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Dan, Talk to your service forester some more. Here are some things to consider: 1. Clearcut vs. selective. In spite of all the bad press clearcuts have gotten from the environmental community and from an ignorant media, there are places, timber types and / or stand conditions where clearcutting is the best method for the environment. This is a site and stand specific decision and should not be made based on suggestions from people who have never seen your stand and know nothing about species, stand age, condition, etc. The decision to clearcut vs. selective logging vs. thinning or perhaps shelterwood cutting is most properly driven by what kind of stand you want to create. If you want to grow a species of tree that needs lots of light, the decision is usually to clearcut. If your desired trees can stand shade, you may regenerate by selective logging. If the stand is immature, you thin. Some people call thinning "selective logging" but they are not the same thing and different trees may be left under different methods, so get good, knowledgeable advice on how to manage your timber. 2. Horse logging costs about 50% more than tractor logging in our area, sometimes even more, depending on the timber. A track hoe (excavator) often does the best and cheapest job and is what many loggers in the Pacific Northwest are going to. Horses and tractors have to make many trips in and out of the woods to get the logs out, each trip doing some damage, even with horses which exert a lot of compaction pressure per square inch. An excavator relays the logs, making one or just a few trips in and out of the woods and usually walks on top of the slash, minimizing compaction damage. Excavators typically exert less than 4 PSI, dozers 6-8 and rubber tired skidders and tractors often 15 lbs or more. With uncontrolled tractor logging, you can get up to 40% or more of the area compacted; we had an excavator operating in one unit in the winter when we get lots of rain, and had only compaction on 2% of the ground. The excavator also piles the slash as he goes. (Just don't let him compact the slash piles too tight or you could end up with the problem I have of piles that won't dry out.) 3. There ARE honest loggers, you may have to search to find one. Just because Joe down the road used "Cut & Run Logging" and was satisfied does not constitute a valid recomendation, as Joe may not know he was taken to the cleaners. Ask around a lot. Think about a deal where the logger works on a percentage, then his motivation parallels yours for getting the most value from the timber. Account for each truck load and make sure you get copies of all the scale sheets. 4. See if there is a forest landowner's association of some kind in your area, you can get good info from them. Your service forester should know. If you haven't contacted the Ohio State Forestry office, to go>Link 5.>Link Make sure you know what your legal obligations are for slash disposal and reforestation. Around here, if the slash is light enough that you could plant through it, you generally don't have to dispose of it. But if you pile it, you may have to burn the piles. 6. Learn what you can about herbicides if you are going to plant. They make a BIG difference around here. Good luck!
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