Logging pics

[cory]

Pre commercial thinning is all I've ever seen/heard of. That's what happens before the clearcut.

Oh ok, that makes sense. I didn't know that, I thought it was like ongoing, long term thinning/selective cut.

They do thinning logging in the NE on ongoing basis, btw

 

[cory]

How bout helicopter logging of old growth like Reg has posted- isn't that thinning for profit instead of clearcutting which could be done?

 

[Graeme McMahon]

Good question Cory. Our alpine forests must be clear felled. In this way it mimmicks the cycles of mother nature. When a bush fire burns hot in our "mountain or alpine ash" bush it raises the lot to the ground then regenerates out of the ash bed created in a very high density. Over the next 60 years it naturaly thins and there is 60m tall trees ready to harvest again. By 240 years you've seen the best of it.

We are still logging "39 regen", if you google 1939 fires and look at the area burnt in Victoria you will see what I mean. Sir David Attenborough said it best in the series "The Private Life of Plants", "The paradox of this fore

Mixed species bush can have 3 generations of trees in it and can be select felled etc.

 

[Graeme McMahon]

The patch is almost done. A few to round up on the rocky knob and seed trees left as required. They are not what reseeds the coupe as natural seeds are already on the forest floor waiting for the burn. After the burn is when greens will take pics and exploit the lack of knowledge in the public to say we are wrecking the bush.

For scale if you look close in about the middle you can see the orange excavator rounding up more of Sunday's wood. The face ran about 1/2 mile to North around the knob and a bit less to South the other side.

 

[Burnham]

True enough but if perchance, over the long haul , the resource could be more productive by being more continuously or frequently yielding as opposed to one-shot yielding, selective might be in order.

Certain places in PNW are now into thinning, true?

Absolutely true. Federal lands have a huge stock of 35 to 60 year old second growth managed stands that followed on oldgrowth clearcuts and replants, that are managed on commercial thinning cycles. Many private timberlands in the western US are doing the same.

In fact, oldgrowth clearcuts are just about extinct on US federal lands under forestry management plans (US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management). It's all about the commercial thinnings, these days.

Note...this is not thinnings of oldgrowth stands. Rather, it is thinning of stands established and managed after clearcutting of the old stands. Federal, state, and private timberlands are on this cycle now, and have been for many decades.

 

[Graeme McMahon]

Thanks Burnham
The difference between the forest management displays the different ecosystems. If we were to log our mature ash "regnans" bush, which we don't in Victoria, we would have to clear fell to mirror the natural normal cycles of rejuvenation to look after it.

Regarding our bush, only 6% of the Crown land capable of being logged is available in Victoria. Every time the greens find an "endangered" possum in an eligible coupe it is removed from the 6% and not replaced. They have found so many colonies now they have passed the endangered threshold however they continue to move that goalpost as it suits.

Some contractors here have been stopped work for up to 4 months because each coupe they are to move to, another possum is found. I assisted the ecologists to put up their cameras at one time and was privy to them changing the location to maximise the exclusion of adjoining coupes should a possum be sighted (so much for science and forest management).

 

[cory]

Great pics and info, Graeme, thank you.

Have you ever seen Reg's vids of topping old growth for purposes of helicopter logging? Epic vids.

 

[flushcut]

View attachment 90819


The shaggy thick bark is deceptive regarding the grain of the wood. Most people can't get their chains to cut it.
The trees in the background are like the one in the pic, they are thick on the ground and tall. The problem with the “alpine ash" is they are free grained and prone to pulled wood on the stump. If you see pulled wood on an ash stump it has downgraded the log and an indicator that the faller is down on competence and close to ripping one up (barber’s chair).

I find a good step decreases pulled wood. I consider the hinge as a board. Its performance assists to determine the height of the step. A longer board can be thicker and bend further before it must break. Little steps will pull much more wood because they only can bend so far before they must break. The wood fibres at the rear of the hinge must pull. The pics don't do justice to the substantial pull of most of the trees. Very fine hinges are vulnerable to being squished.
I don't normally have a camera in the bush but I have been falling on Sunday's over the landing. The contractor pulls all the gear off the landing and I fall and slide them down to where he can round them up. In the distance there is a John D 990 with floppy plus other machines. There is too much rock and steep for access. Falling on Sunday's means I have to have someone with me all day for safety. They tend to take a couple of pics.

Thank you!

 

[SeanKroll]

Graeme,

is it about correct that stand-replacing bush fires wipe out eucs with a fire-return interval of about 80 years on average, so eucs haven't evolved a lot of CODIT capacity, as fire doesn't care about decay-stopping chemicals?

