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Episode #103: Joel's Advice on Forest Thinning · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: You have to leave the stereotypical never cut a tree wilderness, wilderness area-oriented environmental movement in order to actually embrace true forestal ecology, which is that it is always in some point of a cycle of succession.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to another episode of Beyond Labels.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Dr.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Cena McKella, and I'm here with our favorite farmer, Joel Salatin.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: And today it's Joel's Day.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: This is a question for Joel from one of our listeners from Samantha Waterloo.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: She says, Hi there.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: I have a question for Joel.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: What is your take on forest thinning?
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: Is it beneficial?
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: We have a family property with 80 acres that are mostly wooded, and it has gotten so crowded that no light is reaching the ground.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: There are a lot of dead trees, but many of the trees are alive, but with only leaves at the very top where the sun reaches it.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: I started thinning all the dead trees out in a small patch in hopes of starting regrowth, but I wanted to make sure this was indeed beneficial.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, Joel.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Forest thinning.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: Is it good?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man, this is uh this is one of my favorite topics.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're we're known for our uh pastured livestock, but anyone who really knows me knows that uh my favorite tool is a chainsaw.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I I get really uh excited when I get in the woods.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I love trees, I love woods, I I go up and hug trees all the time.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, trees have a problem.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Trees get old and die too.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: They're just like the rest of us.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: They they they they don't live forever.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: And probably one of the most important um aspects of of ecology is realizing that it's never stagnant.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: No, no ecosystem is stagnant, it doesn't sit.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: It it it it moves, it it changes.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so in a forest and in in general in the ecosystems, what we have is either succession or regression.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: So it it's succeeding to something better or it's regressing to something worse.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, imagine a a stagnant pond, for example, a a pond that's got a bunch of um um whatever manure and stuff in it, it is regressing to a place of stagnation that's not good.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: A pond that is full of salamanders and frogs and cattails around the edges and is clean, uh is is is succeeding and moving to a you know to a better place.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh so so that that's the way ecologies are, and that's why uh when we come to the woods and we come to the forest, uh it's all about where we are in in any given successional uh successional cycle.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: The thing is, in in trees, the cycle is so long, you know, in a in a pasture or in your lawn, uh in your in your garden beds, okay.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you can see succession there really quick.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but but but in a forest, you don't see that succession very long because it's a it's often you know a multi-decade actually uh succession.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: So um I don't know where Samantha's from.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm assuming she's from east of the Mississippi.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just assume she's east of the Mississippi, and um and the reason I'm making that distinction is because some of what I say uh applies more to the eastern United States than the western.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, when you get into the western and the far west and you get into the um you know the the coniferous forests and the and the redwoods and all that, so there are nuances.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: And as you know, in this podcast, uh nuances is our middle name.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're we're constantly dealing with with nuances.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so so I just want to make that distinction of east of the Mississippi and kind of you know out into the very arid, arid areas.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: So um let's think about this way what what determines the vegetation is light.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Light is what determines the vegetation.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: So if you so there are a lot of species that require full light and a lot of them that can live in shade.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: For example, um a conifer requires full shade full light to get going, and an oak tree, a deciduous oak tree is happy with 50% shade.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: So in a successional standpoint, that's why, for example, coniferous forests do better if they're burned or clear-cut to restart than uh than deciduous forests, where you can kind of pick and choose and take trees and leave ones and new ones will come on, because uh in a deciduous forest, the trees uh can grow happily in in quite a bit of shade.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and so these nuances determine what a given patch of forestal terrain is going to look like.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're in an 80-acre uh woodlot, which is that's a lot of woods, it's great.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: You have that nice wood lot, uh, but it's so thick and it's real um it's real uh dense.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Realize that that every acre will only grow so much biomass.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, how much how much will it will it grow?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's called DBH, DBH, diameter of breast height.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to hug the tree, you know, and and see what the see what the diameter of breast height is.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: And you can get um, you know, I suggest one of the if you want to work in your woods and you enjoy them, uh get a diameter tape.