The Washington County Conservation Board has set January 8 as the deadline for tree companies to submit their bids for the “shelter wood harvest” in the Sockum Ridge area south of Washington.

WCCB Executive Director Zach Rozmus says the controlled harvest is designed to selectively remove the canopy of taller oak trees to allow smaller oak saplings on the forest floor to flourish, “Because they are not shade-tolerant. So what we’ve done is gone through (the forest) and I walked with two Iowa DNR foresters through that area. We marked specific oaks that we think we can remove, that remove a portion of that canopy and the one thing we made sure we did is that if we do have desirable, genetically strong trees that are in place, we left those.”

Rozmus says many of the trees earmarked for removal to open up the canopy are smaller which brings down the value of the timber sale. Though he clarifies the exercise is not being done for financial reasons, but for the health of the younger trees.  He says about 63,000 board feet of trees will be harvested.

(A board foot is a wood measurement for a piece of lumber 12″ wide by 1′ long by 1″ thick for estimating purposes.)