 

[Graeme McMahon]

From SeanKroll "is it about correct that stand-replacing bush fires wipe out eucs with a fire-return interval of about 80 years on average, so eucs haven't evolved a lot of CODIT capacity, as fire doesn't care about decay-stopping chemicals?"

I can't really answer your question but I'll give my understanding. E. regnans (mountain ash) and E. delegatensis (alpine ash) are fire dependant species. They are there because of fire. Cool fires reduce ground material. Hot fires raise them to the ground. Wet gullies and slopes are less affected by the fire especially south and East facing. In very wet gullies especially up high it gives rise to non fire dependant ecosystems. They are essentially pockets of rainforest. The vague boundaries between them ebb and flow depending on the vigour of fire or extended wet. These sections are taped out of our coupe and not to be logged or burnt.
We recognise the age of the bush from the fire that created it. 1939 was the very big fire, before that 26, 08 and one in the late 1890's. I can sometimes be felling 39 and strike a pocket of 26. It is that obvious. Since 39 the larger fires were 68, 83 and 09. There are many more fires throughout these times so it is difficult to place a time span on the cycle of fire.

There are still some sections of mature ash forests and I took Gerry up to have a look. We have seen the best of them and they are ready to burn when the time is right. I was part of the filming crew for BBC at Wallaby Creek. One tree I climbed was 150' to the first dead peg and still about 6' diameter at that point. Logging those trees was stopped some time ago. The shame is that they burnt in 09. I don’t suggest logging them all but it seemed a terrible waste of timber. It was always going to burn just a matter of when.

Back to your question, being fire dependant I wonder if cool fires are in fact an important mechanism that exploits defect to the improvement of the gene pool. We may need to consider where CODIT fits in.

 

[SeanKroll]

Fascinating, and what a world-away. The scale of those trees is hard to imagine.

I used to live in dry forest, in the Sierra Nevadas, Lake Tahoe way.

There, the fire-return interval is 7-12 years. Western Washington, low level, near the coast is more like 400-500 years, naturally. Fire is an interesting part of the systems.

 

[Mick!]

Yes, very interesting. Thanks Graeme.

 

[squisher]

How bout helicopter logging of old growth like Reg has posted- isn't that thinning for profit instead of clearcutting which could be done?

I'm going to guess that it's either access related making the old growth monsters being the only ones worth taking, or location people/political pressure to not clearcut. You posted up that animation recently showing logging in BC. Clearcut is the most common form I see around.

 

[Bermy]

Thanks for posting all this Graeme, having moved to Tasmania and hearing all the 'forest wars' stuff, your explanations gives a lot of perspective.
I reckon most of the people I talk to who are blindly against logging don't know this stuff, heck I didn't, but I knew that and would withhold comment, but at least gaining more facts helps demystify how the environment works, wherever we live.

 

[cory]

Its funny, seeing those pics of stripped land in Aussi, well without Graeme's insight plus his extreme credibility, I'd would likely think very poorly of that scenario. But with Graeme explaining it, I'm like, hmmm, so that's how its done. Makes good sense!

 

[Husky D]

Hi all, very long time and no postings (sorry Butch!) life does seem to get in the way!! A few photos I just found on the phone from an old fashioned line thinning from the other year to a couple of some hardwoods felled for a friend when I’m allowed out to play still!

 

[MasterBlaster]

Good to see you posting again, Dan! That was a helluva walkabout!!!

 

[Husky D]

Yea long walkabout!!! Still viewed from afar though and good to see you still keep it going man. Life changes but at least I know I can still drop in and there will still be a thread and discussion about short bar techniques ��

 

[MasterBlaster]

Don't be a stranger!!!

 

[Raj]

Nice work! Welcome back!

 

[cory]

Those are some mighty low stumps!

Nice pics!

 

[MasterBlaster]

Nice to see them so low!

 

[flushcut]

ALAP! Nice saw work.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Whenever I needed an ALAP, I always did it in the felling cut. So many people made it a 2 stage thing - tossing the tree and then cutting the stump. I always liked the tree to pull the stump over instead of fighting the weight with wedges/whatnot.

 

[cory]

2 stage is way simpler for me. Plus, in a residential setting, you aren't doing all that cutting at ground level with different angles of attack with both a pulling chain and pushing chain which will likely lead to a dull saw vs. cutting alap in the second stage with one cut using a pulling chain thus preventing virtually any dullness from debris on the stump.