After identifying your crop trees and marking the cull trees, how do you remove the cull trees? The most common ways are chainsaw felling (which is often followed with herbicide applied to the cut stump), girdling, or girdling with herbicide (hack-and-squirt).
Tips for:
Girdling a cull tree can result in a slow death. This delays the release of the crop tree, but might help reduce epicormic sprouting.
It is better to avoid herbicide if you want to encourage wildlife. Chainsaw felling and girdling result in stump sprouting that provides browse.
Leaving chain-saw felled cull trees on site can provide habitat and rotting logs that will eventually contain insect food for wildlife.
Girdling cull trees leaves standing dead stems that will eventually contain insect food for woodpeckers. Woodpeckers do an excellent job of creating cavities.
A mix of these activities provides a variety of habitats and food sources.
The proper way to fell a tree using a chainsaw with John Peterson.
wear the proper safety gear when working in the woods
safely felling a tree requires good technique
Using herbicide to remove competing vegetation with John Peterson.
a paulownia sprout is removed with a hand saw
the cut stump is sprayed with a 10% glyphosate solution
follow all instructions on herbicide labels, including personal protective equipment
Using girdling to release crop trees with Dr John Seiler.
tree water and food are moved in an outer band just under the bark
cutting this band all the way around kills the tree
a red maple stem is girdled with a hatchet
Using girdling plus herbicide (hack and squirt) with Dr John Seiler.
very similar to girdling
a small amount of herbicide is sprayed in the cuts