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's a cool little uh tape measure, unlike the ones you see down at Lowe's, instead of a instead of a flat uh uh 90 degree angle on the end to catch the end of a board, it actually has a hook, and you can hook that hook that thing in the in the bark and pull it around, and uh the tape gives you an automatic diameter reading.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, the inches look like they're that far apart, but uh, but but it it gives you diameter.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so it um so you you the the the most of the woods in America, including out west, um have become extremely weedy.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the Native Americans, we get a little bit of history here, the Native Americans they didn't like dense woods because you couldn't see who was creeping up on you, you know, to rob your tent or whatever, uh, or or take your you know, take your kids.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh so they didn't like um dense woods.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, the first Europeans who came to America wrote back to to in their diaries, they said, we could take a European continental army and march it from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi without any roads.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: So so uh so the the tool of the Native Americans, of course, was fire, and they would burn routinely because for the Native American, it was more important to have to have prairie, which brought elk and deer and bison.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: That was more important than trees.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Trees were important, but the animals, you can't you can't eat a tree, and so uh so in order to stimulate animals and food, they wanted to rise the number of trees.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so generally, the eastern United States, pre-European, was a a magnificent silvo pasture, widely spaced trees, almost like a park, if you will, uh widely spaced trees and and grasses, that uh then created an openness in the landscape.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's really important.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's like the first, that's the first step in um what, in leaving the stereotypical, you know me, I'm you know I'm the Christian libertarian, environmentalist, capitalist lunatic.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: So part of that is environmentalist, but but you have to leave the stereotypical never cut a tree, wilderness, wilderness area-oriented environmental movement, uh, in order to actually embrace true forestal ecology, which is that it is always in some some point of a cycle of succession, either becoming overmature and needing to be rejuvenated, it's becoming weedy, it's um you know, it's too um, you know, too much junk, uh, that sort of thing.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so the rule of thumb is the rule of thumb is to maximize the amount of stem square footage.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, an acre of forest will only produce so much square footage of dbh of uh diameter at breast height, all right.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: It'll only produce so much, and it can be in little, you know, a bunch of little uh sumac bushes, it can be in, you know, um uh black gum, kind of a junky, junky tree.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: It can be in dead stuff, it can be in in good good uh material, it can be in, you know, green maple, red maple.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's a million different things it can be in.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Some some grow into timber, some don't.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so the rule of thumb is that you want to thin down, thin down a forestal zone to where you take the diameter of a keeper tree.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: So you you go through it.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: I like to go through the woods, and you know, when I when I don't have the chainsaw and I've got time with some survey ribbon, and I like ribbon more than more than paint because uh if I if I change my mind, I can put a ribbon on.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: If I change my mind, I can rip it off and put it on somewhere else.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas if I paint a tree and say, I'm gonna keep this one, uh if I change my mind and say, No, I'm not gonna keep that one, then I can't I can't erase the paint.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I like survey ribbon, and I just walk through and with my diameter tape and um and I select the trees that I want to keep.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: They have nice form, you know, good timber, uh, that sort of thing.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the rule of thumb, the silviculture rule of thumb is you take the diameter in feet, you double it.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have a seven-inch diameter tree times two is 14, and you convert that inches to feet.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so seven inches in diameter times two is 14, convert it to feet, and you go out 14 feet from that tree, make a circle, and cut everything within that circle.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want to cut more than that because if you do, too much light comes in.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Every deciduous tree, now, not so much with with conifers, but with deciduous trees, every tree has thousands and thousands of dormant buds up and down its stem.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Those buds are stimulated by light.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: What keeps those buds from sprouting is shade, is is the the canopy over them.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: But if you if you shock it all of a sudden and open up too much light, then it'll it'll uh all those little sprouts will sprout and it'll it's they're called epicormic sprouts, epicormic sprouting.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And probably you've seen this like on a, I don't know, maybe a maybe a housing development that you go by and people go, I want to keep the tree, you know, you want to keep as many trees as possible.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe it was a maybe it was a woods and it could converted into a you know a 50-house housing development.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: You go by, you know, three or four years later, and all those supposed nice, you know, nice trees that they left when they did it are now all fuzzy and got little sucker and branches on them.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's called epicormic sprouting.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: It destroys the trees, it's unhealthy for the tree, and the whole thing falls apart.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: But it's caused because all of those dormant sprouts on the stem suddenly got shocked with too much light and they and and they sprouted.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so this this formula that I'm giving you, this two, this, this uh um radius times two converted to feet is the is the formula that allows you to thin, but thin thin uh um carefully enough that you don't get too much light suddenly shocking into the nice trees that you want to leave.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Wait, is it the radius or the diameter?
