Rehabilitating Cutover Stands: Some Ideas to Ponder

over-stocked places dependent upon the initial placement of trees larger than the threshold cutting diameter. Within uneven-aged communities, diameter-limit cutting often removes all or most the age classes that had grown to merchantable sizes, leaving the saplings and poles. Some cuttings may also leave the cull or low-value sawtimber stems. Further, it does no tending of the residual trees to enhance stand quality and vigor. Commonly, a residual uneven-aged stand has no more than 60-70 ft/ac of basal area, distributed in a patchy fashion. For even-aged stands, diameter-limit cutting has an even more devastating effect. It removes all the marketable trees, leaving trees of poor crown position, vigor, and quality. In addition, diameter-limit cutting in even-aged stands often leaves no more than 50-60 ft/ac of basal area after even a single entry. The stands also have a patchy distribution of residuals. Here’s The Issue Landowners who have cutover stands usually want to rehabilitate them at no out-of-pocket cost. That always proves challenging. In fact, rehabilitation must start with the investment of assessing conditions that diameter-limit and other exploitative cuttings created. Then managers must identify ways to improve the situation, and finally select an alternative that minimizes additional cash outlays in the process. At best, they often settle on a least-cost approach, hoping it will return a stand to profitability in a reasonable time.