What can I do to improve the health of the wooded parts of my property?

[kelchm]

I bought a 4.5 acre property in central PA last year that is partially wooded and also surrounded by 25+ acres of woods on three sides. I'd like to understand what I can do as a property owner to help improve the health of the wooded areas and also make it more robust to any future diseases or infestations.

Photo Album

The most common type of tree on the property seems to have been ash. As I'm sure you can imagine, they've all been decimated by the emerald ash borer. I don't think there is a single ash tree left on the property that is still salvageable. I've probably taken down in the area of 30 ash trees in the last 10 months and have many more still to take care of. I'm still working on my identification skills, but I know that we also have numerous yellow poplar, sugar maple, red maple, beech, birch, red cedar and pine trees on the property.

My biggest concern is that much of the wooded areas seem to be completely choked with vines and various types of scraggly brush. There are also numerous sections that are dominated by a single type of tree including entire groves of dead ash trees where no mature trees remain.

Things I've already started doing:

• Felling dead trees (mostly Ash) while trying to minimize damage to any surrounding healthy trees
  
  
• Getting control of the poison ivy, virginia creeper and grape vines (manual removal, no herbicides)
  
  
• Clearing out undesirable 'trash' trees that are popping up at the transition areas or where groves of Ash trees have died
  
  
• Trying to find suitable saplings that are in undesirable locations (like right next to the driveway) and still small enough to be easily relocated. Poplars seem like an obvious choice for areas where I want to quickly re-establish mature trees since they seem to basically grow like weeds here and are very attractive looking trees (IMO).

Is there anything else I should be doing? Are there any species that would be most appropriate to introduce as a replacement for the ash? I unfortunately don't have the budget to hire a professional to consult on this with right now, so any tips or guidance would be greatly appreciated.

 

[ATH]

Get those under story bushed identified (take pics of the twigs, leaves, and bark to post here).

Some of that looks like honeysuckle. If so, that is problem #1 - by a mile. You are going to need herbicides to do that (or plan on cutting the same bush many many times per year for several years - and pulling all of the seedlings you find).

Felling dead ash has no impact on long-term forest health. Not saying you can't do that...just that you are spending a lot of time and not improving the health of the forest by doing so.

Don't worry about Virginia Creeper. Poison ivy doesn't hurt anything - and is actually beneficial for wildlife. Feel free to kill it all...and keep going, killing any other poison ivy you find!!! But know it is also not improving forest health. Grapevines can certainly be destructive, so it is good to get those out.

Some of the other shrubs look like maybe spicebush??? Is it a wet woods? This can get thick in the understory, but isn't a bad thing.

As far as what trees to grow, that depends on the soil. Clay or sand? Alkaline or acidic? Wet or well-drained? Etc... There is an oak that will work, but what a pin oak needs vs. a white oak is quite a bit different. Figure out what is growing there already. That will be a good indicator for what will grow there. You can also then look at associated species and get ideas for what else will do well on the same site.

 

[kelchm]

Get those under story bushed identified (take pics of the twigs, leaves, and bark to post here).

Some of that looks like honeysuckle. If so, that is problem #1 - by a mile. You are going to need herbicides to do that (or plan on cutting the same bush many many times per year for several years - and pulling all of the seedlings you find).

There is decent amount of honeysuckle, but I think most of it is something else. My local master gardener told me to identify invasive honeysuckle by looking for hollow stems, which has been helpful so far. I was also able to get out and take some photos today as you suggested -- I definitely would appreciate help with identifying these and which may be candidates for removal.

Photo Album

Felling dead ash has no impact on long-term forest health. Not saying you can't do that...just that you are spending a lot of time and not improving the health of the forest by doing so.

Fair enough -- it does make me feel better though. Also seems like a waste to not make use of the wood before it starts rotting. My thinking was that if I fell them I can minimize damage to any surrounding healthy trees and basically immediately plant new trees in the same spots. I have a small tractor with a grapple which makes pretty quick work of the cleanup.

As far as what trees to grow, that depends on the soil. Clay or sand? Alkaline or acidic? Wet or well-drained? Etc... There is an oak that will work, but what a pin oak needs vs. a white oak is quite a bit different. Figure out what is growing there already. That will be a good indicator for what will grow there. You can also then look at associated species and get ideas for what else will do well on the same site.

I'd call it clay heavy, but I'm not a soil expert by any means. It definitely holds on to moisture, but the property also sits on top of a ridge that's about 200ft above the surrounding area. In practice that means it can get pretty mucky and saturated after heavy precipitation, but it doesn't really stay that way for very long. I haven't ever tested the ph of the soil, but I'll see if I can tomorrow.

 

[PJM]

I'll take a shot...

#1 Spicebush - to confirm, scratch the bark and smell (native)
#2 Honeysuckle (invasive)
#3 Winged euonymus (invasive in most places)
#4 Honeysuckle (invasive)
#5 Mulberrry (see https://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/fnr/fnr_237.pdf for help distinguishing between white and red)
#6 Honeysuckle (invasive)
#7 Alternate leaf dogwood (native)
#8 Flowering dogwood (native and uncommon in NY since highly diseased and we are also at its northern range)
#9 Horsechestnut (non-native & may be invasive in some areas)
#10 Elm (slippery or red?) (native)
#11 Black birch (native but not highly desirable, at least here in NY)

 

[kelchm]

Thanks for the help PJM. I struggled for hours trying to identify a few of these!

 

[Jason Douglas]

Penn State probably has some good resources to help you identify local species from invasives. 2nd on having to cut and spray things like honeysuckle, it's a bugger.