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, the diameter.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay, so the diameter times two and then convert it to feet.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Convert to feet, that's right.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then you would go out in the radius of that feet, and you're and you're cutting in that radius.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, and then you go out in the radius.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: So you're actually so you're actually 28 feet in diameter.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: So uh a seven a seven-inch tree, you're gonna cut 28 feet in diameter, you're gonna go out 14 feet in radius, all right?
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and what happens then, what happens then is that when you thin like that, we we call this weeding the woodlot.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, permaculture, if you're familiar with all of permaculture, permaculture has a principle, we need more forest and fewer trees.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, basically all of our all of our forests are are weedy, and and I I can assure you they are.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: They're way too thick, they're way too weedy.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so so what happens is the available light and nutrients, the capacity to grow good, nice big trees is being siphoned off by a bunch of uh poor quality, crooked, you know, junk stuff.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: So so uh if you if you want to um release release the good trees uh to reach their full uh uh you know genetic uh genetic potential, you want to take just like just like you weed green beans in a garden.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: You can't have the best crop of green beans if it's if they're smothered in weeds, right?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Same thing is in the forest.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so by thinning, you now maximize, you leverage the available sunlight, fertility, and water, you leverage that on good trees instead of siphoning a bunch of or wasting a bunch of it in in poor quality trees.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: So wait, let me before you go on, let me ask you a a question at the beginning of this process.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, when you're taking the diameter of a quote unquote keeper tree, how do you how did you make the determination though of which one is a keeper tree?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like, am I going out there and I'm saying, oh, I'm gonna start with a bigger tree that's not dead?
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: Is that is that like is that one of the qualifications for which ones I'm gonna keep, or how do I know what to keep?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it it depends, depends on what you're doing.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, in some places, in some places, uh what you need to do is take down um some really mature trees.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Trees do grow old and die, and you can tell a lot about where they are in in their life cycle by how vertical their branches are.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: A tree that's growing aggressively has vertical branches reaching toward the sun, and a tree that's mature and beginning to die, those branches start to droop.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Think about a young person and old person, okay.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, as we get older, we we tend to droop a little bit, okay?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: And and you know, uh you don't look droopy to me.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm not old yet, all right.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: You're a spring chicken, yeah.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: But um, but but that that's the way you know they start to sag, things begin to sag, all right.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: And and so so um, yeah, uh a lot of trees um show both the sagging element and look up and see if there are some dead branches up in the canopy of that tree.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, and and when there are some dead branches, you know that tree's in decline.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's another thing, you know, in the woods, these things, when I say it's in decline, it doesn't mean it's gonna die next year.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Good night.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a tree often it is mature and then actually doesn't um whatever, doesn't die for goodness, 50 years.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it can be a long time.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: But I can tell you, having worked in our, of course, we're in Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley, up against the Appalachian Mountains, we're in, you know, prime hardwood country.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this is this is uh poplar, walnut, cherry, oak.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this is as good as it gets up here.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: But I can tell you, uh, cutting a lot of trees, that it's amazing how many nice big, you know, oak trees actually have a little one-inch rot in the center where they're declining.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now they're not gonna die next year, but if you leave them 20 more years, in other words, every year that rows a little bit in the inside, eventually the tree dies.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, it's a long, it's a long, you know, uh a slow process.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: And and once that tree, once that tree is as big as it's gonna get and starts to get that that little telltale rot inside, uh, you might as well take it down because all it's gonna do is is is degenerate, you know, from from then on.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's just gonna get worse and worse.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: So there are there are are places, uh, and and depending on how long ago your forest, how old is your forest?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: How how long ago was it cut?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: How old are the trees that are in it?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: That depends on do I need to take big ones and kind of start over?
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Or is everything kind of you know uh 30 to 40 years old, you know, eight, 10, 12 inches in diameter?
