SPECIALIZED EQUIPMENT MAKES THINNING A BREEZE
(Reprinted from
Sangre de Cristo Chonicle,
There are two ways to thin a forest. One is by fire, and the other is by some mechanical means. The first method by fire is less desirable if you happen to be trying to live in the forest. The second is nearly always cost prohibitive except for the few lucky folks who can afford that kind of expense.
This might all be changing for people living in the
Thanks to the Cimarron Watershed Alliance, a company has moved into the valley and is in the process of conducting a 60-acre demonstration project in the Taos Pines Ranch area.
Tony Scarcella, from
“We try and leave five to ten feet between the tops,” says co-owner and crew supervisor Tony Scarcella. He’ talking about the distance between tree canopies. “Sometimes, it’s 15 feet depending on the tree size.”
According to Tony, they first cut the dead standing and diseased trees, then they’ll start cutting trees based on diameter and length, while all the time trying to maintain their preferred pattern for the overall thinning.
When they’re finished, the forest looks remarkably good. It doesn’t look like it’s been logged. Of course, in the interest of honesty, it doesn’t look like it’s been completely restored either. It’s obvious that a lot of work has been done on the land, but it’s easy to see that after a season of growing new ground cover, very little evidence will remain. Scarcella recommends that property owners immediately re-seed with native grasses, which will provide good ground cover, erosion control plus habitat for wildlife.
The primary piece of equipment used in Forest Service Group’s work is a tree processor. It looks a little like an excavator. Instead of a bucket for removing dirt the “business end” of the tress processor has a apparatus able to grasp the tree as it stands, fell it, limb it, and cut logs into lengths per-determined by the operator who has three computers in the cab.
Once the decision is made by the operator regarding lengths, quality, and so on, the processor takes it from there—about a minute to process one tree from cutting to finishing the final “post.:
Another piece of equipment follows behind and collects the sellable logs, places them on a transport device, and moves them to a staging area where they can be loaded onto a truck and moved to a post and pole plant, returning some of the expense of restoration back to the property owner.
Finally, a device called a Ground Contact Mulcher—which resembles a very high speed roto-tiller—uses massive cutting heads on a high speed drum to shred up any slash that’s left. It even grinds stumps.
An added advantage: it smoothes soil that’s been disturbed by the previous logging machines leaving an appealing surface, ready for re-seeding.
Is this new method of forest restoration with all the new and fancy equipment, really a benefit?
Taos Pines Homeowners Stephanie and Larry Parnes are recipients of part of this first demonstration project sponsored by the Cimarron Watershed Alliance. They have around 13 acres of land and when they first moved to Angel Fire from Miami, Fla. years ago, they “didn’t want to cut down any trees,” according to Stephanie. “We just didn’t understand.” Once they began to realize that some form of forest management was necessary, they found that much of the expense was prohibitive.
Now, even though the project on the Parnes’ land is not complete as of this writing, Larry is using phrases like, “very fortunate,” and “ecstatic,” when he describes his involvement with this restoration project.
Why did the Cimarron Watershed Alliance finance this project?
According to the Watershed Alliance Executive Director Mike Bain, this project is simply to “show residents what can be done. Their goal of course is to “maintain the basic aesthetic quality of the lend,” while they “put into effect best management practices’ for the forest.
Until now, one of the big problems in forest restoration has been dealing with the by-products—logs and a tremendous amount of slash like branches and needles.
Most forest restoration and thinning projects involve piling the slash and burning it once it’s dry. Or hauling it away to the dump where it’s burned. Neither solution was economical or easy.
With the equipment used by Forest Services Group, slash is dealt with on the spot and ground into small chips. And, rather than simply distributing thick layers of chips on the forest floor where it will inhibit the forest’s ability to collect water, the chips are now mixed into the ground to help retain water, and decompose and return nutrients.