Double girdling is an effective method for thinning in hardwood tree plantations. Big advantages of this method are that the crop trees you are releasing will extend their branches over the cut trees in a few years, suppressing them if they sprout, and you don't have to dodge falling trees while you are working. I like not handling herbicides as I work, too. The trees you kill will dry in a year or two and then you can cut them for firewood. Disadvantage? After a few tanks of gas, old men like me have trouble bending and standing. Leg cramps are not fun. You can single girdle with a chainsaw if you apply a suitable herbicide to kill the trees you girdle. Check with your local forester for recommendations, because some herbicides will kill non-targeted trees. Yellow-poplar is a tree that is very sensitive to herbicides, so be careful.
I used to use this method as I liked that the tree would dry on the stump but I found that often after girdling like that, the tree might blow or fall over and if I couldn't get back into that location soon enough particularly if only one or two trees fell, I would lose the wood. Now I just take them down. Not saying I don't do this at all now but not so much for thinning but more so for a tree I just want to get later.
Do you mind mentioning what state you are in?
David aka True Blue Sam said...Hey Booms, We are in Southern Illinois, it the Clay Pan region. Lots of fragipan soils. The Illinoisan Glacier went through here, to the Shawnee hills. The Wisconsinin Glacier stopped north of us, and we have glacial lake beds. We have glacial till with loess over the top. The prairie soils are north of me, and the thick loess is south, on the Shawnee Hills. Out in the glacial lake beds, you can make clay marbles from the topsoil!
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I used to use this method as I liked that the tree would dry on the stump but I found that often after girdling like that, the tree might blow or fall over and if I couldn't get back into that location soon enough particularly if only one or two trees fell, I would lose the wood. Now I just take them down. Not saying I don't do this at all now but not so much for thinning but more so for a tree I just want to get later.
Do you mind mentioning what state you are in?
Hey Booms, We are in Southern Illinois, it the Clay Pan region. Lots of fragipan soils. The Illinoisan Glacier went through here, to the Shawnee hills. The Wisconsinin Glacier stopped north of us, and we have glacial lake beds. We have glacial till with loess over the top. The prairie soils are north of me, and the thick loess is south, on the Shawnee Hills. Out in the glacial lake beds, you can make clay marbles from the topsoil!
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