Bob Whitworth
5th March 2007, 08:47 PM
Red Cedar Inventory.
On my 125 acre [50 ha] farm I grow timber. It was previously cleared and I started planting in 1975 with mostly hoop pine, Gympie messmate and Queensland maple. I also have some natural regeneration of silver ash and red cedar.
In 1989 I sold one of my cedar trees and did quite well out of it. I then did an inventory of my red cedar trees just to see what I had and also to do some silvicultural treatment around each tree. By last year my notes were becoming quite a jumble and I decided to do a remeasure. This time I would number each tree as I measured it and place its position on a locality map. I have by now mostly completed the survey although I haven’t measured a couple of areas which are rather difficult. I registered all trees greater than 20 inches girth [16cm diameter] which is quite small and smaller than even I would saw up. The smallest that I will have sawn is 24 inches [20cms diameter].
These are the results. So far I have measured 658 trees. These girths are then considered as a circle and converted to an area giving a total [the word is] basal area of 402 square feet [37m2]. The stand table is made up of 20 inch class, 380; 30ins, 167; 40ins, 73; 50ins, 22; 60ins, 12; 70ins, 4; giving a total of 658 trees. As can be seen, my forest has a high proportion of small trees making it more the potential of timber than actual valuable timber now. The value is naturally in the larger trees.
The trees are very variable. Some are open grown in good sites and are putting on a lot of valuable diameter growth while others on poorer sites and with much severe competition from perhaps hoop pine, are growing much slower and have a form that is tall and thin. Consequently I haven’t taken the basal figure and estimated from this a volume because that is much more unreliable but I’d say for sure that I have well over 100 cubic metres of timber and probably approaching 200 cubic metres. A casual look at my forest, red cedar doesn’t seem all that prevalent but it is there in to me very significant volumes and at least growing at an acceptable rate if probably not that fast in most circumstances. Maybe the cedar component of my forest is growing at 10 cubic meters a year including recruits.
Drought is also a serious problem and some trees have died up on the slope and others have a developed a dead top which is very damaging for the formation of good timber. My biggest tree, a tree of over 100 inches girth, had developed a dead top and so I recently cut it and the wood from this is available including plenty of give away pieces. Others have died from lightning strikes and decay coming in from dead tops and old branch stubs.
Conventional forestry practice says that red cedar cannot be grown commercially. I believe that these figures from my inventory show that red cedar can in some circumstances be considered a commercial crop. Maybe it isn’t the tree that gives the quickest results but if the resource is there, it is worth knowing about and looking after.
On my 125 acre [50 ha] farm I grow timber. It was previously cleared and I started planting in 1975 with mostly hoop pine, Gympie messmate and Queensland maple. I also have some natural regeneration of silver ash and red cedar.
In 1989 I sold one of my cedar trees and did quite well out of it. I then did an inventory of my red cedar trees just to see what I had and also to do some silvicultural treatment around each tree. By last year my notes were becoming quite a jumble and I decided to do a remeasure. This time I would number each tree as I measured it and place its position on a locality map. I have by now mostly completed the survey although I haven’t measured a couple of areas which are rather difficult. I registered all trees greater than 20 inches girth [16cm diameter] which is quite small and smaller than even I would saw up. The smallest that I will have sawn is 24 inches [20cms diameter].
These are the results. So far I have measured 658 trees. These girths are then considered as a circle and converted to an area giving a total [the word is] basal area of 402 square feet [37m2]. The stand table is made up of 20 inch class, 380; 30ins, 167; 40ins, 73; 50ins, 22; 60ins, 12; 70ins, 4; giving a total of 658 trees. As can be seen, my forest has a high proportion of small trees making it more the potential of timber than actual valuable timber now. The value is naturally in the larger trees.
The trees are very variable. Some are open grown in good sites and are putting on a lot of valuable diameter growth while others on poorer sites and with much severe competition from perhaps hoop pine, are growing much slower and have a form that is tall and thin. Consequently I haven’t taken the basal figure and estimated from this a volume because that is much more unreliable but I’d say for sure that I have well over 100 cubic metres of timber and probably approaching 200 cubic metres. A casual look at my forest, red cedar doesn’t seem all that prevalent but it is there in to me very significant volumes and at least growing at an acceptable rate if probably not that fast in most circumstances. Maybe the cedar component of my forest is growing at 10 cubic meters a year including recruits.
Drought is also a serious problem and some trees have died up on the slope and others have a developed a dead top which is very damaging for the formation of good timber. My biggest tree, a tree of over 100 inches girth, had developed a dead top and so I recently cut it and the wood from this is available including plenty of give away pieces. Others have died from lightning strikes and decay coming in from dead tops and old branch stubs.
Conventional forestry practice says that red cedar cannot be grown commercially. I believe that these figures from my inventory show that red cedar can in some circumstances be considered a commercial crop. Maybe it isn’t the tree that gives the quickest results but if the resource is there, it is worth knowing about and looking after.