Innovative Tree Farming

Chapter 7: Putting It All Together

From A Guide to Innovative Tree Farming in the Pacific Northwest by Mike Dubrasich. 2005. Whirlwind Press. For a hard copy of the book ($10 - includes shipping) please contact W.I.S.E. [here].

Innovative tree farmers grow multiple species of trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants for commercial purposes. Growing a single species for a single harvest many decades away is too unprofitable for serious tree farmers. Moreover, the transition from mono-cropping slow-growing species to multi-cropping fast-growing species is almost too easy to avoid. Observant tree farmers reading this book will realize that other commercial species besides Douglas-fir are already growing on their tree farms.

Tree farmers know that good planning is important. Planning increases productivity, efficiency, and profitability. Tree farmers who plan for their transition to growing the best species will be more successful than those who fall into it accidentally.

Proper tree farm plans have four parts: inventory, goals, treatments, and monitoring. The first step in planning is to inventory and evaluate the soil, topography, climate, existing plants, and plants that could potentially grow on your property. The next step is to decide what tree farm products you wish to produce and market; tree farming is a business, and marketing is central to any business plan. Next, prepare a schedule and budget for the treatments and practices you will apply to accomplish your production and marketing goals. Finally, devise a system for measuring and recording what you do and how the trees are growing. In addition to these four fundamental steps, you may wish to consider the following 12 recommendations for inclusion in your new tree farm plan.

1. The Prepared Field

Hayfields and pastures are ideal places to plant trees, because it’s easy to prepare old fields by tilling and/or herbicides. Landowners with prepared fields have, figuratively, blank canvases on which to paint their tree farms. The profit-making options are numerous, including (and definitely not limited to) Christmas trees.

There are many advantages to bare ground. The layout for skid roads and landings can be designed for maximum efficiency of treatments and harvesting. Trees can be planted at full-stocking and optimum spacing. Most importantly, the best species can be planted in the most profitable proportions.

Mixes of species that produce multiple products at different times provide tree farmers with multiple profit opportunities. One such mix is western red cedar at 12-foot spacing planted with bigleaf maple, Oregon ash, and bitter cherry at 6-foot spacing. This amounts to 300 cedars and 900 hardwood trees per acre. By age 10 such an acre could be producing an annual income from boughs and withes. By age 20 the annual income could be substantial from thinning hardwoods (15 to 20 per year) for inner and outer barks, canes, and splints. By age 30 cedars could also be thinned (10 to 12 per year) for multiple products. At age 50, with pruning and induced figure, a cedar/hardwood acre can easily contain 30 to 40 times the value of a similarly-aged acre of Douglas-fir, in addition to having produced sizeable annual returns for 40 years. Moreover, the trees will still be growing and putting on value at a tremendous rate.

2. Pre-existing Douglas-fir

Today many Pacific Northwest tree farms contain semi-wild stands of second-growth Douglas-fir mixed with hardwoods. This condition is very common west of the Cascades. If the Douglas-firs are of merchantable size, the best option for innovative tree farmers is to harvest them. Douglas-fir clearcuts can make excellent non-Douglas-fir tree farms; many of the best species are often already established and sprouting. An innovative Douglas-fir clearcut should be a planned transition to immediate annual harvest of coppiced shrubs, and future harvests of sprouting hardwoods and planted cedars.

When converting unmanaged, semi-wild stands to managed tree farm, it’s a good idea to utilize what’s there. Most individual and family tree farmers don’t waste high-valued wood; only large corporations burn figured maple logs in slash piles. Large hardwood trees without figure should also be harvested and sold, but smaller trees with good form can be saved to culture and grow. Pruning and inducing figure are cost-effective only on young, fast-growing trees.

Hardwood stumps and shrubs and should be coppiced, with one or two shoots per stool left to grow into cultured trees with clear, figured, or rare wood. Coppicing provides an immediate and ongoing annual crop of canes and rods. Sword fern fronds can be harvested annually thereafter, as well. This is an advantage over prepared fields, where it may be 10 years before the first annual crops are harvestable.

3. Plant Western Red Cedar

Western red cedar is not only the most profitable conifer species for Pacific Northwest tree farmers, it is, or was, symbolic of our region. As much as salmon, and far more than Douglas-fir, western red cedar has been woven into the human culture of this place for thousands of years. Planting western red cedar is a gesture of respect and gratitude to our heritage, and a gift to our legacy.

4. Plant and Culture Hardwoods

Plant hardwoods and then prune them. Hardwood seedlings are as easy to plant as conifer seedlings, and cheaper if farm-grown. Big seeds from hardwoods such as bigleaf maple, Oregon ash, and bitter cherry are easy to collect, germinate, and grow into plantable seedlings. Local seed is preferable to seed from distant or unknown sources.

Pruning turns low-valued hardwood trees into high-value profit-makers. Be aware, however: pruning can also spread diseases from tree to tree. Smart tree farmers wash their pruning equipment frequently, and dip their pruning shears in alcohol between trees.

