Cargo Bike Urban Forestry!!!!!!!

[Timberdoodle]

Hey everybody!

I just got approved for a fuels project by the county. this is going to be an as-it-happens thread. my goal is to do ALL of the "Timber Truck" work using my Benno Boost and the Burley Bark Wagon. it's going to be a good foot-in-the-door job for the area, since the county has a bunch of "orphan" pine stands that are overmature and posing a significant fire risk as they age and start suffering drought stress, as well as insect and disease outbreaks. We're going to do this project as the initial step in a 30-ish year plan to convert this stand over to a mixed pine-oak from a dense plantation monoculture. The hope that me and the city and county foresters have is that we can start making the wildland-urban interface in the county more fire wise and improve our defenses against what is likely going to be worsening fire conditions due to climate change. mixed southern pine-hardwood forests in our region are capable of surviving low intensity fire, and if we do simple stuff to mitigate fuels ahead of time, we can keep any potential fires healthy, low-intensity, and most importantly, safer for fire crews and the community.

Stay Tuned!!

Oh. Also. here's some snapshots of the draft silvicultural prescription to give a bit of detail:

 

[Timberdoodle]

Day 1: Plot Cruising and silvicultural prescription drafting

So this morning I woke up at 0345 to do some HAM radio stuff, then slapped all of my forestry gear into the panniers and took off for the site about 2.5 miles away.
because of the small size and to capture high variability while also maintaining some statistical confidence, I chose to do 8 plots of variable basal area radius (it's a use of the trigonometric function known as s=r(theta) to include trees in the plot based on their size and distance from the center of the plot) with 10 factor. so say for example, if I have ten trees fall "in" on my plot, then the basal area (stand density) is 100 square feet of tree per acre. here's a map.



I parked by plot 1, and got to work.


unpacked my gear from the panniers (cruiser vest which holds my light gear, flagging and pin flags and my LCE, which holds my heavier gear like laser and water bottles)


the plot cruising was fantastic. took me about 2 hours to do all 8 plots.

got back home and spent the rest of the morning with Elias typing up the final Prescription and logging plan. 5 miles, which means 1 liter of gas didn't get burned.

Fantastic day. thoroughly enjoyed it. I sent off the final draft of the Rx to Athens-Clarke County's community forester for review and approval.

Once that gets a signature, I'll flag in the skid trails, then mark the trees to prescription.

 

[BirdmanStevens]

Very cool! Any possibility of doing prescribed burns in this area?

 

[Timberdoodle]

Nope!

can't do it. it's in the middle of a park, and there are houses like 100 yards away. we're going with 100% mechanical and silvicultural.

the idea being that we remove ladder fuels and reduce the BA enough to allow shade intolerant and mid-tolerant hardwoods to come in. over several years the 1 hour fuel profile will shift as the current carpet of needles and fines gets replaced. I wish we could burn it following the logging op, but that's the ACC's call.

I'll certainly pester them about it though. we'd need significant buy-in from the neighborhood next door so I bet we'd have to bring it to the city council

 

[BirdmanStevens]

Nope!

can't do it. it's in the middle of a park, and there are houses like 100 yards away. we're going with 100% mechanical and silvicultural.

the idea being that we remove ladder fuels and reduce the BA enough to allow shade intolerant and mid-tolerant hardwoods to come in. over several years the 1 hour fuel profile will shift as the current carpet of needles and fines gets replaced. I wish we could burn it following the logging op, but that's the ACC's call.

I'll certainly pester them about it though. we'd need significant buy-in from the neighborhood next door so I bet we'd have to bring it to the city council

That's understandable - definitely not ideal with a neighborhood next to it. Just getting more sunlight on the ground helps a lot with biodiversity so that's good!

 

[Timberdoodle]

yeah, one of the potential benefits is creating a microclimate close to the ground which maintains higher moisture levels, thereby reducing the threat of ignition.