I’m looking for information on how best to manage my lot to be able to harvest some hardwoods in the future. I have six acres in Georgia, mostly hardwood, and would like to harvest some furniture lumber in twenty to thirty years. Any good resources out there that could guide me interms of what to cull and how to promote trees that would be desireable/usable.
Tom
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If you can find a copy of Peter Koch's Utilization of Hardwoods on Southern Pine Sites (3 volumes) -- USDA Ag Handbook 605 you will find more information that you thought humanly possible.
I additionally recommend you contact your local Extension office and find out where the nearest Extension Forester is (maybe in your county or one nearby). Talk to her/him for management ideas.
The key issue to consider is that you are not trying to grow volume but quality and the two concepts are entirely different. For an example, a consulting forester might recommend thinning but if the thinning is done incorrectly, you will end up with tight growth rings from the suppressed years followed by huge growth rings when the forest is opened up. That might be great for increasing volume but I personally would avoid the wood because it would likely be very susceptible to warp and drying degrade.
As a wood technologist, I have tried to convey to foresters the types of wood I would favor (different for different uses) but the foresters on this issue are deaf. They somehow figure that no matter what they grow, some genius wood technologist will figure out a way to use it (albeit not at its best use). The implication is that foresters sometimes cannot see the trees for the forest and they certainly are not thinking about wood.
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