Updates for Northwoods Land Trust Tracts
Association President Rob Hagge and Vice President Paul Strong went to the woods on February 18 with NWLT Board Member and retired Wisconsin DNR forester John Huppert to look at the planned timber sales for the NWLT tracts on the south and north sides of the lower bay on the west side of Highway 51. The recent warm sunny days followed by rain made the going on the ice slippery and all needed ice walking cleats to stay upright.
Both forested stands have had their legal boundaries marked with blue paint along with the boundaries within which the timber sale activities will occur (red paint on trees). In addition, swatches of orange paint can be seen on some trees along with an occasional ring of blue paint on a few other trees.
What does it all mean? One can’t tell just by looking, but John Huppert explained the goals for the future of the forested stands as well as how the areas would be harvested to promote those outcomes.
On the south side of the bay, where the soils are sandier and less fertile, all mature aspen trees that are not yet dead and still standing (aka “snags”) will be harvested unless there is a blue ring around them. Some of the taller trees with wide girths have such paint marks because they are currently being hollowed out by pileated woodpeckers and will make good nesting trees for themselves and the smaller species of woodpeckers that depend on their large cousins to do the difficult excavations.
The only other trees to be harvested are those with orange paint swatches. These are primarily oaks and maples of various sizes, picked out by foresters to create appropriate spacing for the remaining trees to grow with more room in the forest canopy and to the sides.
The goal for this tract has several components. In general, it is to promote the successful regeneration of white pines, the once dominant tree of these forests before the great logging era in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. There are large old white pines, some jutting above the canopy of the oaks and aspen. Others are seedlings or saplings in the understory, which will grow well after getting more sun and less competition from the harvested trees.
Additionally, the area has small enclaves of hemlock and yellow birch, rare species for such sandy soil forests and the harvest will leave them untouched, but like the white pines, they will be released from surrounding competition and the younger trees will prosper. The dominant oaks will be better spaced and grow well, while the aspen cut down will send up root suckers to replace themselves. Several groves of balsam fir are also being left untouched for the diversity they provide and the dense cover for a number of species of birds and mammals.
The tract on the north side of the bay is on slightly richer soil. One can tell by the presence of leatherwood bushes and several species of ferns. There, a very old group of bigtooth aspens, a clone of trees connected by their underground root system, all almost the same age, are mature (aspens don’t usually get much older than 60 years) and many are dying naturally and succumbing to wind, gravity, other trees falling into them, and woodpeckers. Unless they are ringed in blue or dead already, those aspens will be cut down, and much like the stand on the south side of the bay, only trees marked with an orange paint slash will be cut down. Like the tract on the south side, the silvicultural treatment is intended to give white pine trees a better chance to become dominant in the stand. There are several areas with an abundance of very young white pine trees that will grow quickly with more sunlight and space. Hemlocks and yellow birch are not present in any numbers in this stand despite the richer soil. The south-facing aspect makes it a warmer and drier microclimate than what is found on the opposite side of the bay.
A good place to observe what had a similar harvesting treatment a decade or more back is along the Schlect Lake skiing and hiking trails on the south side of Minocqua. With the same kind of rolling topography and sandy soils (albeit a bit hiller), the harvested area now has an overstory of well-spaced large old white pines and oaks and a large number of fast-growing white pine saplings that will eventually grow to replace the older trees.
The harvests at Lake Katherine are scheduled to take place in 2023 - during the spring break up period (March-April) for the stand to the north and during late summer/early fall to the south to follow guidelines for reducing the potential spread of oak wilt. While the areas will look a little rough after the harvests, within a few years, new growth will start filling in the gaps and the undergrowth of ferns and other low-growing plants will return.
The promotion of a longer-lived white pine-dominated forest on these two sites is a laudable decision by the Land Trust. It won't happen all at once, but we will see a gradual shift through the decades to the pine-oak mixed forest that was once widespread on this kind of soil and topography. Red oaks and maple will also remain in these stands with small patches of aspen here and there. And the small special spots retaining species that prefer cooler and wetter conditions - eastern hemlock and yellow birch - contributes to richer diversity. It will provide scenic beauty and a continuation of roosting and nest trees for bald eagles that prefer trees sticking out above the canopy of the surrounding forest. Plenty of standing dead trees and fallen trees will remain for woodpeckers and the many birds that require nesting cavities (black-capped chickadees, for example) as well as for mushrooms and the myriad of tiny forest creatures we never see that are the engine of production and decomposition that keep it all working in these forests.
Click on the images in the gallery below to learn more.
