Selective clearing

What it is

The work follows the marks. Brush and unwanted trees come out. Live oaks, other oaks, and any tree marked to stay are left. Chips from a mulching pass stay on the ground unless haul-off is in the scope. The scope is the list of trees you mark. Where the carrier cannot fit between trunks, that tree stays or the marks change before the machine starts.

When a landowner needs it

It fits oak motts with cedar or yaupon underneath, a homesite where shade trees should remain, and a pasture edge where some trees are doing a job and the brush is not. When every woody stem on the tract is supposed to go, say that on the walkthrough so the scope matches the request.

Process and machines

The walkthrough sets what stays, what goes, and where the work stops. Marks go down before the machine moves. Between retained trees, the usual carrier is a skid steer or compact track loader with a forestry mulching head. A stem too large for that head is called out in the scope on the tract, where the diameter can be seen.

What changes the price

More retained trees mean slower work. Density, stem size, slope, rock, and access change the hours. Painting oak wounds, and waiting out the February through June window when the marks include oaks, can change the schedule.

Season

Selective clearing still wounds oaks when a limb or a nearby stem is cut. The oak wilt window applies to those cuts even when the oak itself is marked to stay.

Do not wound oaks from February through June. Sap beetles that spread oak wilt are most active then, and a fresh cut is how the fungus gets in. Paint every oak wound immediately, in any month. Texas A&M Forest Service counts land clearing and cedar clearing as wound sources, the same as pruning. Texas Oak Wilt sets the window as February 1 through June 30 and includes fresh stumps and damaged roots.

Mulching leaves chips on the ground. If that material is piled to burn later, a county burn ban can stop the burn. A county judge or the commissioners court sets the ban, and Texas A&M Forest Service posts a statewide map of which counties are under one.

On the Edwards Plateau, golden-cheeked warblers nest in juniper-oak woodland. They return in early to mid-March, lay eggs in April, and leave from late June to mid-August. If the tract is that woodland, look at the calendar before opening it in spring.

Hill Country and South Texas ground

Under live oak on the Edwards Plateau, Ashe juniper and yaupon grow on shallow limestone. On Post Oak Savannah ground in Guadalupe and Wilson counties, the woodland is oak on sand or clay. In Medina County, mesquite and huisache are often the stems to take. The marks on your tract decide, once the plants are identified.

Kendall, Bandera, and Comal counties sit on the Eastern Edwards Plateau: shallow soil over limestone, with Ashe juniper, honey mesquite, Texas red oak, and yaupon. Ashe juniper is the tree people call cedar. Guadalupe and Wilson counties are Post Oak Savannah, oak woodland and grassland on sand and clay. Medina County is South Texas Plains, where the brush is mesquite, acacia, and prickly pear. Huisache (Acacia farnesiana) is on the South Texas browse list, and it sprouts again on disturbed ground. The town pages describe the soils in each place.

What the land looks like afterward

Plateau live oak and Texas red oak are on the Edwards Plateau plant list, so a selective scope on that ground names the oaks before the brush. Fresh wounds on those oaks are infection points. After the pass, the marked trees are still there. Brush that was mulched is a layer of chips. The lot has not been graded. Mesquite sprouts from a buried crown if only the top is cut, so a mulched stem can grow back. Follow-up is part of keeping a field open.