 

[ATH]

....
Fair enough -- it does make me feel better though. Also seems like a waste to not make use of the wood before it starts rotting. My thinking was that if I fell them I can minimize damage to any surrounding healthy trees and basically immediately plant new trees in the same spots. I have a small tractor with a grapple which makes pretty quick work of the cleanup.

....

I've had this conversation with dozens and dozens of landowners... here is my take:
How much firewood do you use. Kinda a "rough" average for normal healthy central hardwood stand in reasonably decent soil is that you are growing 2 cords of wood per acre per year (in addition to lumber on merchantable logs).

Are you using that much? If not, than you are NOT wasting firewood by letting it fall and rot. What you ARE wasting is a space to grow better trees when you let the honeysuckle. That is the limited resource here, not firewood.

Once you start thinking like that, you start to realize that you realize that every hour you spend cutting dead ash is an hour honeysuckle continues to grow amd you don't have time to address it. No trees will grow under a dense honeysuckle stand. Dead ash have no impact on forest health and are often so brittle when they fall that they do little damage. Of course if there are trees leaning at a target, deal with those, but I'd leave the rest alone to work on things that have real impact on the future of your forest.

 

[kelchm]

I've had this conversation with dozens and dozens of landowners... here is my take:
How much firewood do you use. Kinda a "rough" average for normal healthy central hardwood stand in reasonably decent soil is that you are growing 2 cords of wood per acre per year (in addition to lumber on merchantable logs).

Are you using that much? If not, than you are NOT wasting firewood by letting it fall and rot. What you ARE wasting is a space to grow better trees when you let the honeysuckle. That is the limited resource here, not firewood.

Once you start thinking like that, you start to realize that you realize that every hour you spend cutting dead ash is an hour honeysuckle continues to grow amd you don't have time to address it. No trees will grow under a dense honeysuckle stand. Dead ash have no impact on forest health and are often so brittle when they fall that they do little damage. Of course if there are trees leaning at a target, deal with those, but I'd leave the rest alone to work on things that have real impact on the future of your forest.

I don't use much firewood, but by use it I meant mill it and (hopefully) end up making some nice furniture out of it. I think Ash is a really pretty wood and some of the trees I took down are large enough to get some really nice usable lumber out of. Most of these trees were still barely clinging to life last year, and from what I've cut so far everything is still nice and solid with no punkiness to be found. Any of the smaller Ash trees I already burned earlier this spring to kill as many of the EAB as I could. At the end of the day I only have 4.5 acres and a good part of that is already cleared.

Given the identification feedback from PJM I think I'm actually in much better shape with the honeysuckle than I thought I was. With a few exceptions, the majority of what I see are spicebush, alternate leaf dogwood and a little bit of flowering dogwood. I think I could make a first pass on cutting and using pesticide on the stumps of all the honeysuckle over a singler weekend. I'm sure it will take several rounds of this over many years, but as it is right now the situation doesn't seem to be as bad as I though.

I've also established that there is a large stand of white oak and some swamp white oak on the north western edge of my property line, which is pretty cool. Still working on identifying everything, but there's also lots of black walnut and some hickory. The poplar and maple definitely dominate, but there is more diversity here than I previously realized.

 

[ATH]

OK...then yeah, you need to get that ash ASAP. If the bark is still tight it will likely be good. if the bark is starting to slough off, the lumber will likely split pretty bad as it dries. Not necessarily tied to the bark falling off, but that is an indication of how long it has been dead.

 

[kelchm]

Thanks!

I have a small tractor with a backhoe, does it make sense to just dig out the honeysuckle that I can get to, or will be causing myself more trouble potentially leaving behind part of the root system going that route?

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

 

[ATH]

No...keep equipment out of the woods as much as you can. The more you disturb the soil, the more trouble you will have with invasive species. Just foliar spray or cut and treat.

 

[peakbagger]

IMO, nothing wrong with herbicide if used responsibly. Cut the invasive and immediately using a brush apply to the cut. Few people have the patience and persistence to keep hacking at regrowth of invasives long enough to actually kill it off.

 

[Jason Douglas]

Get pics of the dogwoods in bloom. I've never seen a lot of pagoda dogwoods in one place. Sounds cool.

 

[anlrolfe]

This is a video that I thought was helpful for honeysuckle

 

[ATH]

Pretty good tips in the video. The things I'd do different than the video:
*Cut slightly shorter stumps. Herbicide will be more effective.
*Use a good Silky saw instead of the bow saw. Will cut faster and easier to get the blade in there without getting the bow caught on stems that fall between the frame and blade.
*Don't waste time dragging the brush. Not a bad thing to do, but you can get a lot more done if you don't take the time to do pile it.
*I also got a Husqvarna 555FX clearing saw (shipped direct from Sweden for $777.some change). That makes quick work of everything under about 3-4". To maximize that benefit, you need a second person spraying behind you. Cut and spray with that really slows down how quickly you could move.

Finally, Tordon in high per-acre doses DOES move in the soil. I do not recommend using it on heavy honeysuckle infestations. I've seen too many stands with desirable trees impacted. I use Garlon 4 in oil. More expensive, but protects the trees you are trying to help. With fewer stems per acre, Tordon is a good product to use.

 

[anlrolfe]

Clearing invasives like this, I can rotate the bar 90degrees on my pos Ryobi combi- pole saw. It's really nice to be 3-4ft back when you're trimming all this little stuff.

Good advice on the herbicides. I've never used the Tordon but REALLY liked the home made applicator/dobber and holster

 

[ATH]

Yes...it is always good to get new ideas like that. Looks like it doesn't make a mess at all.

Is your Ryobi gas or battery? If would be cool to be able to do that with battery...