Planting pines on my property.

[Cr0ck1]

So i started clearing out parts of my property. I had forestry come out!

Planting some slash pines. Did a controlled burn to kill most of the cogan grass and almost had to call the fire dept!!

But anyway its cool. Were getting 250 slash pine seedlings for 40 bucks! Forestry said theyll help plant them for free!! And said theyll finish my burn for free too!!

Didnt know there was a great free resource like this!!

[treefarmer]

Good luck with your new venture. If you don't mind I will share my limited experience with planted pines.
Planting pines is a long term investment but I must say it is a very satisfying investment and provides a manageable hunting habitat.
We started planting pines back in the early 80's and have had several returns by managing the trees for more growth.
We planted Improved Slash pines and began harvesting some trees at 10 years, removing every 3rd or 4th row. The returns were for pulp wood. Later thinning's started to produce better grade of timber, something called "chip and saw" , cut a board from the center and chip the remaining slabs for pulp wood or some times called paper wood.
Now after 35 years, we have contracted with a timber company to clear cut all the old timber which will produce a variety of raw wood products. There will be pine pulpwood, chip and saw, "A" poles and "B" poles, plus tops and any junk they can get to the tub grinder, (limbs, small oaks, Privet bushes, Myrtle bushes, etc) will be sold as chips to make wood fuel pellets in a local plant. On another project, we had a few acres of volunteer growth chipped a month or so back, there were tickets totaling over 600 tons of wood chips.
We hope to replant in a couple of years and in reality probably wont see another timber harvest on this piece of property. That will be for the children and grands to manage.
Our plantings were wider than normal, close to 10' as opposed to normal 6' between the rows. The wide rows allowed sunlight to help maintain the grazing for the cows. We originally planted over Bahia grass pastures and grazed cows under the pines for maybe 10 years. Very little damage from the cows. After we got out of the cow business the undergrowth naturally grew and created an ideal deer habitat and we did a rotational burning ever 3 or 4 years on the tract. Some I have burned more often in the years since I retired. My newest food plot in the pines is a small tract that has been thinned, every 3rd row. It has been cut twice and will not be producing poles for some time (years). I might live to see that patch harvested but it is only about 6 acres.
Duranna Clover is growing in the shade, so far so good. Will continue to post some pictures of it in the Food Plot thread.
Treefarmer

[Cr0ck1]

Awesome! Were goint to just do 2 rows along the fence line and see how that goes.. then go from there..

Just ordered the seedlings and forestry should be here friday with them and help us start planting!