Fixing a woods

[FarmWrench]

I have 75 acre of hemlock the result of a hundred years of grazing and high scale harvesting. Stand is terminally thick. When I can I have just dropped the little junk to thin space for thefew hardwoods and push other hemlock to saw size.

Here in Western New York hemlock has dropped to $200/1000bf and then finding someone whowants it is hard.

I need some advice onfinding someone with a feller buncher and or a chipper for mulch or pulp. Trouble is I'm in a dead zone for that type of operation and barely have enough to pay for the equipment move.

The woods needs a hard restart. Where I havegotten ahead of thehemlock, things are improving, higher value black cheery and maple are being able tothrive. Herbicide and girdling or fire are not high on my list. Paying for a squad of Amish maybe but then wood will just rot. I have visited witha state forester and some consultants and have one guy who isin the pulp business but have just been strung along.

 

[wilko]

If it doesn't pay to get it to the mill you're better off leaving it to rot down. At least it's good for the soil. I've used girdling before as it helps prevent blowdowns and the ground drying out among the trees I leave behind. It would be pretty cheap to get a small hoe to push them down after you cut them off.

 

[FarmWrench]

I need some slash at least on the ground or the deer will eat everything.

That is part of why I hope to find a processing head to send just the stems off for pulp.

 

[Randy88]

Do you have any firewood operations near you that would take the stuff down and pull the butt log off for the wood taken, they'd do the work and grief for you and leave the tops to rot? Around here in order to get rid of what you have that's not worth much, we have to chemically kill them and plant new tree's, as the junk dies and falls over, most newly seeded tree's will survive and thrive, the new undergrowth is large enough by then to take off, until then they have protection from the dying and treated tree's to get going.

 

[FarmWrench]

No one will touch softwood for firewood around here. I have tried to twist the arm of a few folks with outdoor boilers.

I have survived a bolt from the blue widow maker while gathering sap in another woods. I don't think I have to explain my feeling about dead wood standing.

I was hoping tofind a little insight from guys who are running process heads or feller bunchers for pulp/chip on the east coast. If I can get theidea out of my head that the wood has a market, then I can fully commit to paying for thehand labor and weed out thejunk.