2500 Black Walnut Thinning, Need Advice Please...
- Thread starter War@Woodz
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imagineero
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They haven't yet found a way to make old growth happen fast
Leaving all the trees creates artificial forest conditions, where the trees are fighting for resources and grow thin, tall and slow. This is a good thing in terms of the density and value of the timber because they naturally shed lower limbs before they get to any sort of size which reduces knots. You end up with more clear wood, but it sure does take time. You've got to weight up all the variables about value, which is very much market dependant, before deciding whether smaller higher quality logs are going to be worth more than larger lower quality. Time can be a factor too if you want to recover some of your money.
I don't have any experience with managing hardwood plantations like this, but have some experience managing softwood plantations which are grown aggressively for structural timber. To make the trees tall, straight and with as few knots as possible they are aggressively pruned, and thinned. For the pines I was working with, they are overplanted, then sometime around 8-10 they are first lift pruned from the ground up to about 7', every branch comes off. This is about 2/3 of the foliage. This artificially creates a forest environment. At that time, trees with obvious defects, bends, splits, forks etc are thinned. after another 7-10 years depending on local conditions and they get second lift pruned all the branches from 7'~14' taken off and again thinned for defects - snapped tops etc. Another 7-10 years and they get a third lift, with all branches 14'~21' removed and at the same time a forester assesses the plantation and puts value on the timber. The forester usually specifies a thinning ratio to maximize growth for the final sprint before the harvest, you might be told to take 1 in 8 for example. While thinning you just use your judgement and take out whichever tree is the smallest or least healthy. At 30-40 years the trees are harvested and used for machine graded pine which is a structural timber. The thinned trees are generally not removed.
None of these numbers will work for your plantation, but it might give you some ideas. You need to do some research with the buyers and find out what there is a market for in terms of size, diameter, clarity etc and whether they'd be interested in taking some of the thinned trees now. A good forester ought to have all this information but you're in a very specific market and you may not find that your local is very knowledgeable. There's no hurry, so research your market, talk to a few different buyers of black walnut to get a balanced view, then weigh up your options and make some decisions.
Smaller markets often bring a premium, and if you have the time and don't mind the fuss you will generally get a far higher price selling direct to users of the timber rather than to a wholesale buyer. It may even be worth looking at the cost of getting a portable mill out to process some of the thinned trees if you can find a market for it. Be sure and have your trees looked at carefully though, it'd be a shame to turn a veneer grade log into planks or firewood.
Shaun
