Extreme slopes on family tree farm require NRCS conservationist to defy gravity

Extreme slopes on family tree farm require NRCS conservationist to defy gravity

Skamania County, City of Stevenson

The Stout Family Tree Farm used Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) funds to help with stand density management on remote acreage in Skamania County.

Looking upslope on the Stout tree farm. The larger trees visible are in the unharvested riparian areas. The red slash is from recently felled competing vegetation.

 The Stout Family Tree Farm and the Natural Resources Conservation Service.


This remote, 160 acre unit of the Stout Family Tree Farm was harvested and planted in 1993 and 1994. The majority of the site is 60 percent or greater slopes. Natural regeneration of trees has provided a lot of competition from hardwood species such as alder and maple, as well as volunteer hemlock and western red cedar. After working with NRCS on other parts of the tree farm, the landowner decided to pursue EQIP assistance to pre-commercially thin this difficult site.

EQIP was used by the landowner to assist with covering the cost of pre-commercially thinning this remote and difficult-to-access site.

The landowner opted to break the site into fields based on the deep ravines bisecting the site and flagged and marked each field boundary for the pre-commercial thinning crew, making work on this challenging site more manageable.

The project has been pre-commercially thinned to the landowner's target species density. He anticipates seeing improved growth over the next 10 to 20 years.

Anitra Gorham, Resource Conservationist, Brush Prairie WA, (360) 883-1987 x108
 

NRCS, Fall 2011

 

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