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: And what I need to do is release those nice um uh juvenile, juvenile trees and release them to actually take off and grow better.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's called it's called a release cut, or in uh in forestry parlance, uh timber stand improvement, Tsi.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we we can't talk in multisyllabic words, so we use uh TSI uh as a as a deal.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: And and some and and um and and then you know so depending on on the age of the stand that you have and what's there depends on whether you take old mature trees or whether you or whether you call out call out competitive trees to release the dominant trees.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: So they're dominant dominant the the the biggest trees in a stand are called the dominants, and the dominant trees, it all depends on how old they are and how healthy they are, whether those are the keeper trees, and and I've I've done both kinds of sections.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: I've I I've I um I did a a two-acre spot not you know a couple years ago in a kind of low area.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: The trees were the the the big trees, and I mean, you know, trees that are 16 inches in diameter, they're nice big oak trees, very, very healthy, doing great.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: You go 100 yards up on a up on a ridge right next to it.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: I had I had to clean the whole thing off and start over because those big trees were all dying.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was a rockier, drier, harsher climate, and they simply were not able to grow as big and nice as they were down in the deeper soil in the you know, down in the valley next to it.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, a lot of what you do depends on what you're starting with.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: So oh go ahead.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: So so so the quick, you know, the quick answer uh to Samantha's question is thinning trees is fantastic.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: And if it's dark and and and uh foreboding in there, opening it up will be the best thing that you can do to the trees.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: And when I do that kind of thing in a real in a real thick area like that, I almost I don't want to get all weird and mystical on you, but I'll I can almost hear, I can almost hear the the the the keeper trees uh like thanking me, you know, giving me a sigh of oh, you know, thank you for giving me room, thank you for giving me, you know, opportunity to express my you know my physiological uh um uh completeness.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so so they they will end up being healthier and growing more, you know, um over time for sure.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: So so as you go in, for sure, take out the dead ones.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I wouldn't take out every single dead one, I would leave you know one dead one per acre as a nesting tree for pileated woodpeckers and and and and and things like that.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, you know, you're not gonna take them all out at one time.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but but this is where if you can go in with um, you know, with with with a with a uh just a chainsaw, um and and work on a couple of acres a year, and you'll get better and better at your at your technique.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and and the the key, the key for me in this thinning is to make sure that you cut whatever trees you cut, cut them off, and then after you cut them off, go down against the ground as close as you can get to the ground with your chainsaw and cut it again.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: So cut that, cut this, cut the stump, then cut the stump right down on the ground, and then take your chainsaw and bevel, bevel the edge.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh And that way you can drive through those woods with a with a wagon, a firewood trailer, and you're not gonna rip up an axle, you're not gonna tear off a you know a um a hitch or whatever, tear the bottom out of your out of your truck.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, you you get everything down low.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: But so it so every every tree I cut that's bigger than, you know, whatever, uh five or six inches is actually two cuts plus an edge bevel.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: So you got to cut the tree, then you cut the stump off at ground level, and then you bevel the edge.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the beautiful thing about that, when you look, when you're finished and you look through there, you don't see any stumps at all.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: There's no stumps, and it's just it's just gorgeous.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it looks like a it looks like uh looks like a park.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: And um and and you know, new seedlings will come on and and things will things will develop.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: But uh yeah, getting some light, getting some light into that forest floor, you'll get germination of of of uh vegetation that would never be there otherwise, and you'll get a proliferation of wildlife, which also likes the the multi-vegetative uh ecosystem rather than a single ecosystem of just deep, dark woods.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: There's actually not very many bugs there, but if you open it up and you get a little bit of grass and and some uh some some you know some succulents, some succulents on the forest floor, that'll really stimulate grasshoppers and crickets.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: Then you'll have wild turkeys and and more deer will come in, and you'll have a lot more wildlife if you stimulate if you get an if you get enough light into the floor to stimulate some succulents.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: What you don't want is so much light in the floor that it stimulates a bunch of you know raspberries and blackberries and things like that.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you if you go in and I mean this is this is a I don't know what your goals are on this 80-acre property, but there certainly is nothing wrong.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a big fan of going in and selecting maybe a half acre and literally and doing a clear cut.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, cut every single thing.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know what?
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's gonna grow blueberries and blackberries and raspberries, and and and you're and that's where you're gonna pick for the next, you know, like three years.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna pick your berries there.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to plant them, you don't have to do anything, and they'll come and uh and then gradually you'll see, you know, you'll see the trees come up through them and the brambles act as a nurse crop so that the so that the the deer and stuff don't you know don't tear up your your new saplings that grow.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: And uh by the time the the the new saplings get up to 20 feet, 20 feet, the canopy closes in, shades out the brambles and the briars.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: The briars die, they leave, and now you have another canopy of trees uh that you want to go in and select the keepers and take out the junk, and and you just you know, the whole thing starts over again.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, see, that's interesting because we have to do this too on our property.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's you know, all the acreage is wooded.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I've been I love Samantha's question because I've been wondering this too.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: And see, I want to grow the berries, like the blueberries and the raspberries and stuff.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: So in that situation, you're saying I would just pick a spot and just cut all the trees down in that situation, you know, two cuts and bevel it, right?
