August 2011

Covering Minnesota agriculture since 1882

The Farmer

www.FarmProgress.com

New state laws s

Page 12 e

Debate begins on dairy policy reform

Page 50

Cropland rental rates

Page 60

Green timber harvest

PROGRESSIVE PRACTICES: Mike Rieger, a logging business owner, stays current with the latest sustainable forestry management practices. He is a past state and regional recipient of Logger of the Year awards, presented by state and national forestry organizations.

By PAULA MOHR
OUR crops are in and off the ground in a growing season. Cattle are born, bred and producing in two years. How would you like to wait decades until harvest? Thats the norm for timber owners and loggers, who wait 20 to 70 years before they earn a prot from a crop. Timber production is the fourth-largest industry in the state, with the value of forest products totaling about $10 billion. Approximately 36,200 people are employed as loggers and in jobs that produce lumber, pulp, paper, board, converted wood products, furniture and xtures. Healthy forests are important in retaining jobs in forest products manufacturing, as well as the tourism industry. Together, these two industries employ ap-

Key Points
Timber production is the fourth-largest industry in Minnesota. Loggers and farmers face similar environmental challenges. A voluntary education program provides safety, timber management training. proximately 200,000 people in Minnesota.

Similar trends
Just as agriculture has seen enormous change over the last few decades, so has the timber industry fewer small businesses, environmental pressures and technology advancements. Mike Rieger, Northome, owner of one of the largest logging companies in northern Minnesota, has seen numerous changes

during his past three decades as a business owner. Rieger grew up on his familys beef and hog farm, where they logged in the wintertime. Throughout the state timber industry, many small operations closed over the years when older owners retired, he says. There were no heirs interested in continuing the family businesses. Concerns about timber management, endangered species and global warming have challenged loggers to look at different ways to manage private and public woodlands. Since the mid-1990s, the state forest industry has been proactive with offering a voluntary logger education program that provides loggers with the latest information about technologies, safety, environmental regulations, wildlife and forest management practices. The Minnesota

Logger Education Program was developed in response to the Legislatures call for sustainable forest resource management as outlined in the states 1995 Sustainable Forest Resource Act. The whole sustainable forestry initiative has changed things a lot, Rieger says. Just going in and clear-cutting woods doesnt happen anymore. Harvesting timber in an environmentally friendly way requires loggers to use smaller equipment to thin stands and to revisit lots every decade. Even though thinning equipment may be more compact than clear-cut machinery, it is still incredibly powerful and expensive. A new harvester, which cuts logs in specied lengths, runs about $600,000. For more about Minnesotas timber industry, see Pages 8-9.

8 www.FarmProgress.com August 2011

The Farmer

Minnesota NewsWatch

Loggers in business for long haul

MOVE EM OUT: A forwarder operator gathers cut timber and stacks it on the machine for ease of transport over the forest oor.

By PAULA MOHR

Key Points
Minnesota forests annually produce 8.6 million cords, with 3 million harvested. Big-box stores and environmentalists pushed for sustainable forests. Selective cutting is the preferred way to manage forests. they meet SFIs stringent standards. We started facing forest certication drivers in the late 1990s, says Dave Chura, executive director of the Minnesota Loggers Education CHURA Program. These independent third-party audits on harvest practices were not consumer-driven. They came from our customers Home Depot, Lowes and environmentalists. Rather than look at forest certication as a liability, Chura says the timber industry looks at it as an opportunity. It assures that we are managing forests sustainably, and it allows us to maintain

USTAINABILITY is nothing new to the forest industry. For the past couple of decades, Minnesota loggers have been scrutinizing the way they do business and responding to customer and consumer expectations as they manage and harvest trees in ways that do not adversely affect the environment. The push for logger education resulted in the creation of Minnesota Forest Industries, an association that represents the states forest companies. Logger members encourage conservation and proper forest management to ensure long-term timber supplies. As a result, the state now grows twice as much timber as it harvests 8.6 million cords grown versus 3 million harvested annually. And Minnesota leads the nation with the most public land enrolled in a national Sustainable Forestry Initiative program with more than 7.1 million acres certied. Voluntary certication in the program means that a third-party auditor has reviewed a companys sustainable forest management practices and that

our place in the marketplace, he says. This is major, as customers would go elsewhere like Wisconsin for timber. The downsides to certication, he says, are the additional bookkeeping and associated costs. Chura also points out that logger members pay for the certification through membership dues as there is no checkoff program to help fund it.

