Our active forest management policy stems from our commitment to land stewardship, including the responsibility to enhance air, soil, and water quality for the entire watershed.  Our area has a history of commercial logging, which has required forest restoration on the ranch to stabilize erosion and reinstate the delicate balance of diversity required for forest health.   Beginning over twenty years ago, forest restoration and replanting have been our top priorities, and we continue to monitor forest regrowth to ensure a healthy woodland.  

Where Farm And Forest Meet

As a certified member of the American Tree Farm System, Willow-Witt Ranch manages in accordance with scientific forest management practices aimed at protecting soil, water, and wildlife values.  In this way, our forests can remain a renewable resource for the future, while providing essential undisturbed habitat for the diverse plants and animals who also call these mountains home.  Owners Suzanne and Lanita are proud to have been recognized as Jackson County's 2007 Tree Farmers of the Year for their long term stewardship and educational practices on the ranch.

Despite how quickly poor management impacts a forest ecosystem, restoration requires a long term commitment and comprehensive approach.  In the decades we have worked with the forest here, we've developed a holistic forest management plan and practice, in keeping with our determination to enhance the natural beauty and resilience of the land. As a result, we have chosen to harvest dead and dying trees, contributing to the vitality of existing stands.  On the farm, we use these forest resources for firewood, building materials, and wood chips.   Additionally, where new growth can benefit the ecosystem, we view replanting native species as the necessary completion of harvesting timber.
  
Recently, the ranch commissioned Marty Main of Small Woodland Services, Inc. to update our Forest Stewardship Plan, which includes objectives in forest and resource management, a detailed history of forest management on the property, and a prioritized list of management activities based on our stewardship goals.  Some "high priority" potential projects include a botanical survey, an historical survey, monitoring of restoration work to date, thinning of specific stands, Himalayan blackberry eradication, habitat improvement for the western pond turtle, and planting of ponderosa pine, sugar pine, and douglas fir in openings to improve stocking and species composition.  The plan highlights the value of our Oregon white oak stands as wildlife habitat, and suggests seeding native grasses in these areas to encourage utilization by wildlife.  We are very grateful for Marty's expertise and long-term relationship with the ranch. 

Historically, successive commercial logging had reduced species diversity among our conifer stands by the time we acquired the land in the mid-eighties.  Removal of ponderosa pine, sugar pine, and douglas fir for timber had left a void rapidly filled by the less commercially sought-after white fir.  Unfortunately, while white fir was originally present here, a history of poor timber management created virtually homogenous stands, leaving the forest vulnerable to disease and pest infestations.  The white fir were succumbing to micro-mistletoe, or witches broom, a species-specific disease killing the tree from the top down.  Since the micro-mistletoe can spread only up to thirty feet from the host white fir, overcrowding of just this one type of tree created a negative impact on our whole forest health.  

Diversity in our forests helps to prevent catastrophic loss due to disease and reduces the ability of the disease to spread.  For these reasons, dead and dying white fir have been harvested and replanted with ponderosa, sugar pine, and douglas fir, reassembling the diversity that protects this forest from disease.  After fifteen years or more, the replants are filling in and contributing to the overall health of the forest.  To learn more about how our holistic forest management practices work in tandem with our wetland restoration projects, visit our page on restoration, also on this site.  Or click on this link to see a great VIDEO addressing the sustainable methods employed on the ranch.

We All Get Our Energy From The Sun

Or, contact us:
info@WillowWittRanch.com

Willow-Witt Ranch
658 Shale City Road
Ashland, OR 97520

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