Michigan is one of the country’s most densely forested states, and proper forest management is key to keeping its expansive woodlots healthy and thriving. Thinning is one sustainable forestry practice recommended to many landowners to improve their existing forest stands.
Forests are naturally thick and spaced closely together: and this density means that the trees have to compete with each other for light, water, and nutrients. The larger trees that take up more of these resources can ultimately outnumber the younger trees, leading to lower growth rates.
Thinning is done to improve these growth rates and optimize this natural process.
What is thinning in forestry?
In forestry, thinning refers to the practice of removing a portion of trees from a stand in order to make room for other trees to grow. Believe it or not, thinning is one of the best ways to keep a growing forest healthy! It provides younger, healthy, higher oxygen-producing trees the resources and the space in the canopy that they need to grow.
As trees mature to a certain age, they begin to compete with one another for sunlight, water, and nutrients. Foresters use thinning to aid nature’s natural process of regeneration, or the growth of younger, healthy trees to fill the canopy as older trees die or mature trees are harvested. This is the foundation of the practice of sustainable forestry.
Thinning can also be done to meet specific forest management or landowner objectives, like:
- Recreation. Forested property can be managed to provide a better setting for camping, hunting, fishing, and other recreational opportunities.
- Aesthetics & Landscape Enhancement. Forest management allows land owners to enhance the visual quality of their property.
- Income Generation. Selling standing timber is one of many ways to make passive income from your raw land.
Depending on your goals for your private land, professional foresters choose which trees to harvest and which to leave in the stand.
Pre-Commercial vs. Commercial Thinning
Thinning is classified as pre-commercial when the harvested material cannot be sold and often is not removed from the harvest site. This is typically done to reduce tree density in young or overstocked stands.
Commercial thinning produces wood products that can be sold. Commercial thinning is often done in large woodlots with healthy, mature hardwoods that can be sold to a sawmill for lumber production.
At Buskirk Lumber, we perform commercial thinning to harvest healthy, mature trees from woodlots across Michigan. Get an Estimate.
Woodlot Thinning for Timber Stand Improvement (TSI)
Woodlot thinning is designed to enhance the health, productivity, and value of forested areas by selectively removing trees. It involves strategically cutting down certain trees to create more space, light, and resources for the remaining trees to thrive.
Why is forest thinning important?
Thinning allows individual trees to be removed before the stand becomes overcrowded. This provides many benefits, like:
- Promoting Tree Health and Growth
- Better Timber Quality
- Increased Species Diversity
- Preventing the Spread of Disease
- Improving Wildlife Habitats
Thinning helps to combat the disease and pest outbreaks, reduced tree growth, competition for resources, and poor timber quality caused by an overcrowded stand. Opening up the canopy also allows for sunlight to reach the understory beneath the woodlot’s main canopy.
Why is thinning done?
Thinning can be part of a forest management plan to help enhance the growth of the remaining trees by reducing competition for resources such as sunlight, water, and nutrients. Among other benefits, this results in higher volumes of commercially valuable wood. Trees that are overcrowded tend to grow more slowly and produce lower-quality timber. By selectively removing some trees, the remaining ones can thrive and yield more usable wood.
Forest Management with Buskirk Lumber
Buskirk Lumber is a Michigan sawmill that specializes in sustainable forest management. As your partners in sustainable forestry, Buskirk Lumber provides full forest management and timber harvesting services in Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio. We are cash buyers of standing timber! Our goal is to build lifelong relationships and partnerships with our customers. Our trusted team of timber experts, decades of experience, and quality work will keep you coming back to us for harvesting, keeping your forests healthy for years to come!
Call 800-860-WOOD
