Managing My Forest for Firewood

11 months ago
7.68K

My land has a large diversity of micro ecosystems with different tree and plant species in each zone. Directly around the cabin, the ground is deep sand with a thin layer of organic matter on top and supports mostly pine, fir and spruce with pockets of old and dying shade intolerant species such as cherry, red maple, ironwood and birch. Since these are low quality and dying off, I'm harvesting them for firewood and leaving the superior quality red oaks and sugar maples to become the dominant species in select areas. For wildlife, I'm cutting openings in the forest where those same shade intolerant species can thrive along with quaking aspen, all important wildlife foods. Around the workshop, Beech bark disease is killing all of the mature trees and occurs as the result of an insect-fungus complex where an invasive beech scale insect feeds on the bark of the tree, creating cracks that allow a native canker fungi (Nectria) to enter. The mature trees are falling and are being replaced by hundreds of beech root sprouts, creating thickets of trees that also die as soon as they reach a certain age and size, starting the process over again.

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