From the Fields - George Hollister

By George Hollister, Mendocino County forester

On our tree farm, we are completed with the timber harvest for the year, and we have all the logs shipped out. We didn’t really get as much timber out as we wanted to this year for a lot of different reasons, but now we’re doing what I call a follow-up treatment. We are going into the areas we’ve logged to get rid of the competing vegetation, doing hardwood control and preparing some places for planting if needed. My son is doing the majority of that work, and I do some of it. This is also the time of year when the equipment needs to be repaired, so we’re working on that.

What continues to happen is I’m converting my stand to primarily a redwood stand because that’s where the value is. We continue to focus on removing commercial and noncommercial trees that compete directly with our redwood trees. Then we are thinning the redwoods and upgrading the quality of those trees and how fast they are growing.

Related to pricing, we made money on Douglas fir, but it is never anything like what we can make growing redwood trees. There’s a constrained market where you can sell logs in Mendocino County, but that’s fine.

We are getting ready for Christmas, so that means our two sons have to go out and find a tree. I tell my sons all the time during the year, “When you’re out doing timber stand improvement work, keep an eye out for a Christmas tree.” We are looking forward to that. Both of my kids work on the ranch.