Helping You Manage Your Natural Resource Responsibly
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Mobile: 919-815-3468
Longleaf Managment
Longleaf Pine Restoration and Pine Straw Management
It is hard to believe that Longleaf pine once was the largest singletree ecosystem in the south; originally 60 to 90 million acres. This extremely diverse ecosystem was maintained by frequent low intensity wildfires that were once very common. Native people also set fires to drive game and improve visibility. In this environment of fire, longleaf pine thrived.
Unfortunately, a series of events in our history, such the turpentine industry, over cutting and reduction of wildfires caused this forest ecosystem to decline dramatically. Longleaf pine is now scarce. It is estimated that only three million acres remain.
There is a renewed interest in restoring the longleaf pine forest ecosystem and variety of cost-share assistance programs have developed to help landowners pay for the cost of reestablishing longleaf pine forests. Some of these programs are paying as much as 75% of the cost of longleaf pine establishment.
If you are interested in Longleaf pine, lets evaluate your current forest and see if longleaf pine could be successfully managed on your property. If you have an existing stand lets develop a long-range plan to manage it properly. Let me guide you through the understanding of the need to introduce frequent prescribed fire and the use of low-impact selective thinning and hardwood control to maintain and restore your longleaf pine stands.
I am currently working with a dozen clients in the Sandhills region either restoring Longleaf pine or managing existing stands that are good examples of longleaf pine management that I can share with you.
Because of its pleasing color and length, pine needles from longleaf pine are preferred to those of any other pine for garden mulch. In the Sandhills, an acre can produce from 65 to 80 bales of pine straw per acre, worth $80 to $100. When managed for multiple purposes, longleaf pine forests are economically rewarding and beautiful to look at.
True North can provide the following Longleaf Pine Management Services:
- Longleaf pine reforestation, contracting and administration
- Pine Straw Marketing and Administration
- Fox squirrel and Red-cockaded Woodpecker (RCW) Habitat Improvement
- Safe Harbor Program (RCW) Enrollment
- Cost-share program assistance
- Hardwood Control
- Forest Fertilization
- Commercial Thinning/Timber Sale Coordination
- Understory Burning/Prescribe Fire Coordination
"Like the fine old aristocracy destroyed by war, the original longleaf pine forest of our Sandhills has been completely cut and burned until the entire scene has so changed that no person of the rising generation may now gain any real idea of the majesty and glory of the original forest" B.W. Wells (1932)
"A magnificent grove of stately pines, succeeding to the expansive wild plains we had a long time traversed, had a pleasant effect, rousing the faculties of the mind, awakening the imagination by its sublimity, and arresting every active, inquisitive idea, by the variety of the scenery."
William Bartrum,—Travels.
True North Forest Management Services
Helping You Manage Your Natural Resource Responsibly
