OCONTO COUNTY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – A forest regeneration project is underway in Oconto County. Loggers are clearing thousands of acres of red pine trees, and seedlings will be planted in their place.
Foresters say the long-term effort will provide a source of revenue for the county as well.
On a 125-acre Oconto County Forest site southeast of Mountain, Derek Jameson is at the controls of a heavy duty harvester, cutting nearly every tree in sight.
“Just taking down all the rest of the trees, so they can replant. The stand’s pretty much overgrown. Some of it’s stunted out, so just clearing it off, so they can just till it up, and replant it.”
The site is part of a long-term Oconto County project to regenerate old stands of red pine trees. Forestry Administrator Monty Brink tells FOX 11 some plantations, like a 70-acre site in the Town of Breed, date back a century.
“This site here, was originally planted in 1921. We clear-cut it in 2018.”
Brink says red pine typically do not regenerate well on their own, so planting seedlings is best.
“Last summer we trenched it, made all these rows to put it back into a plantation, and in the next couple weeks there will be a crew out here, and we’ll be planting 80,000 trees.”
Brink says over the next 20 years, thousand of acres will be replanted, He says a rotating harvest schedule will thin mature trees when they’re ready to go to the paper mill, or be used in construction, or as telephones poles.
“The county has got 43,000 acres, and logging is a big revenue source for us. We do a little over a half-million dollars a year in logging.”
Meanwhile, trees continue to topple. Replanting at the site near Mountain is expected to begin in 2023.
“You’re making the stand better in the end, because the stand’s going nowhere, where it’s at right now. You might as well take it off, replant it, and then you got a fresh start,” said Jameson.
County leaders say it takes the red pine 80-100 years to mature. They expect to be able to start thinning the first plantation around the year 2046.
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