Leave buffers to lessen unsightliness of timber harvesting
 By Jim Griffith

My wife came home a number of years ago and told me she had found a house for us to buy. As she continued to describe the location of this retreat of perfection I was to call home, my picture of paradise began to sink like a torpedoed ship in a stormy ocean. I had already visited this dilapidated wreck of a house and had not recommend she go look at it. But she went on her own and saw a thing of beauty.

After a couple of months working after hours until midnight and with the help of a few friends, her dream was realized. I, along with some other skeptical friends, had to eat our words. In fact, my family enjoyed that home more than any we have owned since.

I often hear how ugly a site is following a timber harvest. As they say, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder". This is true for every situation. Sometimes it takes someone to see and describe for you what something is going to look like with a little work.

Maybe it is the type cutting that you are looking at that is the problem. Sometimes you may want to leave an uncut buffer along the more visual areas of a property. Leaving a 100 to 200 foot buffer can make it appear as if no cutting has occurred on the property. For many landowners, the trees along the major thoroughfare are the only trees they ever see anyway.

Combining buffers along roadsides or access roads with streamside buffers can greatly enhance the aesthetics of a property. The streamside buffer will also be an environmental enhancement as well. It will protect the water quality from eroding soil that may have been exposed or disturbed during logging or site preparation and planting. Buffers not only protect nature’s beauty but also preserve water quality.

Not only the leaving of uncut buffers, but thinning buffers or select cutting the balance of the timbered area are excellent options to clear-cutting. Let it never be said that clear-cutting is a lesser option for timber management, but if aesthetics and other means for management are your goal, then select cutting is a great way to take out your major timber value while leaving plenty of trees to protect the integrity of your forest.

Timber management is a part of any management plan that involves land with trees, even if you are not growing your trees for an economic return. Timber harvesting is almost always a part of management at some time or the other.So it pays to have someone assisting you with the process who can help you see what the project is going to look like when the job is completed. Don’t panic because the harvest does not look like the picture in your dreams. Time and proper management can change that ugly duckling into the envy of all your neighbors. For more information or assistance in the management of your timberland, contact a Georgia Farm Bureau forester. Jim Griffith is general manager of the GFB Real Estate Co.