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then just leave it alone, and the berries are just gonna come.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah, yeah.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: The the bear the berries will come when you have when you have uh I'm again, I'm not talking about uh Colorado, okay?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about Colorado here.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about uh in in in the more uh temperate, you know, everything from you know Missouri and uh Missouri, Arkansas, East, okay.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh here, yeah, when you when you bear when you bear a little pot patch of woods like that, uh the the first thing that's gonna come in in the next forestal succession is uh brambles and blackberries.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we actually when we when we built the road on our farm many, many years ago, we um we had a 10-acre spot that they they cut and we we traded the timber for the road building.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: And uh man, that 10 acres came up uh in nothing but blackberries for years.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: We'd pick buckets and buckets of blackberries, but you had to really get up there uh early or you or you wouldn't beat the bears.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: So we ended up we ended up uh using the bear trails as our trails to go pick, you know.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we always hoped we wouldn't come around the corner and see a bear on the other side.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: But um yeah, the the and in fact, in fact, here I'll tell you you'll like this Cena.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the old the old timers around here that were here when you know, old timers when I was a little kid, they're all passed away now.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: But they said back in the back in the you know 1920s and 30s, the community would get together and they would decide on a like a five-acre place up on the mountain to uh to actually burn.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: And they they would burn that and they would burn a different five-acre place every year.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where everybody in the community would go and gather blueberries and blackberries uh for the next two years.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: Took about two years for the for the you know the the new saplings and stuff to come in and start to deteriorate.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: So that they would do these on an annual basis, and they just they just had this this patchwork quilt of um of of of native berries and stuff to pick in these little five-acre spots that they created for, you know, as a community.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: I just think it's a I think it's a beautiful thing.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: So so would you would you cut the trees down first and then you're burning whatever's left there?
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Or okay, all right.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: I said they burned it.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, back then they didn't have chainsaws.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: And and so so the way the way they were able to whatever get rid of the forest was to burn it, was to burn it.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Today we have chainsaws, so we don't need to burn, we don't need to send all that, you know, destroy all that biomass.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: We can actually um we can actually cut it.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: And and and I said five acres, but that was for the whole community.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: That was for the whole, and there were and there were a lot more people living here now then than there are today.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Today we've got tractors and machinery, so nobody has to live here.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I mean, in uh I I talked to two elderly ladies that grew up here in a 1910.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: They said in 1910, our our block, our our block, which is uh five miles long, you know, because make the square uh where we live, our block is five miles long.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: There were over a hundred, a hundred people living on our block.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: Today it's like 20.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, so so that that's the rural, that's what happened with the industrial revolution.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: The rural, the whole rural population moved to the cities.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so all of the so these rural areas, uh, you know, they had they had large, I mean, Swope, Swope had a cannery.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you've been here, you know what's Swope is nothing but a post office.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: We had an actual functioning cannery uh here at one time.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: And and so all these all these little itty bitty rural communities had way more population.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: They had schools, they had churches, the churches are closed, the schools are closed, canneries are closed, the butcher shops are all this that used to be the little local economy uh is now gone and it's become centralized.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: And well, that's another whole rabbit hole, but but the the pe the people have all moved all moved to the cities.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, the rural areas are are bereft, they're bereft of the laughter and the entertainment and the com and and the the human community element that that used to be here.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so um yeah, that's why you know I mean you it used to be that that every every about every three miles was a grist mill to grind, and uh uh and and every two or three miles somebody had a sawmill because you didn't go to Lowe's or Home Depot to get lumber.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, we have a sawmill now, a band sawmill.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: We use it all the time.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: Neighbors come, you know, people come and we mill stuff for them.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, so in a lot of ways, we feel like our farm is this this 1900 rural economy um back, you know, back to this rural spot and and uh enlivening it with not only uh the human ingenuity, power, but but but the laughter and the and the and the acres to acre, uh the stewardship that comes uh when you have more people involved with the landscape.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's so beautiful.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: And now unfortunately, we're about out of time.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: Can we do like a couple just a couple quick um answers if you can?
