Hello and welcome to the series "How to Manage Your Forest."
My name is Steve Fitzgerald and in this video we're gonna talk about tree marking and tips for
contracts. So here we are in an even-aged stand of Douglas Fir and Red Alder it's
about 35 years old and this stand is ready for a thinning.
Some of the things I'm gonna look at here are vigor and health, wildfire, insects and disease, and
wildlife. So let's take a look at these first two trees right ahead of me, we
have two trees one's larger than the other. The one on the right a very
dominant tree, has a lot of crown, looks pretty healthy, has a good top. The one on
the left a smaller crown and less vigorous. The tree on the left is the one
I'm going to take. I'm gonna remove this now to free up growing space so that
this tree can even get even bigger, so I'm going to mark this tree to be cut
In marking this tree, I have marked it in blue and the blue signifies a cut tree
and notice that I marked it head high or even higher and that's important if you
have a lot of brush you want to go even higher if you can reach but I've marked
it at eye height on both sides you could also mark completely around the tree and
I've also marked at the stump and the reason for that is to make sure that
when the contractors out here they've cut the right tree so once this tree is
cut you'll know that you had marked this tree because you still have a blue stump
mark at the base of the tree. Okay so we've marked this tree we're
going to continue marking in this stand so come along
I've selected and looked at these two trees, so the one on my left or your
right, this tree has a major defect in the top of the tree. If you look
up, you can see that it has a broken top and it has developed multiple leaders
growing up and so I've decided to take this tree out now to free up space for
other trees and so this is a cut tree. The tree on my right or your left is
actually dead and if you look at this tree you can see that actually
woodpeckers are feeding on this one. This would make an excellent snag to leave so
what I'm gonna do here is mark this tree is a wildlife tree and this one will be
marked to leave. So what I've done here is mark this is a wildlife tree with a
bright red 'W' and so the contractor here will know that this is a wildlife tree, and
it is not to be cut. In most thinning operations tree should be marked but in
some cases you don't have to mark every tree the exception being in very young
stands where you have a mechanical operation, the operator can choose the
trees but what's important is to set up a area that you've done a sample mark,
where then when the operator comes in they can see your mark remove the trees
that you want learn from that and then once the sample mark is thinned then
they can move off and begin to thin the rest of your forest.
Well the first thing I'm looking at, looking for damage like life damaged and
broken tubs and small pieces.
you know I feel like right there's two trees together, so I'll take one and that
way left the young one to grown up.
You still have to go out and check it and make
sure that they're doing exactly what you want and daily or weekly communication
is important to make sure they're cutting the trees you want and leaving
the healthy trees for the future. In developing and signing a contract with a
logging operator to thin your forest it's important to specify in that
contract which trees are to be cut and which are to be left and typically we
use different color paint to designate that. So having your trees properly marked
will help you be successful in managing your forest.
Thank you and best wishes for managing your forest.