5. I want to leave mast trees for the wildlife how do I do that? (Hickory and Beech question)

This is very often a clause in many procurement operation timber sale contracts. "None of the Beech or Hickory is to be cut." The underlining to this clause is not for the benefit of the wildlife, it is not for the goals of the landowner, this is for the benefit of the contractor and procurement operation. They don't want to cut it anyway. They have no financial benefit to cutting it out of your stand. It is often that Beech is delivered for Pulpwood and few Sawmills will saw it into pallet stock or lumber. Hickory is that specie that you will pay very high for at Lowe's or Home Depot in their cabinets and flooring, but you get nothing on the stump for it. That is a blow up not at the sawmill, but at the final product manufacturing level. So, there is very little to no stumpage value given to those species during a timber harvest. Now, you say that they produce food sources for wildlife. Yes, they do, but they are not the only specie out there that does. Your oaks, your cherry, and a host of other species provide the same nutritional fruits and nuts for the wildlife to feed. This now goes back to the statements of what is the residual value of your stand after you have it harvested? If you leave all of the Beech and all of the Hickory in your stand, which bring no financial returns, then what are you doing to your financial investment? You can grow and feed your wildlife population through proper forest management. That means leaving 1 cull tree per acre for roasting and bird habitat. That means thinning all species properly to ensure stand health, thus producing a wide variety of nuts and berries for wildlife nutrition. That means you will be taken care of as well by increasing and maintaining the high stand value, by not leaving poor formed, and poor valued stems and species growing in your stand. You can also consider other wildlife habitat options such as habitat diversity zones by varying the stem sizes and density, and increasing the edge areas that grazers like. You can develop game food plots, and seed your landings, haul and skid roads with a highly nutritional wildlife seed mix. Also a key element to remember here... healthy and growing stems will produce the largest volume of fruits and nuts. Unhealthy or over mature stems produce very limited mast volumes. There are many, many landowners and you might be one of them, that have put that clause in your contract thinking you were doing a good thing for your property. Unfortunately, you have really hurt your financial timber investment, and are growing a stand of Beech and Hickory. Proper forest management will increase wildlife populations and the health of your herds!

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