Very few people realize how critical site conditions are regarding successful regeneration. At this time of year I am in the woods cutting firewood 6 or 7 days/week and a pay special attention to what is growing. My neighbors property that was cut 4 years ago has areas with thick stands of poplar saplings and other areas where fewer trees with cut with no poplar regeneration. The few oak seedlings are 1' while the poplars are 12' tall ,so the oaks will probably not be able to survive. The logging equipment also introduced pawlonia trees that even grow faster than poplar and are totally worthless except possibly pulp wood.

The same year the neighbor had his lot cut ,we had 3 loads of poplar removed from our land which is about 300 yds. from the other cut. But unlike the neighbors cut , we had no poplar regeneration from seedlings but we did have stump sprouts that survived.

The funny thing is the PGC rates 5C as having the worst regeneration in the state, yet I have yet to see one cut any where that resulted in an open area with no regeneration ,unless the cut was turned into a subdivision.