Drive down most any rural road in Central Kentucky, especially in the hilly counties surrounding the Bluegrass Region, and you’ll see lots of cedar trees.
The eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana), a species of juniper native to eastern North America, requires full sunlight to thrive. It’s a so-called pioneer species because it is one of the first trees to become established on open or disturbed sites. This includes roadsides, grown up fields and pastures, steep hillsides, the edges of hardwood forests and lands that have been graded for building sites or other uses.
This slow-growing evergreen thrives in even the poorest of soils. Cedar trees that are 9 to 12 inches in diameter at chest height are typically 75 to 90 years old.
Cedars should be thinned or removed because they crowd out understory vegetation, block sunlight and rob valuable hardwoods of water and nutrients. Cutting cedars opens the forest up, for increased visibility. (Photo by Art Lander Jr.)
Cedars are bushy with a short trunk, but are capable of growing more than 60 feet in height, with a diameter of more than 30 inches. Over decades, cedars grow into large, dense stands. Any long-term management of woodlands for wildlife will require the harvest of cedar trees at some point.
Cedars do have some value to wildlife, as a wind break, providing cover from cold winter winds. Cedars often provide nest sites for squirrels and roost sites for wild turkeys and other birds. Cedar waxwings, bluebirds and wild turkeys are fond of their blueish berries.
But, large stands of cedars should be thinned or removed because they crowd out understory vegetation, block sunlight and rob valuable hardwoods of water and nutrients.
The cedar needles that fall raise the pH of the soil, making it more alkaline, which makes it harder for plants to absorb phosphorus. In dense stands of young cedars there are few, if any green plants in the understory, denying wildlife of both food and cover.
Planning a Cedar Harvest
Even small tracts of forested land can benefit from a management plan. The first step is to get some professional technical guidance.
The Forest Stewardship Program, offered free of charge by the Kentucky Division of Forestry, helps landowners make forest assessments, and develop a management plan for their property. For details visit this website.
The Kentucky Division of Forestry can also supply landowners with a list of cedar mills in Kentucky, and timber cutters in their region who are certified in the Kentucky Master Logger Program.
Reputable loggers contact the Division of Forestry before they start a timber harvest and give foresters the location and estimated timeframe of the timber harvest.
Cedar harvests, like all timber harvests, require cutting trails for heavy equipment, and forest openings as log landings, where cut trees are piled until they are loaded into trucks. Over time, these scars on the land will heal. (Photo by Art Lander Jr.)
The Kentucky Forest Conservation Act requires that Division of Forestry employees inspect all commercial timber harvest operations to ensure best management practices are implemented. This includes leaving a buffer zone of trees next to a stream, installing a culvert to cross a stream, installing water bars on trails to deflect runoff, and establishing grass on forest roads to prevent erosion. The focus is to minimize any threats to water quality from forestry activities.
Cedar harvests, like all timber harvests, require cutting trails for heavy equipment, and forest openings as log landings, where cut trees are piled until they are loaded into trucks. Over time, these scars on the land will heal.
Commercial Value of Cedar
Landowners who have professional loggers cut their cedars receive a modest portion of what the logs bring at the mill. The highest quality cedar logs, that can be sawn into 4 x 4 or 6 x 6 posts, are purchased by mills for about $115 a ton.
Smaller diameter logs, crooked logs, or logs with other defects that prevent them from being sawn into posts, are ground up into equine bedding, pet bedding or cat litter. The logs typically are purchased by mills for about $55 to $80 a ton.
Prices paid, and the length of the log that will be accepted, vary from mill to mill, but most cedar mills require that logs be cut to about 8 feet in length, give or take a few inches.
Because termites avoid cedar and it is rot resistant, cedar is used for fencing, or the joists and walls when framing sheds, and gardening (raised beds). It’s also used to make birdhouses and bird feeders.
The lightweight, durable wood is a favorite with makers of outdoor furniture, particularly Adirondack chairs.
Cedar is aromatic, so it repels moths and discourages mildew. It is used as lining for clothes chests and closets, and making coat hangers. Cedar is milled into balls and slabs, for use when storing sweaters and other wool garments.
For more outdoors news and information, see Art Lander’s Outdoors on KyForward.
The heartwood of cedar is used for making pencils.
Many a rural farm boy and girl have awakened on Christmas morning to find gifts left by Santa piled under a cedar tree adorned with lights, ornaments and tinsel.
Benefit to Wildlife
Cutting cedars off your land has many benefits besides opening up the forest canopy.
Commercial timber harvests create forest trails which can be seeded and maintained. These trails can be used for hiking, wildlife observation, or quiet access to woodlands for deer and wild turkey hunting. Trails should be mowed, and kept wide enough to serve as fire breaks (10 to 12 feet). Grasses and clovers seeded on trails help prevent erosion and provide food for wildlife.
Removing stands of small cedars create small openings used by wildlife and piling up limbs and tops from cedar harvests create nesting cover for rabbits and wild turkeys.
Cutting cedars is a win win situation for landowners.
Selling cedars will bring in extra cash, claimed as capital gains on tax forms. Clearing away cedars will open up visibility in forests, while in the process helping landowners fully utilize the recreational potential of their property.
Art Lander Jr. is outdoors editor for NKyTribune and KyForward. He is a native Kentuckian, a graduate of Western Kentucky University and a life-long hunter, angler, gardener and nature enthusiast. He has worked as a newspaper columnist, magazine journalist and author and is a former staff writer for Kentucky Afield Magazine, editor of the annual Kentucky Hunting & Trapping Guide and Kentucky Spring Hunting Guide, and co-writer of the Kentucky Afield Outdoors newspaper column.
