Forest Management

Have you ever wanted to manage the forested portions of your property but were unsure how to begin? Maybe you feel as though you don’t have time or it’s just too daunting and overwhelming. 

It may sound simple, but the best way to begin is with a plan. Take time to think about the goals you want for your property and envision the end game. 

When my career began 21 years ago, most of the calls we received for private land assistance were from landowners interested in selling timber. In the early 2010s, there was a shift. More people called interested in increasing wildlife, primarily deer and turkey, on their land. Today, most calls are from landowners who just want their forest to be as healthy as possible. 

When a landowner mentions a goal of healthy forests on their property, the focus becomes natural community management. In short, natural community management is habitat management that benefits all the native plants and animals on the property, including their physical environment, so the land is at its peak productiveness and will have the best chance at surviving whatever pest or pestilence that may arise.

Meet the Landowner 

Mark Cantor began working on his property with MDC in 2017. The pictures in this article demonstrate his forest management journey, but the principles can be applied to all locations.

“When I first contacted MDC, I wanted a healthier forest, to improve the land for hunting and recreational pursuits, and to reduce the risk of uncontrolled wildfire,” Cantor said.

In 2017, his property was typical unmanaged woodlands — a canopy composed predominately of oak and hickory trees with a midstory and understory comprised mainly of undesirable shade tolerant trees. His property was a blank slate. From here, a straightforward template was followed to achieve his goals. 

Where to Begin? 

That answer most often involves the combined use of prescribed fire and invasive plant species management. 

Prescribed Fire

As the single best management tool we have, prescribed fire provides a myriad of benefits. Those benefits differ depending on the time of year you conduct the burn but can include reducing the number of invasive species and undesired trees, increasing the amount of grasses and wildflowers, shifting tree species composition, and more. Having a good understanding of the benefits of prescribed fire will help you plan how to implement this management tool on your property.

Once you have some objectives in mind on how to improve your property with prescribed burning, you can plan when and how to conduct your burns. 

You will want to divide your property into burn units — these are acreages that are sized and shaped to make burns as easy and safe as possible. Utilizing existing features, such as roads, creeks, and trails, as boundaries for your burn units make it easier to prepare your burn control lines. If you don’t have any of those, it just takes a little more work with a rake or leaf blower to create your lines. 

Once you know where your burn lines will be, turning those into a permanent trail network will save you time on future burns. After your burn units are established, you will need to create a prescribed burn plan. This plan will outline all conditions and actions needed before, during, and after your burn to make sure it remains under control and meets your planned objectives while avoiding any damage to your property. 

“Even if you think you are a pro at controlled burns, always have a team when you do a burn, even if it’s a small area,” Cantor said. “The burn is amazing, productive, beautiful, and fun, but when I tried to burn myself, I did burn myself!” 

While the timing of the burn has a large impact on the results, getting your first burn completed, whenever the conditions are correct, is most important as this starts the management process. For subsequent burns, you can be pickier with timing to achieve specific benefits. The frequency of burning will be determined by your objectives, but a standard rotation is to burn each area every two to four years, with more frequent burns to help reduce woody stems. Once your initial objectives have been met, you will want to reevaluate your burn regimen.

Invasive Plant Species Management

While the burns are being formulated, it’s a good time to begin controlling invasive plants. As with everything, start with a plan. Focusing your control efforts will lead to greater success. Start in a location that gives you the most satisfaction. This is often around a house or in a favorite hunting spot. Once your location is determined, you will pick the control method for the species you want to focus on, as there are different techniques used on different species, and sometimes a combination of several practices is needed.

Hand pulling can be effective on very sparse and new infestations. Foliar spray, cut stump treatment, and basal spraying are the most common herbicide application methods. Mowing or forestry mulching is great on very dense stands but understand that when the plants are cut with these machines, the roots are still there and they can resprout. Furthermore, the initial regrowth typically does not have enough surface area to absorb sufficient chemical to kill the plant, so multiple years of follow-up herbicide treatment is needed. The goal is to eliminate the entire population of invasive plants. This means not only killing the plant but exhausting the seed bank. For most woody invasives, like bush honeysuckle, this can take up to five years. The most important step is to learn more about the invasive species present on your property and how to control them without causing damage to the native plants.

Timber Stand Improvement

Once the invasives have been completely removed and your fires have corrected the tree composition, you are ready to move on to timber stand improvement (TSI). TSI means eliminating all undesired tree species (native trees that moved out of their traditional range due to the absence of fire) and poor-quality specimens of desired tree species. 

“I try to find ways to utilize the TSI removed trees, primarily by getting them milled with a portable bandsaw mill and utilizing the lumber so I don’t waste resources,” Cantor said.

Throughout most of Missouri, oaks and hickories are the desired trees but there are pockets that have different target species so, as always, make sure you know your goals before starting. Getting a forester to visit and inventory your forest will provide information to guide your management. 

From a natural community standpoint, we differentiate forested areas into two different community types — forests and woodlands. Generally, forests are found on north and east facing slopes. They can grow more trees that are typically large and have higher timber value. Woodlands are found on south and west facing slopes. They have fewer and smaller trees with more shrubs and grasses. Implementing TSI may result in you seeing additional invasive plant species. The improved habitat can attract more songbirds, which are a primary spreader of invasive seeds, and the thinned-out tree canopy will allow additional sunlight to reach the forest floor and increase the growth rate of invasive plants. This just means you need to stay alert and know that your continued use of prescribed burning and invasive species control will allow you to keep those unwanted species in check.

“Timber management is not a one-and-done deal,” Cantor said. “It is a process. It’s fun and rewarding but takes effort.”

TSI Without Prior Management

There are properties I visit that have had TSI or maybe a timber sale without the prior management techniques discussed in this article. The result is usually a flush of tree seedlings or invasive plants that are extremely thick. 

Once again, timing is key. 

If the thinning occurred recently — typically within four years — prescribed fire might eliminate the thick flush of trees. In these cases, proceeding with fire and invasive species removal as described here should produce similar results to management conducted in the proper order. Sadly, oftentimes it is too late, and the dense understory starts to inhibit enjoyment of the property.

Usually, this thick growth is not the desired complement of species. It is the same shade tolerant trees that were killed in TSI but were just too small to be treated at that time. By the time the saplings become a nuisance, they are usually too big for fire to eliminate. In these cases, another round of TSI will be required. Invasives will likely need to be treated, too. If a good burn regimen is kept after this retreatment, the property will begin to show desired results.

This is the time to revisit your plan again. Perhaps you would like some areas with thick cover. To get that, simply exclude these small sections from fire. They will grow thick with trees again, but this time they will be your desired species. Just remember to check these areas for invasives as fire is no longer controlling them.

In forest management, patience is key. It takes a lifetime to grow a mature tree, so management is going to take years. But successful management doesn’t just take time, it also takes timing. The timing and order of different management practices is critical, having as much affect on results as the actual management.

“MDC is a great partner,” Cantor said. “They have an interest in protecting our land, have staff with tremendous knowledge, and there are often cost-share funds available to help offset management costs. Call your conservation office and get ready to do a lot of work. The payoff is in the land.”

Invasive Species Management

For more information about controlling invasive species on your property, visit short.mdc.mo.gov/ZjU.

Private Land Conservationists
MDC has private land conservationists who may come out to your property to give advice and site-specific management recommendations. You can find them at short.mdc.mo.gov/4ok.