Needed machinery
Loggers manage and harvest forests in two ways: conventional (clear-cutting) or cutto-length (thinning or selective cutting). Mike Rieger, Northome, who marks three decades this year running his family logging company, employs 30 people and operates with nine cut-to-length crews and one conventional crew. His company harvests 100,000 cords of wood annually. With an operation of that size, equipment investment and maintenance is substantial. The conventional crew works with a track feller-buncher, which cuts down and piles logs; a grapple skidder (approximately $250,000), which hauls wood bundles to the landing; a stroke delimber ($325,000), which cuts and strips off limbs and branches, and piles up logs; and a slasher, which cuts wood in 100-foot lengths. The cut-to-length crew operates with a harvester ($600,000) to cut the tree down and a forwarder ($350,000) to retrieve logs and set them in a basket for transport. Rieger bought his rst harvester in 1994. That also may have been the rst harvester in the state, he adds. When we started cut-to-length, it was more thinning of pines and hardwoods, he says. Now, we re-enter a stand about

TREADING LIGHTLY IN CUT-TOLENGTH OR THINNING STANDS: Loggers enter a stand and cut timber with a nimble piece of equipment called a harvester.

every 10 years, and its a mixed-age group of wood. Thinning a stand opens up the area, allowing more sunlight on the ground, giving remaining trees more room to grow and allowing those trees to self-generate. Clearcutting requires replanting with seedlings. The advantage of cut-to-length is that it can be done year-round, Rieger adds, and that evens out business cash ow. The cutto-length equipment weighs less than conventional and doesnt get bogged down in wet or snowy conditions. Plus, it is gentler on the forest overall. Some equipment, such as the harvesters, is outtted with GPS and software that allows Rieger to direct his crews on site more efficiently. With GPS, rather than tramping through a woodlot, he can provide landmarks, like locating a pond; establish setbacks from ponds; check property lines; and estimate acres already harvested. And with machinery sensors and computer software, Rieger monitors harvest data wood volumes, wood type, specic locations that boost logging efciency. Rieger employs two mechanics who work in two business maintenance shops. He also contracts out some maintenance to local dealers, such as Ponsse, which do harvester repairs and upkeep. We try to do our own maintenance, but for the engines and hydraulics we depend on dealers, he says. Down the road, Rieger sees more loggers getting into biomass, which will mean more equipment investment, such as chippers and machinery to move products. Its in the growth stage now, he says. Biomass for energy will be more good business.

The Farmer

www.FarmProgress.com August 2011 9

State forestry center still on cutting edge with vital research

By PAULA MOHR

ITH thick-trunked, tall trees as far as the eye could see, few people in the 1800s considered what the next generations timber industry would look like. By the turn of the century, however,

people were concerned about it. In 1909, the University of Minnesota opened the Cloquet Forestry Center with the goal of learning ways to restart forests. Research focused on learning about pine tree species and planting them. By 1914, the Cloquet site was the only tree nursery in the state, generating 1.2 million seed-

RON SEVERS lings annually. More than a century later, the center continues its cutting-edge research while fullling the land-grant mission of teaching and outreach. Scientists are involved in international research on climate change that encompasses the 3,505-acre site, uniquely located within two forest biomes the northern boreal and the temperate. Common boreal tree species are aspen, spruce and birch. Common temperate forest trees include maple and oak. Scientists are specically evaluating six native species and six species from Europe. If there is climate change, it will have the biggest impact between these two biomes, and were located between them, says Ron Severs, the centers director. And if the climate changes, well see more hardwoods. Since 1912, center staff has compiled climate data, and thats been a boon for scientists watching climate trends. Already they have noted that the average annual temperature in Cloquet has increased 2 degrees F since 1912, Severs says. That is a major change, he adds. That will have an impact on what our future research will look like. Volume 129 Number 8

GRAB THAT TREE: An operator in a feller-buncher grabs a tree and cuts it, then sets it down in a stack for later pickup.

A LITTLE OFF THE SIDES, PLEASE: A delimber does what its called it takes off the limbs and branches on a tree literally in a blink of the eye.

Minnesotas forests cast long shadow in history M

INNESOTA is among the top 20 forested states by acreage in the nation. Forests occupy onethird of Minnesotas land base. Prior to continuous European settlement around 1850, approximately 31.6 million acres of land (46%) in the state was forested. Land clearing through logging and burning for agriculture and settlement in the late 1800s resulted in the loss of about one-half of the states presettlement forests. Forestlands recovered somewhat over the next 60 years and dropped in acreage again between the 1950s and the 1970s. However, they have remained relatively stable over the past 30 years. In 2009, there were apMORE TREES: Today, Minnesotas forests grow twice as much timber as is harvested. proximately 16.7 million acres of forestland (31% administrative regulation or designation Analysis data indicates that forest of the total state land base), of which from timber harvesting. Much of this setacreage may be increasing slightly 15.4 million acres were classied aside land is within the Boundary Waters in the state from approximately as timberland or lands capable of Canoe Area Wilderness (960,000 total 16.23 million acres in 2004 to 16.72 producing timber (20-plus cubic feet acres) and Voyageurs National Park million acres in 2009, due in part to of industrial wood crop per acre per (218,054 total acres). some agricultural lands reverting to year). Approximately 822,296 acres of Recent annual Forest Inventory and forestlands. this forestland is reserved by statute,

CONTENTS
Minnesota NewsWatch Viewpoint Crops Dairy/Livestock Farm Management Conservation Technology/Machinery Marketplace/Classied Minnesota Countryside Marketing 3 16 20 49 60 66 70 75 89 90

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