Calhoun Logging
Dan Richter
Calhoun cut
What is the plan for measurements during the cut?
Will they have a scale for trucks leaving the site to get an estimate of biomass in the logs?
I will be in Athens for much of May and June so would be glad to help out.
Calhoun cut
Daniel,
I've got the logs being weighed at the mill and for the loggers to report this to us. Thus, this won't be plot specific harvesting. I want to get caliper measurements of the but of each log as they leave the site.
I've gone operational in my approach here. The three cutting areas include two, two, and four permanent plots:
I-6 and I-12;
II-6, II-12, II-12, II-6;
IV-6, IV-12
The landing will be between Block I and II.
Skidders will cut across the plots and loggers will actually not know where plot boundaries are.
Meg and I are organizing a campaign to estimate pre-cutting CWD. That'll be coming up really soon.
Maybe we ought to think more seriously about the tree sampling. Might you do that?
I'm going to try to be at the site thruout the harvest operation.
Loggers estimate it'll take 4-5 days, and that they'll start on a Wed or Thu and finish the following Monday to Wed. SC mills are on quotas making logging a bit tough.
They've marked as many poles as they can find for the big money!! (with yellow paint) Sawtimber and pulp are marked with blue.
Dan
Logging Meeting Tue 17 April
Dan met with the two loggers who will cut eight of 16 permanent plots of the Calhoun long-term soil-ecosystem experiment before 30 June 2007.
This will be an operational cut aimed toward pine regeneration. The eight uncut plots will continue on their succession trajectory initiated in 1957.
Logging is most likely to begin mid to late-May 2007.
The products of the cut will include poles, sawtimber, and pulp.
Trees will be felled into cutover areas.
The log landing will be located between Block I and II along the present fire trail on the eastern side of the study.
A delimbing gate will be located at the landing and slash will be returned by the skidders to areas harvested.
The USFS has plans for post-logging site prep and improvements to the research site.
Dan
We need good photos of the cut!
Imagine the cover of a journal with three aerial photos of the Calhoun. A pre, during and post view of the Calhoun stand clear cut.
Regards,
Michael Hofmockel
Open Source || Open Access || Open Mind
Video and still images were captured during logging
Michael, Images AND SOUNDS of the harvest are being organized and will soon appear in a new image album on the website. Dan Richter
The Calhoun Experiment was logged 18-21st May
After 50 years of experimentation and forest growth on old cotton fields, the first experimental perturbation was implemented on eight of 16 permanent plots at the Calhoun soil-ecosystem experiment. Eight of the experimental plots were logged and will be regenerated with pine in the coming years. The eight unlogged plots will continue to develop into hardwoods forests.
Experimental logging represented an operational clearcut during dry weather on the southern Piedmont. One log-landing was used with a nearby delimbing gate. One feller-buncher operated in the woods with two skidders retrieving logs, delimbing, and spreading logging slash back over the site.
Five products were merchandized to five mills: pine sawtimber, poles, pulp, and chipNsaw; and hardwood pulp. Most of the volume harvested was pine sawtimber and poles (about 67% of total weight).
The eight plots represent a wide range of dryweather logging impacts, due in part to their location relative the landing. Within-plot impacts and debris is also large. Images and video document impacts (righthand column of website).
All plot corners (marked by belowground 3/8 in rebar) have been relocated and an inventory of organic material, both logging slash and disturbed legacy O horizons, will begin the week of June 4th.
Dan Richter