Pharsalia Woods State Forest

The forest at this site was an over-mature black cherry, red maple, and sugar maple forest, with poor health and high mortality in the sugar maple from past defoliation. In the past, traditional single tree and group selection harvesting would have been used to harvest a stand like this, but this method has not been successful at creating new desirable regeneration in this region due to deer browse and abundant interfering vegetation, such as beech and fern. Instead, the goals of this project were to use small patch clearcuts, 1-3 acres in size to try to establish a new generation of seedlings and saplings.

Norwich, New York

The forest is open to the public for multiple forms of recreation. When on state land, please practice Leave No Trace principles.

42.593850

-75.732669

Pharsalia Woods State Forest is located along Nine Mile Truck Trail in Pharsalia, NY. It can be accessed from the north via NYS Route 23, or from the south via Country Rd 10.

The log landing for this harvest site on Pharsalia Woods State Forest is accessible by foot year-round and by vehicle in the summer months on the north side of Nine Mile Truck Trail approximately 0.4 miles west of North Rd.

NYS DEC Lands and Forests

+1 607-674-4017

53 acres

Northern Hardwoods

Two-aged

deer

defoliators

The stand is located on gently sloped glacial till, comprised of somewhat poorly drained Volusia and Morris very stony silt loams.

1860

1860 was the peak of European settlement in the area. Aerial photography of the stand from 1936 shows the stand is forested by highly disturbed, with abandoned pasture fields encroaching upon the perimeter of the stand.

Stand A-52 underwent axe girdle timber stand improvement in 1977, firewood thinning from 1984-1988, and again in 2009. Large saw-timber trees are found throughout the stand, but size distribution within the stand is patchy, with some areas of the stand containing mostly large diameter trees and other areas containing mostly pole-timber trees or small saw-timber trees with an occasional large saw-timber trees.

Prunus serotina (black cherry)

36%

Acer rubrum (red maple)

31%

Acer saccharum (sugar maple)

20%

The understory includes a component of suppressed and dying hard maple saplings and another component of yellow birch saplings likely released after defoliation or the last firewood thinning. Many of these yellow birch are poor form due to years of heavy deer browse. Otherwise, desirable regeneration is sparse or absent. There is ample evidence of high deer use/impact in the stand. Herbicide application will be required throughout the stand to treat the fern, blackberry, and beech interference. The blackberry is being sprayed to attempt to give the stand another chance for seedlings to become established. It has become evident that seedlings do not become established on a site after blackberries take over. This treatment is not expected to remove blackberries from the stand, but simply to cause any new blackberries to germinate from seed and not have the advantage that existing plants would have over any new tree seedlings that might germinate.

The goals of this project were to eliminate the interfering vegetation and establish desirable regeneration in the patch clearcuts. The management plan called for uneven-aged management in the stand, but this approach may no longer be possible, or wise, due to the high mortality in the hard maple and the presence of interfering vegetation. The hard maple within the stand was heavily impacted by previous tent caterpillar defoliation circa 2007-2008. As a result, there are many snags and trees with half dead crowns. There was a significant loss to saw-timber value. Instead of switching to even-aged management, an uneven-aged approach using group/patch selection may be worthwhile. If group/patch selection is successful at developing regeneration in the harvested areas, there will be opportunity to develop multi-aged cohort via patch clearcuts of different sizes and ages, as opposed to the more traditional uneven-aged approach using single tree selection system. These patches will have a greater proportion of intolerant species, but given time, hard maple may be able to develop in the understory following the usual course of stand succession.

For traditional even-aged management in this stand, SILVAH recommends an herbicide application followed by a seed cut/establishment cut reducing the stand density to approximately 60% RSD (B-line). Then, upon successful development of desirable advance regeneration, in 5-10 years, the establishment cut should be followed by over-story removal. Unfortunately, and similar to single tree selection uneven-aged management, there are no local successful examples of this method from recent past management. Therefore, as discussed above, group/patch selection will be employed to see what extent patch size has an influence on for the successful establishment of desirable regeneration. For wildlife consideration, a three-striped protection zone will be placed around the vernal pools and forested wet areas.

Herbicide will only be placed on patch clearcuts and not on the entire stand. Additionally, only one half of the patch clearcuts will be treated with herbicide to compare the results and test the applicability of Bill Leak's methodology in the Allegheny Hardwoods subtype of northern hardwoods.

Patch clearcuts ranging from 1-3 acres will be arranged throughout the stand, occupying no more than one third of the treatable acres. In between patch cuts, there will not be any harvesting except for the skid trail trees and any over-mature or defective tree that is immediately adjacent to the trail.

Legacy reserves and recruitment trees should be designated from the uncut matrix between the patches. Additionally, some large cull trees within patches will be designated to be uprooted and left onsite for CWD after harvesting is completed.

selection

• forest health
• species or ecosystem restoration
• invasive species
• browse pressure

8 patches were established in the stand, totaling +/- 16.1 acres and ranging in size from 1.4 to 3.2 acres with a mean size of 2.0 acres. 4 patches were designated for herbicide, totaling 7.9 acres.

yes

As of September 2023, there have been four growing seasons since the harvest. No post-harvest regeneration data has been collected yet, but the patch cuts are predominantly occupied by Allegheny blackberry (rubus allegheniensis). Deer browse is prominent and likely restricting height growth on some of the blackberry. The patch cuts contain sparsely distributed seedlings and saplings, primarily pin cherry and yellow birch, with occasional clumps of stump sprouts that have escaped deer browsing. Small patches of bare ground and mineral soil are still visible. Anecdotally, it appears the rubus spp. are taller and/or more abundant in the plots not treated with herbicide. More investigation is needed.

The herbicide application was completed prior to harvesting in July 2018 and was very successful to achieving control of the target species. The harvesting was completed during September 2019 with good late summer weather conditions. The contract emphasized the need for the contractor to scarify the patch clearcuts during harvesting by skidding treetops throughout the patch cuts. This was a challenge in some of the patches due to the amount of low-grade product that the contractor did not intend to remove from the site. However, they did cooperate to the greatest extent possible once this objective was explained.

During future harvests, legacy reserve and recruitment trees should be designated from the uncut matrix between the patches. Future harvests can look to establish new patches, expand existing patches, or merge patches.

115

52

• feet squared per acre

255

13.3 inches

Christopher Sprague

Regional Forester

NYS DEC Lands and Forests