Specifications include, but are not limited to: • Do not mark below 60 ft2 /ac and no more than 40% of initial BA regardless of risk or quality. • GENERALLY RETAIN: Healthy black cherry, hemlock, aspen, white pine, red pine, elm, oak and cedar unless removal needed for logging operability. • GENERALLY FAVOR ALL SPECIES OTHER THAN MAPLE AND IRONWOOD: Favor less common species but not at the expense of the best quality trees. This is usually addressed in Step #3, where if most conditions are relatively equal, continue to improve the relative spacing by marking ironwood, red and sugar maple to meet desired BA. 1. HIGH RISK: Mark diseased/structurally damaged trees of any size class (die within next 15 years) that still contain merchantable products unless needed for other resource values (cavity trees). Consider most mature aspen, black ash, red maple >15” DBH, fir and spruce as high risk. However, avoid marking large aspen (>16” DBH), especially if large drop zone is needed to fell the tree. This effort will contribute to the 2-3 wildlife tree objectives. 2. QUALITY DEVELOPMENT: Identify the best crop trees in the stand and provide a release by marking two main crown competing trees of lesser quality. Generally allow competition among closely spaced crop trees to preserve as much quality as possible while adhering to desired BA. Oak should be released on 3 sides to an average BA of 60 ft2 . • Red and white pine should be considered the featured tree species, so efforts to remove red & white pine trees with obvious disease issues must be a priority. • Mark other species as appropriate but preserve healthy examples of all species present. • Generally retain hemlock, cedar and oak; consider releasing them wherever it is convenient to do so. • If cherry or paper birch are marked to cut, provide adequate space to encourage sprouting to maintain these species in the stands. • Where aspen is encountered, it may be left in place or cut and regenerated depending on condition and age. • Retention pockets ranging from ½ to 2 acres may be left undisturbed where age class diversity is evident and areas that feature a high percentage of reserved species. Also, retain patches of timber where the majority of the trees would yield one merchantable stick.
