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| Overview The Process |
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One Man. One Passion. Thousands of Trees.Bruce Wakeland and his associates will plant some 650,000 trees for clients this spring.It was a cold windy spring day when we drove out to watch Bruce Wakeland finish planting the last of Dr. Wipperman’s new tree farm. We were amazed by what we saw. Here in our own backyard, in fact within sight from the highway on my daily commute, a 200 acre farm was being planted with 124,000 new hardwood seedlings. For any lumberman this is a fantastic sight. Here in Northern Indiana we’re used to seeing lots of cornfields and small woodlots here and there and you really do wonder where all the hardwood timber comes from. You get an immediate rush of pride and satisfaction to see a project like this happening right before your eyes. "Variety often pays off in tree farming. Conifers like white pines are planted along with the deciduous to promote faster growth." Bruce Wakeland is literally one of our country’s finest professional forestry consultants and it so happens he has a highly active tree planting service as a part of his consultancy business. Bruce, a tree farmer himself, plants for a variety of clients every spring and has done so for 30 years. He estimates that he and his small team have planted some 10,000,000 trees over the years and half of those have gone in the ground by his own hands.
When we started our green program I called Bruce who had planted some trees for me years ago. I wanted to get into tree farming as a way to give something back to the environment. He told me about Bryan Wipperman, a doctor from South Bend, Indiana who was very active in tree farming. Bryan has collected about 1000 acres in Northern Indiana over the years for the express purpose of tree farming and Bruce has planted all the trees. I wanted to learn more before embarking a mission of my own so I paid them a visit. It was all very interesting and inspiring to learn about. Tree farming is a science and a very successful one these days. The planning process and site preparation are the first important step. Soil and aerial maps provided by government offices are carefully inspected that show the exact size of the fields to be planted and the soil types prevalent in each field. The number of trees needed for the job can be determined within a few percent and the species best suited to the site are best determined by the soil type and the drainage available. Matching species with soils is absolutely critical and normally five or six species are planted to provide diversity and the best chances for success. Bruce sometimes intermixes white pines within the plantings to promote faster growth in the early stages of a hardwood seedlings life. The fields need to be prepared for planting and this usually calls for an application of Round Up to kill the weeds and grasses where the trees will be competing for water and nutrients. Finally the seedlings can be ordered and at the right time in the spring the planting can begin. With today’s high quality seedlings, a well matched soil-to-species plan, and a good application of weed killer, survival rates these days are almost guaranteed to be in the 95-98% range. This is an amazing difference from 25-50 years ago.
A planting team consists of a tractor driver, a planter (Bruce is the main planter) and a third person to manage and transport the seedlings depending on where they are on the farm. A team can plant about 7500 trees on a good day. There are about 550 trees per acre planted on average and the cost to plant is about $400 per acre. In years two and three there are usually additional weed killer applications and then in year 12 comes the first thinning of the pines, if any, and maybe some select hardwood timber stand improvement (TSI) would take place. In Northern Indiana we can expect a first true timber harvest in about year 30. With several government programs available some of these initial expenses can be shared making the costs to get started more affordable and the idea of planting trees for a long term investment a viable business opportunity. The end result of this new project is a fantastic tree farm that’s now in it’s first year of growth and well on it’s way to becoming a beautiful hardwood forest someday. What an inspiration! Our company goal is to become involved in tree farming as a way to offset some of the harm we do to the environment. Any lands that we invest in will be planted I hardwoods or developed for wildlife habitat. It will also insure that another tract of farmland will not go to development which is certainly one of the biggest threats to our hardwood industry going forward. Stay tuned to our E-web page for more articles on the adventures of tree farming at Banks Hardwoods! |
