its not so simple and can be quite slow depending on the method, yes a tractor and forwarding trailer might work, but if the stand was thinned with a harvester and forwarder the 1st day then the stumps will more than likely be too high for a tractor to get around.

marking the timber is a great way of doing it, however, using a consultant that marks timber all the time and monitors whats being done during harvesting and using contractors they trust. I no a few that actually would be happy to get the owner out to mark the timber with them, it builds up a great relationship between client and consultant and its extremely educational but you have to have an open mind to their years of experience.

this idea of taking a % of the earnings as Blackcurrant said is a very iffy idea especially when you get to higher value and more volumes of timber.

just a few more things to consider is all.

John Kelly of

hello $kilkenny I a in south Tipp.

Tony Beetroot

Bushman and a donkey.

fergus1001

Get a forester out to make sure you don't over or under thin and also see what volume is coming out

If doing thinning yourself allow a lot of time for the work and try see if you could invest in a winch to bring out timber,

Talk to the saw mill about price and then do your maths homework as to how much it is worth to you to do it yourself as apposed to getting in a harvester

If you need roading installed for access talk to a forestry company to do so as there is a grant in place for that

John Kelly of

Ok I've pretty much decided not to thin myself but to sell the thinings as they stand to the highest bidder.
I am going to mark all the trees to be thinned so that I have an accurate idea of the value of the crop and also to make sure they only take what I want them to take.
First in order to estimate the number of trees in the entire plantation I got a bit of 20m rope and a couple of 500m rolls of marking tape and marked out 25 sample plots in various parts of the place of 20m x 20m and counted all the trees in each plot.
I reckon there are 25 of those plots in 1 hectare.
This only took 2 people 4 hours I got an average number of trees of 2000 per hectare.
Next step is to mark the trees in the sample plots and estimate their volume
From what I've read I should be getting rid of about 30% of the trees, is that right?

$kilkenny

30% approximately would be a good start alright... but definately no more as with wind and all that you run the higher risk of windblow.
you would want to remove about 500-600 stems to the hectare id say. bringing it down to roughly 1300. Even 2000 stems/ha before you start seems a little high.

when taking your plot, did you go from the centre of 1 extraction rack to the centre of the next one? and then measure 20m up in 1 direction and count all the trees within your plot. this is more accurate as it takes into account the no. of trees removed in the extraction racks also.

at the same time, little an often when it comes to thinning's is always a better idea.

Also keep in mind that a felling licence may be required by you if you wish to sell the timber for harvesting

fergus1001

25 to 30 try not to leave big gaps where wind can take hold

John Kelly of

$kilkenny wrote: »

30% approximately would be a good start alright... but definately no more as with wind and all that you run the higher risk of windblow.
you would want to remove about 500-600 stems to the hectare id say. bringing it down to roughly 1300. Even 2000 stems/ha before you start seems a little high.

when taking your plot, did you go from the centre of 1 extraction rack to the centre of the next one? and then measure 20m up in 1 direction and count all the trees within your plot. this is more accurate as it takes into account the no. of trees removed in the extraction racks also.

at the same time, little an often when it comes to thinning's is always a better idea.

Also keep in mind that a felling licence may be required by you if you wish to sell the timber for harvesting

Yeah I thought 2000 per hectare was high as well but my dad has told me the guy doing the mounds made a mistake when they planted the place and they ended up putting in too many trees, about 25% more than they should have.
I didn't really include roads and around the edge of the plantation when running the tape so it is probably about 5% lower when you take those into account. I did try and include existing extraction racks though to get a fair representation of the place.

John Kelly of

fergus1001 wrote: »

25 to 30 try not to leave big gaps where wind can take hold

thanks I'll keep that in mind

$kilkenny

perfect!
the biggest thing now is not to mark to many trees, just mark the minimum amount and you will be flying it. try not to mark all the worst trees, mark a proportion of them.
And when walking around the forest, look at the quality of the tree i.e taper, forked, crooked trees and mark a few also to be taken out, bad quality trees are worth less than skinny straight trees in the long run.

most of all! enjoy! its a great way to get to know every inch of your forest, it will take about a week to do it all.