Wildlife (leave tree)
Anna B Stockstad: Hi, everyone! I'm Anna Stockstadt from University of Minnesota Extension.
Dave Nolle - MN Logger Ed Program: and I'm. Dave noly with the Minnesota logger education program.
Anna B Stockstad: And today we're back with another podcast episode. And this time we're going to be talking about the wildlife forest management guidelines, and specifically we're going to be diving into the topic of leave trees and joining us today is Mark Westfall from Carlton County to share his experience with implementing the Leave Tree guidelines. So Mark, thank you for joining us.
mwestphal: Yeah, thanks for having me.
Dave Nolle - MN Logger Ed Program: So i'm gonna jump right in here, Mark. I i'm i'm pretty new to the industry here. Still learning, and really just a couple of rapid fires for you leave trees. You know. What's the point? Why leave them there? Why would we leave money on the table? If you will leave timber behind during a timber harvest.
mwestphal: A great question, Dave, from a foresters perspective leap trees can be a a key part of like a silver cultural treatment.
mwestphal: They can provide seed for future for us.
mwestphal: They provide structure for future forest diversity. They they create, you know they can create shade, and it can retard certain species and allow other species to seed in. So we have a more diverse
mwestphal: future forest from a wildlife perspective. They're great for habitat diversity.
mwestphal: They they create great nesting habitat for different species. They create future course, woody debris. Some of these leap tree clumps and single trees that are left.
mwestphal: They provide. You know we got a lot of moves here in Northern Minnesota. We're trying to have more moves to provide great opportunities for like moves to hiding them in the summer for, like thermal regulation
mwestphal: and overall, I guess
mwestphal: they provide a lot of masks like oaks and acorns and stuff for a while game up here. We live in a great state, and I believe we have a
mwestphal: Oh, goodness!
mwestphal: Last time I looked it was probably about a 1 billiondollar hunting and wildlife industry, and they really help our wildlife.
mwestphal: I guess. Another thing, I guess i'll circle back mainly what I a big thing of me getting into forestry. I like to hunt fish, gather, so these leaf trees help help, but saved species like our preserved species and areas like mushrooms, and like medicinal plants, and some blueberries and wild animals edibles, which I
mwestphal: I crave every every fall when i'm out in the woods or spring, so that that that's just kind of the tip of the iceberg why they are so important to us.
Anna B Stockstad: So yeah, you talked a lot about how leave trees are really important for wildlife, habitat, and other ecosystem services. But like when you're planning a harvest, how do you decide whether to leave scattered leave trees versus clumps of Leave trees.
mwestphal: so that that's always a a good question, and it it can vary a lot. But you. But someone needs to know. Their site needs to know the habitat they're working in. A lot of what I work in is a lot of aspen stance or mixed hard with stands so for us, knowing our soils
mwestphal: and and the different species diversity we have.
mwestphal: We like to clump our reserves. We feel like we get more longevity out of the reserves in the harvest area.
mwestphal: and
mwestphal: with with with using clums to, you can also associate them with things like endangered or threatened species. Cultural resources you might have in an area. You can clump your reserves there where you can protect repairing areas. And I kind of feel like to working with the loggers. We're we're blessed with the great logger base
mwestphal: in this area. I feel like they appreciate our clump to reserves when we do that, because then they don't have to work around a lot of single trees standing places. But once again, you know, clumped Aren't. For every harvest type. There, there's types or types of civil cultural treatments where you might use
mwestphal: it. It might be a small area where it doesn't economically make sense to set up a quarter plus acre reserve. In that case we'll do a lot of like a w. We'll reserve single trees or singles
mwestphal: species across the site like let's say.
mwestphal: Oh. stuff like that!
mwestphal: That'll that'll provide the wildlife, value and stuff future stand structure we're looking for on a different scale.
Dave Nolle - MN Logger Ed Program: Great. So we we have different options so scattered that that we can use what about certain characteristics of leave trees, you know, maybe. Are we looking to leave behind trees with cavities that aren't mercenable, or we leaving behind merchantable? And Why might we choose one over the other, and
Dave Nolle - MN Logger Ed Program: would there be instances where it would be kind of an all or nothing?
mwestphal: Yeah, that's another great question
mwestphal: in our good, our beautiful, diverse northern Minnesota forest. Here I I go into a stand, and I want to keep, for I want to reserve kind of a range of species that will represent the stand in the future.
mwestphal: There are some species that I feel like we tend to. but they're very common, like aspen up here and asking can be a hard one to economically reserve. But then, when you think about it's probably the number one species for, like cavity nesters like woodpeckers.
mwestphal: you know, squirrels, flying squirrels, fishers. There's been a lot of work for cavity nesters like fish, and they're pretty wind firm. Too. We have other species we like to tend to. We tend to reserve more that are wind firm in Minnesota or Northern Minnesota, like oaks, you know, red and broke in my area.
mwestphal: White pines a one that we tend to reserve a lot because it's very wind firm, and we get more longevity
mwestphal: out of that tree.
mwestphal: What's another good one? We do, you know we we do some reserves of some sugar maple, too, that tend to have good longevity on our soils. You gotta know your site. You gotta know your soils. And you know sometimes I think we forget that we can't reserve something that's not there. So you have to be realistic when you're setting up your reserves to.
mwestphal: you know.
mwestphal: capture a little snack or a picture of what was on that site prior to harvest, to keep. Keep a wide variety of ages, if you can
mwestphal: keep a wide variety of species, and I think it all just lends to
mwestphal: You know more sound wildlife management from the Foresters end.
Anna B Stockstad: And so I know, just from looking at the Pocket Guide for the forest management guidelines that there are different suitabilities for different species of leave trees.
Anna B Stockstad: But my question is, how does climate change play into your decisions related about like which species to leave as leave trees?
mwestphal: That's a hot button item for for us. We're we're saving a lot of stuff that will provide, you know.
mwestphal: future forward diversity like red maples one that seems to be out. It's always going to win under climate change conditions or projected climate change conditions. White plan is another one, too. That's when we tend to reserve for future a future seed source to kind of assist these species.
mwestphal: as you know, like we we may start to lose aspen. I'm kind of on this in Carlton County Southern engine kind of aspen range a little bit here in Minnesota.
mwestphal: Well, if asking starts having problems with climate, with our climate. Hopefully. We can pick up the slack and
mwestphal: remain
mwestphal: having these diverse forests by these other species we're reserving like that, like the white pine, like, I said.
mwestphal: some bulk species stuff like that.
Anna B Stockstad: Yeah. So it sounds like with your decisions related to leave trees. You can really improve the resilience of that site in the face of climate change which is really important.
mwestphal: And you and you've given us some really good foundational knowledge. And for the listeners as well about you know what makes a good leave tree, you know, thinking about cavities and species and age distribution, and all of that.
Anna B Stockstad: So I think we've given our listeners a really good foundation. As we move into these future podcast episodes and field workshop trainings related to the Fmgs.
So I just want to thank you again so much for joining us today. That's all the time we have in this podcast. So it was a really good conversation. So thank you for joining us and for our listeners. Keep listening for our next episode on biomass harvesting, and always keep an eye out for updates related to field trainings on the Fmgs.
Anna B Stockstad: Thanks so much for listening.