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um so the first one is so let's say I did choose to pick a small spot and instead of cutting the trees down, I burn them.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like I wasn't gonna do something with the wood.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: Can't I burn it and improve the fertility of the soil there?
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like what doesn't burning the tree help with fertility?
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well that the the problem is if it gets it it can, uh, but generally if it gets hot at all, if it gets if it gets hot enough to do what you want to do, it'll probably um burn out a lot of your organic matter as well, because it it the soil will get real hot.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: Besides that, the fire department won't like you very much.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: So the the fact the fact is, the fact is that in general, east of the Mississippi, burning is out.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, unless you're unless you're a government agent or the Department of Forestry, uh, where they do some prescribed burns once in a while, uh, generally uh um uh burning is um is not considered acceptable.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: So no burning.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: I like I I I like I like the chainsaw and the chipper, because if if we if we cut them, we get we get the big trees we can turn into lumber and boards.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: The um medium trees we can turn into firewood, which we burn and give give heat so we don't have to buy petroleum.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the third, that then the little stuff we chip to make compost to make our carbonaceous diaper under the cows.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: So it all it all gets used up and and the and the soil is is exactly intact the way it was under the trees.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I love that.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, perfect.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I won't burn it, I'll use I'll buy a chainsaw.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh um real um two six.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'll come down and give you give you and Donnie some uh some chainsaw lessons.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that would be fantastic.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: You can hunter too, man.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: He's 13 now.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: He could he can do it.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that's fantastic.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, is there a specific time of year when you should be cutting down the trees?
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: Does it matter what time of year?
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, it it it it it I mean you can cut them anytime, but just remember that if you do want to make some lumber, if you do want to do something with the wood, it's a lot better to cut it when the sap is down.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: So winter work is is generally uh better.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: The the other thing is that in the winter the leaves are off and you can actually see what you're doing.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: The snakes have gone to bed.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh poison ivy isn't quite as uh uh quite as jumping out at you.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot of advantages uh to working in the woods in a winter.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, historically, wintertime was when you worked in the woods.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: That that was that was kind of when you did it.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and the final question is um, when you're trying to find the keeper trees, what is your thought about um I think they're called the mother trees, saving the mother tree?
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: Should you be trying to do that as long as or I mean, I'm not even sure exactly how to find the mother tree, but I've read a lot of studies about the mom, the mother tree, how you don't want to take that one down.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: What what is your thought?
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: Should I be concerned about finding the mother?
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh not not not generally here, I think, in these in these eastern deciduous forests, but but certainly in any place there will be just um I don't know, uh trees.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: Look, I've cut a lot of trees, but there are some that are just iconic.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we we had one down in the corner of one of our fields, massive, massive white oak.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, just it it it's too it's too iconic to cut.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: And last winter the wind blew it over.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: It finally, it finally, you know, died in the in the wind.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: So now I've got to go cut it up.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: But um, you know, the there's nothing wrong with leaving some just we we have one, we call it the squirrel tree.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: When I was a little kid, I mean, so we're talking about you know, um, 55 years ago.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm up there with my little 410 shotgun with you know, dad and some friends, and we're shooting squirrel.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: We call it the squirrel tree.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: It was a massive, massive big oak tree that always had a bunch of squirrels on it.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and you know, we still haven't cut it.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's still there.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: We call it the squirrel tree.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's iconic on the farm.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: We have the squirrel tree field that we opened up next to it.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: That tree is still there.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: That tree will never be cut.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: It is just it's part of the lore and the and the landscape of the farm.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: And um and and so uh I don't I don't know what all goes into a mother tree.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that's a mother tree or not, but it sure seems like a mother tree to me.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and and and you know that that tree, that tree will never be cut.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it's still to this day, it still has squirrels all over it.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, so ever everybody learns to everybody learns to squirrel hunt at that tree.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: You had a moment, you just ruined it.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: No, just let the squirrels be.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like googling over the squirrels, but you shot up with a shotgun.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like with a 20 with a 22 with a 22 rifle, man.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's the that's we're going, we're going out for dinner.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's the that's the ultimate going out for dinner deal.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: Lots of good memories there for a farm kid.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: And on that note, I thank you, Joel, for your expertise.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you, Samantha, for submitting that question.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: As always, we love your questions.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: So feel free, email us um any questions that you have, and we'll try to get them on the show.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for joining us, and we will see you next week.