For foresters in the Northeast, spring means mud season. In addition to making timber harvesting more difficult, operating heavy equipment during mud season can be detrimental to soil and tree health as a result of compaction. Given this, many foresters wisely wait until conditions improve before approving the start of forest operations. This creates an opportunity to head into the field and to do the important work of marking forest stands.
Tree marking is done to indicate which trees to cut and which trees to leave based on a silvicultural prescription, which generally includes the target basal area and the desired number of trees per acre. A marking guide that designates which trees to mark based on size, spacing, health, and form accompanies the prescription. Generally speaking, on sites where the minority of the trees in the stand is to be cut, the cut trees would be marked; on sites where the majority of the trees in the stand is to be cut, the leave trees would be marked. Given this potentially confusing approach, clear communication between the forester and the logger is essential.
Foresters tend to have fairly strong opinions when it comes to paint and paint guns. On our 12,000 acres of forestland at Paul Smith’s College, we use a limited number of paint colors to clarify the marking purpose. Red is used for property boundaries, blue for cut trees, and orange/yellow for leave trees. Much like the Ford/Chevy/Dodge truck debate, the Nelson/Trecoder/BarkMark paint debate continues among foresters. Nelson is one of the oldest of the three brands. It has produced tree paint since the 1940s and developed the popular Nel-Spot paint gun that screws on to the top of an oblong quart can. Another option is backpack sprayers that consist of a tank holding 1 to 3 gallons of paint and a spray wand. For bigger jobs the backpack option is more efficient; the wand allows you to reach closer to trees and to get the paint farther from your face (which is especially desirable on a windy day).
It’s also important to note that the various paints and marking inks are designed to last based on their purpose. Boundary paints for example, are formulated to last up to eight years, while a temporary tree-marking paint will begin to fade in just a few months. Paints can also be mixed to create custom colors or to have chemical tracers added to prevent timber theft by dishonest folks who seek to pass off others’ wood as their own.
Actual painting techniques vary by forester. Commonly, a ring of paint is made around the tree at what is commonly called breast height: 4 to 6 feet. The base of the tree then receives a mark that extends below where the tree is to be cut (or left). This allows the forester to audit the stumps after the harvest to make sure only designated trees were cut. The ring of paint allows the logger to see the tree regardless of his or her direction of approach. However, in cases where the direction of approach is known in advance, foresters sometimes save time by painting a single diagonal slash, extending from breast height to the stump base. Boundary lines are typically blazed with a hatchet or brush axe before painting.