Virginia Forestry and Wildlife Group

Meadowfarm – Orange County, Va (2000 – present)

Meadowfarm and the Taylor timberlands consist of more than 10,000 acres of plantation pine, mixed hardwoods and beautiful pastureland in the rolling Piedmont of Orange County, Virginia.  The center of the estate is Meadowfarm, an 18th century home built by Robert Taylor, a relative of Presidents James Madison and Zachary Taylor.  Much of the Taylor property is part of the original land grant from the King of England.

The primary focus of the forest management activity has been to manage the 5,332 Taylor timberlands, which consist of 3,022 acres of plantation pine that varies in age from 2 years to 35 years old.  When we were first hired to manage the Taylor property, many of the pine plantations were several years overdue for a ”first thinning” and had begun to stagnate and suffer from small live-crowns.  As a result, our primary objective was to thin these areas in the greatest need of thinning.  The “first thinnings” purposely left the stocking rates higher than normal (90-100 square feet of basal area instead of 80 square feet) to give the stands added protection from potential windthrow and ice damage.  Most of the management activity, however, has and will continue to be selective thinning to reduce stocking rates to a level that maximizes growth of the largest and best “crop” trees.  This might also include preserving high quality hardwood saplings (poplar, red oak and white oak) that are developing in the understory – trees that could form the forest of tomorrow as the pine slowly and naturally transitions to a hardwood forest.  Though many of the stands will support a second or third thinning before the final harvest, several plantations have been clearcut and liquidated prematurely.  This has occurred in stands that are poorly stocked or ones that are unacceptably low in quality and vigor.  In addition to providing a boost in income, liquidating unproductive stands (and reforesting with genetically improved seedlings) has enhanced the overall productivity of the Taylor timberlands and created a wider range of age classes to help meet the goals of creating a sustainable rotation.  In the near future, we plan to begin a series of understory burns in some of the more mature pine plantations, in hopes of eliminating woody growth and promoting warm season grasses.  Over time, this should enhance the quail habitat. 

Though planted pine is by far the most common timber type, extensive areas of immature hardwood have developed along stream corridors and uplands that were clearcut but never reforested.  Today, these stands contain mostly sapling to polesize upland hardwoods (mixed oaks, hickory, red maple, and yellow poplar) and Virginia pine.  Since the Nason-Tatum soils are poor hardwood soils, these stands will grow very slowly and never develop into anything of quality or value, except along moist sideslopes and fertile swales where poplar is locally more abundant.  The greatest value of these stands is their contribution to the overall diversity of the Taylor timberlands.  In addition to producing an abrupt change in vegetation type, they provide a wealth of different food types, habitats and resources not found in a pine plantation.  This was certainly the primary objective for leaving these stands scattered across the Taylor landscape.   Since they are too young to effectively manage, these stands should be allowed to grow “as is.”

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