MEET SAM...MY LOCAL FORESTRY OFFICER ..MANAGING OUR FOREST AND FARM THE RIGHT WAY!!!

folks the purpose of this video is to educate you it's to let you know that you can utilize the US forest service on your land on your property so I hope you learn a little something here and if you have any questions about forestry in your County just go to your local forestry agent and they're glad to help [Music] hey guys it's Josh Donnie rich farmer we've been cutting trees we've been planting trees we've been talking trees we've been doing all this stuff we've been clearing land we've been working with the Forestry Service so guys I wanted to mention what I'm doing with the Forestry Service with my land I got a lot of bad flack about cutting the trees here on the property but the plan is to replant some of this and the secondary plan is to clear some of the land and make pasture for a farm can't really have much of a farm and farm animals without a pasture so we have Sam here with the North Carolina Forest Service and we're working on getting the forest plan together right yeah so I took Sam over on the back side of the farm here where we're gonna replant about 40 acres of trees and then there are a couple spots like right in behind him and right up on another hillside here that are just too rocky for us to clear so Sam's giving me some advice are the trees you're recommending a native species tree or so usually when we talk about planting trees we're gonna plant a loblolly pine okay it is the fastest return on investment it grows the fastest it's going to give you the quickest rotation and it's native to North Carolina but not necessarily to this region ok but the cool thing is it's it's a weed it'll grow anywhere it'll grow fast and it'll make you money yeah the thought here is to replant our trees and then we'll harvest them again later now the loblolly pine also provides a lot of habitat for wildlife is that right yes ok so deer bedding down in their Bobcat squirrels rabbits do they put off a pine cone that squirrels would eat or squirrels love loblolly pine cone okay yeah not as much as they love acorns but gotcha love them well when you gotta eat sometimes Pines what you get eat and sometimes when you gotta eat part of your retirement plan includes plant in your forest backup so that you'll have a good retirement anyway you're going to diversify your income or diversify your retirement account you can invest and you can invest in land and when you invest in land you better invest in trees and invest in yourself when it comes down to trees per acre we have a crew I'll hire a crew which is recommended by these guys and they'll come out and they'll plant how many trees per acre generally in this area we're really we're either gonna recommend four hundred and thirty six trees per acre on ten by ten space center 544 trees per acre on an eight by ten spacing gotcha and you say eight by ten the rows would be eight feet wide and 10 feet apart or how does that work it usually runs out to the tree planner is walking in a line yep they're walking ten feet apart and that's planting a tree every eight feet guy check gotcha now when they plant do they plant trees trees or they plant tree tree tree Tree really it's however they end up yeah they're gonna get out there there's gonna be 30 guys and they deserve to just line up in a line and they line up and roll cool and they're gonna plant a lot very quickly now whether they used to plant do they use something that's sticking the ground to wedge in the ground or do they just have a little handheld thing to go put and just stick it down the trees are like what this this tall something like that it's tall roots all ok roots and all and that would be a bare root they're not very usually unless you specify you won't containerize guys I would recommend bare root especially this time of year okay the biggest benefit you get with containerize is you can start planting in October November gotcha it'll retain moisture better correct okay now when we talk about a loblolly pine tree what you guys need to know is a loblolly pine tree that tree that's used to make two-by-fours and stuff like that by wood stuff like that okay now there are native species that you can plant here called a short leaf pine and a short leap ountry would grow to fruition at about 30 to 35 years something like that or forty years house probably looking at 40 45 40 45 50 50 years okay and that's when the tree gets how big that's when the average diameter will be you know the 14 to 16 inch range gotcha so the trees that we're gonna plant will be harvestable in what 25 years or so probably 30 to 35 30 to 35 years so guys I am 40 years old and I want to harvest these trees two more times in my lifetime so I've got to start eating better okay no more McNuggets even though McNuggets are made of white meat now McDonald's is awesome no more McNuggets okay who would have thought you'd have a talk with the Forester and talk about chicken nugget every night yeah you know so this guy eats Nuggets I can tell okay so from a soil standpoint here in North Carolina I'm in the Piedmont region of North Carolina almost on the on the edge of the mountainous region I guess or are we close to the mountain I call this North Central Piedmont okay you've got yeah we're a little west of Central Piedmont and Piedmont means pretty much where the mountains meet the flatlands is that pretty much it so where the mountains meet the flatlands ition exactly so there's a lot of soil here that's washed off of the mountains okay and the soil quality here isn't quite the best for growing trees really fast okay so the nutrition content here in the soil is not exactly ideal for what you'd want to grow these trees at a 25-year right now in eastern North Carolina you're telling me you can harvest these trees at a 25-year rate it's interesting is there a certain pH that these trees are looking for you know it's less pH it's more of just what's there nutrients right right has this been a road it is all the nitrogen gone gotcha because historically this was farmed yeah and still the best area is it's still farmed right and historically you farmed the good stuff and the bad stuff you just let the trees grow and whenever they're ready to cut the cut right so guys what you need to know about the history of North Carolina here where I live is that back in the days land was plentiful and back in the 17 16 17 1800 s folks would move to a place farm it farm it out there wasn't fertilizer like there is nowadays there wasn't chemical fertilizer and people would come and they would over farm a place it would be tilled turned up the soil would wash all the topsoil would wash away and when we sent the soil test for our farm for our land we had point oh four percent organic material in our soil which means this is basically one big rock okay consequently you need to plant the loblolly pines that'll grow in Iraq guys I thought you'd find this a little bit interesting to talk to the Forest Service here pretty cool job I'd like to walk around the woods all day long walks around the woods all day long takes a look at people's trees gives them advice and you know you see this guy coming you gotta put a smile on your face guys thanks a lot for watching today we'll see you at the next vlog be sure you stick around we're going to be slaughtering a pig here in the next probably week or so and actually I'm going tomorrow but I might not get the video out for a week we're gonna be slaughtering a pig the old-fashioned way the old way the way my great-grandfather did it and his great-grandfather did it here in Appalachia or Appalachia that's what we call thanks a lot come on back and see me guys click that like button give me a thumbs up if you're not subscribed subscribe and click the little bell down there don't notify you when I post a new video all right [Music] here in sweet and some ways those to me stony read Oh