More thoughts on trees

There is a hierarchy of benefits that can be supplied by trees or other elements in the landscape.

In a perfect world, any given tree would supply many of those benefits and not just one of them. But this is not a perfect world so the person who is planting trees makes decisions. Sometimes the decisions are conscious ones. Sometimes they are more intuitive than conscious and are impossible to verbalize. Often the decision is to follow the herd and hope their values will align with the values of the multiple generations who will live with the trees you plant.

This is MY hierarchy. Don't mindlessly accept this as any kind of absolute but please feel free to use it as a starting point for refining your own step-down of values.

1.) Medicinal/vitamins. I don't have fantasies of treating exotic diseases. I do have fantasies of being able to fend off vitamin deficiencies and .maybe. having sources of caffeine, nicotine, salicylates and something toxic to poison vermin.

2) Food. More specifically, human-quality food. Even more specifically, human-quality food with minimal amount of preparation. Acorns are edible if they are ground-up and leached. Primitive tribes have done it for thousands of years. I consider simple leaching to be "minimal preparation".

A food source that is a magnet for wildlife is sort of in that category because wildlife is edible and it is a way of harvesting protein and fat that originated on your neighbor's property. Most plants that are "ice cream" species for attracting wildlife are also human-quality on their own, so that is a double-win.

3) Nitrogen fixing. Nitrogen is a necessary plant nutrient and is mandatory for high yields in your garden.

Including nitrogen fixing species in your woodlot should increase its net ability to produce wood and other outputs.

4.) Building materials. Most trees are planted with the expectation that they will be harvested as saw-logs and that will provide the majority of the revenue. Given the time-value of money and the long time horizons, it is difficult to pencil out the numbers and expect a profit in most locations.

5.) Fuel. Fuel is low on the list because the trees removed to thin the planting will burn regardless of species. The tops left behind after harvest will also burn. Fuel "happens".

6.) Other like windbreak, mushrooms, honey, look pretty or smell nice. A few species in my mix need to be able to tolerate fire so the planting can rebound if it is burned. A few species should be exceptionally cold-hardy in case an unseasonable cold-snap occurs or an exceptionally cold winter happens.

The List

Hard Mast

• Red Oak Clade (Northern Red Oak high ground, Nuttall Oak low ground)
• White Oak Clade (Burr Oak, White Oak)
• Pecan/Shagbark(Ford Rd)/Shellbark
• Chestnut (Szedgo seedlings, good crop 2023)
• Black Walnut (Sparks 147, Barry County timber-type, Hay)
• Hazelnut (understory)

Soft Mast/understory

• Persimmon (Lehman’s Delight seedlings) --- late-seasons soft mast ---
• Mulberry --- early soft mast ---
• Prunus hybrids (AU Rubrum x South Dakota or Niobrara select P. americana) ---mid soft mast---

Timber/wetlands/cover

• Bald Cypress
• Norway Spruce
• European Alder (Nitrogen fixing)
  

Miscellaneous/biomass/placeholders to help trees self-prune

• Linden aka American Basswood. Need to find mother trees with good form
  
• Black Locust (poles, firewood, nitrogen fixing)
• Hybrid Poplar or Willow every third row (placeholder/encourage self pruning)
• Maybe Catalpa
  
• Manchurian ash(?)

 

Looking at the list through the lens of my stated hierarchy of values:

Medical/Vitamins

Spruce needles can be steeped for Vitamin C in the winter.

Willow, in theory, can be a source of aspirin precursors.

The soft-mast species will supply Vitamin C and some B vitamins. They also supply some pectin that will help firm-up loose stools.

European Alder inner bark is used in Europe in the manufacture of cough drops.

Food

All of the species in the Hard Mast and Soft Mast sub-lists produce human-quality foods.

Mulberry leaves are edible and so are the leaves of Linden.

The flowers of Black Locust are reputed to be edible.

Nitrogen fixing

European Alder and Black Locust both fix nitrogen. Alder is a wetland species and Black Locust can grow anywhere from the drier parts of a flood plane to the top of a sand-dune.

Building Materials

There is an internal conflict in my priorities. For instance, the Black Walnut cultivars that produce the very highest yields of nuts tend to produce twisted, tortured limbs and trunks due to the weight of the nuts. The weight of the nuts can rip off branches which leave wounds where decay can enter. One way to waffle is to plant some very heavy producers like Emma Kay, Sparrow and Drake and to plant some moderate producers with good cracking characteristics with ship-mast trunks. Sparks 147 and Hay have good form and presumably a portion of their progeny will, too. If the market for nuts grows then the stand can be thinned to the best producers. If the market for walnut explodes, the stand can be thinned to favor timber-type trees.

Much wood can go into "rough" construction like fence poles and post-and-beam construction. Some of the species on the list are very rot resistant (White Oak, Chestnut, Black Locust, Catalpa, Bald Cypress, Mulberry) while others rot if you look at them cross-eyed (Poplar, Linden/basswood, Pecan).

Fire Tolerant

Oaks are generally considered fire tolerant because many species sprout vigorously from their root-collar and several have thick, corky bark that provides some protection against fast-moving ground fires. Linden/Basswood also sprouts well from the root-collar which is why multistem Basswood trees are very common but they don't have the thick, corky bark.

Hazel, Persimmon and Plum seedlings and Black Locust throw up shoot from the roots when their stems are damaged by fire. They can dominate a site after a fire.

Some poplar families rebound extremely well after fire: Quaking Aspen, Bigtooth Aspen and some hybrids. Others like Cottonwood seem less able to rebound afterward.