Tie over bigleaf maples to compress springwood and induce figure when the trees are 12 to 18 feet tall. In orderly plantations maple tops can be tied to the base of adjacent maples. Then be sure to straighten them up again in mid-summer. Try it; it works. The payoff is enormous, albeit not for 25 to 30 years.

5. Coppice shrubs

Once is not enough; coppicing for rods and canes is an annual practice. Two-year-old rods and canes are less desired by the craft fiber market. If a tree farmers fail to harvest the one-year-old rods, then they lose two years of harvest: this year’s and next. Another tip: rub side leaves off growing rods to minimize leaf scars and improve appearance.

6. Control Weeds

Be careful what you call a weed; it could be your best commercial crop species! There are, however, some truly noxious weeds that tree farmers should control. Grasses, poison oak, Himalaya blackberry, scotch broom, and other invasive exotic plants have no commercial value on tree farms. They stunt the growth of crop plants and/or are harmful to people or animals. Invasive weeds can also spread to neighboring farms, so landowners who do not control them are doing a disservice to their rural communities. Backpack sprayers and registered herbicides offer pinpoint control of noxious weeds.

7. Control Pests

The best way to control insect and disease damage on tree farms is mixed-species companion-planting of hardy, native plants. Most harmful insects and diseases are species specific. Growing a mix of species is a form of tree farm insurance. If you grow ornamentals, however, be prepared to spray insecticides. Aphids and other insects can damage Christmas trees and boughs.

Deer damage is best controlled by fences or individual tree netting. Deer can do tremendous damage to tree crops by browsing new shoot tips in the spring, ruining an entire season’s growth. If the crop browsed by deer is an annual, such as coppiced rods, an entire harvest can be lost. Tubes, bud caps, and other tree guards can be placed on new shoot tips, but in the worst cases tree farmers must put up deer fences. The profits from fast-growing, innovative tree farm crops pay for the fences in short order.

8. Irrigation and Fertilization

If you grow hardy, native species well-adapted to your site, then irrigation and fertilization are not necessary; they are only immensely helpful. Irrigation improves survival of planted seedlings and increases growth of most plants on most sites. Fertilization has less impact, but can be cost-effective on deficient soils, and when growing ornamentals (nitrogen makes plants greener). In the Pacific Northwest irrigation generally pays a bigger dividend. As little as a gallon of water, applied once or twice during summer, can resuscitate and invigorate a young tree.

9. Be Efficient

Use the right machine, and let it do the work. Dinosaur-sized machines (for skidding and loading big logs from enormous harvest units) are artifacts of an industry that mined old, gigantic Douglas-fir trees from natural forests. Innovative tree farmers reject the dinosaurs in favor of appropriate-sized machinery. A small, 4-wheel-drive tractor with an arch, winch, and bucket can skid and load most of the harvest products grown on innovative tree farms. Harvesting smaller logs with smaller machines is safer, too.

10. Be Adaptive

One advantage of fast-growing tree farm crops is that growers can adapt quickly to changing conditions. To be adaptive, tree farmers must also be observant. Innovative tree farmers pay close attention to their crops and their markets, and adapt quickly and intelligently to changes in growth rates, price fluctuations, and new markets.

Douglas-fir is a plant-it-and-forget-it type of crop. Large corporations that grow Douglas-fir typically have a very limited number of management personnel; staffing intensities of one professional forester per 100,000 acres are common. Large tree farm corporations cannot respond quickly to changing conditions, even if they notice the changes, which is unlikely. Innovative tree farmers will always be many steps ahead of the large corporations.

11. Be Collaborative

Successful tree farmers share information, equipment, and markets. Cooperative marketing is especially useful to small and medium-sized tree farms growing new crops and products. Cooperative marketing provides universal grading standards, brokering and auction services, regular market supply, and market branding, all of which serve both producers and consumers. Few tree farm marketing cooperatives exist today, but as new crops replace Douglas-fir, more will arise. The advantages of marketing cooperatives to innovative tree farmers are too profitable to ignore.

12. Be Innovative

The first farmers to produce new products for new markets often end up capturing significant market share. For example, the modern Christmas tree industry, with mass-production and worldwide markets, got started only after World War II. Today tens of thousands of tree farmers grow Christmas trees, yet a handful of companies produce most of the Pacific Northwest Christmas tree harvest. These four or five companies were innovators, early entrants to the market when competition was scarce.

Innovation in tree farming is more than trying out new crops. It also means using new culturing, harvesting, and marketing techniques. For instance, tree farmers growing new crops can benefit from market branding: let the market know that your tree farm and your products are special, and why.

Innovative tree farming requires creativity and imagination but not foolhardiness. Analyze your options carefully. Invest time and thought before investing money; pencil things out first. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box, however. The most profitable tree farms are those that blaze new trails, not those that follow hidebound tradition. Besides making healthy profits, innovative tree farms are the most fun to own and manage, too!