A short blurb in an email update from the Opacum Land Trust notified me that a nature walk was scheduled for tonight starting at 6 pm at 181 Podunk Road in Sturbridge.  It’s about a 15 minute drive from my house, so after work, I joined about twenty others for a short tour of the Moynagh Tree Farm. The tour was led by Brimfield forester Scott Gerrish, pictured below.

This 200 acre tract is not clear-cut but is managed, as this photo indicates.  The forest owners are aiming for a mixed-age forest, which, as its name implies, includes trees of different ages: mature, saplings, and those in between.

This property also includes a 15-acre beaver pond; the sun had already set when we arrived:

We made our way back to the farmhouse in the dark, but the trails are wide and not overgrown, so it didn’t matter that we didn’t think to bring flashlights.  Scott and the tree farm owner, Bob Moynagh, provided a good overview of how this one property is managed and also told us fascinating stories about the farm’s history.  I had forgotten to bring a notebook and pencil, so these salient points are what I committed to memory:

Managed Forests.  Forests can be multi-purpose: the trees themselves have market value, but forested land can also be managed for aesthetic and recreational uses, to provide habitat for wildlife, and to protect soil and water.  For example, this particular tract shelters deer, fox, beavers, coyotes, and fisher cats.

Tree Species.  The most valuable trees growing on this property are red oak, white pine, and sugar maple (these are not species names).  Oak is a hard wood in contrast to pine which is a soft wood.  Red oak trees produce acorns every other year as opposed to white oak which produce them annually.  Red oak acorns are bitter due to high tannin content; white oak acorns are sweeter and more palatable, even to humans.

Commercial Use.  Trees are selected for harvesting based on different factors, including height and trunk diameter (dbh).  Most trees suitable for sawmill processing are between 8 and 12 feet tall.  For timber purposes, straight trees without knots are preferred.  The trees on this property are harvested with a forwarder, which picks up the logs and then transports them for processing; this method is less intrusive than dragging the logs over the ground.  Trees which have lesser economic value for timber are cut for firewood.

Chapter 61.  This set of Massachusetts laws offers tax benefits for landowners with at least 10 contiguous acres of land who have developed a long-term management plan for their trees.  Regulations concerning property classification for tax purposes have been on the books for years; however, the current Chapter 61 legislation was revised just a few years ago and has only been in force since 2007 and 2008.