BROKEN OAK HILL(R Dispatches from the heart of Wisconsin Woodland News and Notes
Main photo: Landowner and host Joe Koehler (3rd from left) talks with other owners about managing the oak on his property in Marquette County.
The mailing announcing the field day said:
"Oak regeneration harvests can be a dramatic change to you your property looks."
"We have to make decisions in our lifetime that impact the next 100 years."
-Buzz Vahradian
Oak facts
-The white oak group includes white oak, swamp white oak and bur oak. The black oak group includes northern red oak, black oak and northern pin oak.
-White oak has a bumper crop every four to ten years. Oaks in the black group have one every three to five years.
-White oak acorns germinate in the fall, red oak acorns germinate the following spring.
For oak woods, stewardship
requires cutting some trees
Red oak is certainly one of the most valuable trees in our woods, from a commercial and an aesthetic standpoint, as well as a food source for wildlife. And it is losing its spot in the woods as red maple and other lesser species try to take over, because oak seedlings do not do well in heavily shaded mature forests.
So it was natural for us to attend a recent field day on "Oak Managment on Central Sands Sites." We had to leave home about 6 a.m to get t
o the demonstration near Coloma by 9 a.m., but the reward was twofold: we learned a lot about oak management, and our entuhsiasm for tree farming got a boost from the host landowner's own enthusiasm for holding and managing Wisconsin woodlands.
The program was sponsored by the Central Sands Chapter of the Wisconsin Woodland Owners Association. and examined a recent harvest on the property of Joe Koehler and the results of a harvest many years earlier on the neighboring Frinak Tree Farm.
First up was Buzz Vahradian, a retired DNR forester who now works as a consultant, who gave an overview of the oak situation in the Central Sands region. He is author of the oak management chapter in the DNR's best management practices guide.
He pointed out that the program was aimed at oak management on sand or sites with poor soil quality, where an owner cannot expect to get the same results as with oak grown on high quality sites. Still, it's worth the effort to try to regenerate you oak, regardless of your soil condition. DNR statistics indicate that it is declining as a percentage of Wisconsin's woodlands.
There are two groups of oak, the white oak and the black oak groups, and both are extremely valuable for wildlife, everything from deer and turkeys to squirrels and blue jays, which can carry acorns for miles.
"The goal is to maintain oak as part of the forest," Vahradian said.
An interesting fact, which I have learned from other foresters, too, is that usually all of the oak trees in the same stand are approximately the same age regardless of size. On top of our hill, there are oak trees that are two feet in diameter and some that are less than six inches, but apparently they are all in the same age class.
The "rotation age" for oak on poor soil is at about 80 years -- when stand mortality exceeds growth.
"The challenge of forestry is to get this oak harvested before it is on the ground," Vahradian said.
Site quality is extremely important, he said. On poor sites a No. 3 quality sawlog is about as good as you can expect. On high quality sites, the ro
tation age can be more than 100 years, so you get superior quality timber.
There are several ways to regenerate an oak forest, but for Central Sands sites two of the best are a coppice cut and overstory removal.
It's not necessarily an easy choice.
"We have to make decisions in our lifetime that impact the next 100 years," Vahradian said.
In the past, natural fire was an important factor in oak regeneration, but with the emphasis on fire suppression other methods have to be used. In certain areas under controlled conditions fire is still used, but it's not a viable alternative in many cases.
A coppice cut is designed to regenerate a stand by completely removing the overstory, cutting all trees greater than one inch in diameter. The purpose is to encourage sprouting from stumps as the primary method of regeneration.
Overstory removal cuts the majority of the trees to release seedlings and saplings that have resulted naturally from acorns.
requires cutting some trees
Red oak is certainly one of the most valuable trees in our woods, from a commercial and an aesthetic standpoint, as well as a food source for wildlife. And it is losing its spot in the woods as red maple and other lesser species try to take over, because oak seedlings do not do well in heavily shaded mature forests.
So it was natural for us to attend a recent field day on "Oak Managment on Central Sands Sites." We had to leave home about 6 a.m to get t
o the demonstration near Coloma by 9 a.m., but the reward was twofold: we learned a lot about oak management, and our entuhsiasm for tree farming got a boost from the host landowner's own enthusiasm for holding and managing Wisconsin woodlands. The program was sponsored by the Central Sands Chapter of the Wisconsin Woodland Owners Association. and examined a recent harvest on the property of Joe Koehler and the results of a harvest many years earlier on the neighboring Frinak Tree Farm.
First up was Buzz Vahradian, a retired DNR forester who now works as a consultant, who gave an overview of the oak situation in the Central Sands region. He is author of the oak management chapter in the DNR's best management practices guide.
He pointed out that the program was aimed at oak management on sand or sites with poor soil quality, where an owner cannot expect to get the same results as with oak grown on high quality sites. Still, it's worth the effort to try to regenerate you oak, regardless of your soil condition. DNR statistics indicate that it is declining as a percentage of Wisconsin's woodlands. There are two groups of oak, the white oak and the black oak groups, and both are extremely valuable for wildlife, everything from deer and turkeys to squirrels and blue jays, which can carry acorns for miles.
"The goal is to maintain oak as part of the forest," Vahradian said.
An interesting fact, which I have learned from other foresters, too, is that usually all of the oak trees in the same stand are approximately the same age regardless of size. On top of our hill, there are oak trees that are two feet in diameter and some that are less than six inches, but apparently they are all in the same age class.
The "rotation age" for oak on poor soil is at about 80 years -- when stand mortality exceeds growth.
"The challenge of forestry is to get this oak harvested before it is on the ground," Vahradian said.
Site quality is extremely important, he said. On poor sites a No. 3 quality sawlog is about as good as you can expect. On high quality sites, the ro
tation age can be more than 100 years, so you get superior quality timber.There are several ways to regenerate an oak forest, but for Central Sands sites two of the best are a coppice cut and overstory removal.
It's not necessarily an easy choice.
"We have to make decisions in our lifetime that impact the next 100 years," Vahradian said.
In the past, natural fire was an important factor in oak regeneration, but with the emphasis on fire suppression other methods have to be used. In certain areas under controlled conditions fire is still used, but it's not a viable alternative in many cases.
A coppice cut is designed to regenerate a stand by completely removing the overstory, cutting all trees greater than one inch in diameter. The purpose is to encourage sprouting from stumps as the primary method of regeneration.
Overstory removal cuts the majority of the trees to release seedlings and saplings that have resulted naturally from acorns.
