Green Horizons

According to a recent forestry report, less than six percent of all private landowners in the U.S. have forest management plans, most of them farmers with 25 to 200 acres of woodlands.

Citing this need for woodlot management, the National Farmers Union (NFU) recently co-hosted a series of agroforestry workshops, including one in Missouri on Oct. 30th at the University of Missouri’s Southwest Research Center in Mt.Vernon, Mo.

Andy Thomas, left (in hat), discusses improved varieties of walnuts, pecans, hickories and paw paws at the University of Missouri Southwest Research Center in Mt. Vernon, Mo., during the Oct. 30th agroforestry workshop.

Co-organized by the Kansas Farmers Union (KFU), Missouri Farmers Union (MFU) and the University of Missouri Center for Agroforestry, more than 40 landowners attended the event that highlighted trees as a sustainable economic resource. Workshop topics included integrating forestry management on the farm; nuts as a growing market; lease hunting as an additional income source; non-timber products and marketing and managing a woodlot. Discussion areas focused on helping farmers turn their woodlots into sustainable, productive acres.

"There is a need for woodlot management," said NFU President Dave Frederickson. "The opportunity also exists to take better care of forests as well as for landowner cooperation to increase economic, recreational and other benefits."

Skip Mourglia, USDA NRCS forester, presented on the topic of lease hunting and how it can be useful in the mix of forest/wild-life management solutions. A sample lease agreement and guide-lines for identifying safety issues were included. Mourglia also presented information of the benefits of forest management.

Skip Mourglia “thumps” a tree to detect the presence of internal rot and decay.

"With proper forest management, a landowner can increase his or her return from 3.1% to 6.0% on an oak forest, with only 30 harvestable crop trees per acre," she said. Tours of research plots and private woodlots allowed participants to see first-hand how to manage their woodlots. The group first toured a low-maintenance, fast-establishing windbreak designed to provide wind protection for cattle in less than 10 years. The triple-row red cedar/white pine windbreak uses 3-gallon Root Production Method® container trees with 10-year landscape fabric for weed control. (RPM® is a trademark of Forrest Keeling Nursery, http://www.fknursery.com/)

The next tour stop featured the Southwest Research Center nut orchards, which include 800 grafted trees. Participants examined nut harvesting equipment and compared improved varieties of walnuts, pecans, hickories and paw paws. The final tour featured a walk through a forest on the Baugh family farm to discuss which management activities should be implemented for optimal profit and sustainability.

Landowners examine the cut surface of a log processed through a Wood-Mizer portable sawmill.

A Wood-Mizer, or portable sawmill, was demonstrated at the family farm of Will Baugh, who operates a Wood-Mizer business to serve area land and forest owners. The family custom saws individual land and forest owners’ logs at their farm site on a regular basis. They also manufacture value-added products, such as interior hardwood trim, moulding and products for the cabinet industry, though the family’s primary business is servicing Wood-Mizer band sawmills, from ordering parts to band sharpening.

Baugh explained that most wood the business cuts comes from logs people bring to them. The family is not yet harvesting trees from their own forest, but may accomplish this in the near future.

"Landowners interested in marketing lumber from their own forest thinnings should do plenty of market research and identify their target markets before they decide to invest in the capital equipment needed to harvest the trees, transport them to a mill, or to purchase a band-mill," recommends Mourglia. "Many landowners already own a sizeable tractor, a chainsaw or two, and heavy duty farm trucks."

Skip Mourglia, USDA NRCS forester, discusses the low-maintenance, fast-establishing Robert Karr windbreak demon-stration area.

During the workshop, the Wood-Mizer sawmill was set up outside under a protective roof, and participants watched as the bandmill sawed an oak log, then toured both the Wood-Mizer solar kiln and the more traditional forced air kiln. "The temperature difference under the heavy plastic walls of solar kiln was quite apparent - much warmer," observed Mourglia.

Mourglia calls the Baugh forest a good example of an uneven-aged forest condition consisting of three distinct age classes. The lack of any oak regeneration (seedlings on the forest floor) is result of the heavily shaded over-story, and the needed removal of mature black oaks will allow more sunlight to reach the forest floor to promote oak seedling development. The sustainable management of this uneven-aged system requires that new trees are established as some are being harvested. Part of the forest stocking must be in seedlings, which may provide insurance against weather events like tornados.

Participants were shown tree characteristics to aid in deciding which young trees should be removed or retained in a timber stand improvement operation. The discussion also examined how to identify trees that have been suppressed too long to be successfully released by timber stand improvement. These low-quality trees can be cut and allowed to resprout. The fast-growing resprouts, which originate from the existing root system, can evenutally be thinned to the best single stem.

Andy Thomas discusses nut processing equipment used at the Southwest Research Center.

During the tour of one 40-acre parcel of the Baugh family farm, attendees also explored the damage cattle have made to forested areas and considerations for fencing cattle away from the forest. Examples of erosion occurring where cattle have access to a woodland drainage area were presented, and attendees received a first-hand look at mature 24-inch diameter oaks as well as young, immature oaks.

As noted by MFU President Russ Kremer, there is great and untapped potential in rural America for family farmers to look into establishing new markets or a new enterprise for the trees on their farms.

"Seventy-one percent of the nation’s timberland is in private hands," said Kremer. "Missouri has 284,000 non-industrial private forest landowners. For those who value forest land, water quality and wildlife habitat, this workshop was an opportunity for landowners to learn how to add value to their forests."

Skip Mourglia, Consulting Forester/ USDA NRCS Forester, can be contacted at (417) 235-7760.

For more information about Wood-Mizer usage or service, contact Will Baugh at (417) 466-9500 or email at wbaugh@woodmizer.com. The Missouri Farmers Union is online at http://missourifarmersunion.org/