A Healthy Forest Starts with the Sun: Winston 8 Ranch and Boggy Slough

ArcGIS storymap, photos and article compiled by Adele Swearingen, NRCS Public Affairs Specialist, Bryan, Texas

A Healthy Forest Starts with the Sun ArcGIS Storymap

Winston 8 Ranch in Lufkin, Texas, is 3,400 acres of towering pine forest, needly longleaf and shortleaf pine, wide open range, and soggy wetlands. Owner Simon Winston currently uses the land for both tree harvesting and resource conservation.

The multi-generational property has served as a destination for educational and recreational opportunities. Through a partnership with the National Wild Turkey Federation, the Winstons have invited students and disabled hunters to spend time at the ranch and in the club house.

The Winston family uses controlled burning to reduce the threat of wildfires and to provide a better habitat for wildlife that call it home, including white-tailed deer, northern bobwhite quail, and wild turkey. The land also serves as a destination for educational and recreational opportunities. 

Winston wants the land to go back to its natural state as much as possible, while also making some income through the uneven stand management of longleaf and shortleaf pines. These are native species of pine that grow straight and tall, allowing the sun to reach the forest floor. Many of the trees are sold to be turned into power line poles, due to their uniquely straight growth.

To help make this happen, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has helped cost-share the controlled burning and cross-fencing and connected Simon with other organizations who are passionate about conservation, like the Texas Native Seeds Program and Texas Longleaf Implementation Team.

“I do a lot of plant exploration and collection and I probably find more diversity here,” says NRCS Resource Team Leader Janet Ritter regarding the return of plants to the area. The Winstons have been burning since the mid ‘80s, according to Ritter.

Working together, they hope to get the word out to landowners that open pine, uneven stand management with fire is an alternative and underutilized timber management system that provides increased financial diversity, benefits wildlife and plant diversity, and returns function to the eco-system.

Open Pine Management - A Full Circle System

Paul Wood serves as land manager and timber foreman for the Winston Land and Cattle Company. The Simon family’s involvement in the cattle business extends back approximately 115 years.

He explains, “We manage for the production of pine timber, but predominantly, too, we also manage for conservation and the environment by utilizing our stream management zones that are restricted from logging, and we also practice a lot of wildlife habitat conservation.”

A less dense, open pine system, or staggered mitigation system where there’s different species and ages of trees, can contribute to pine conservation goals in a region by creating a matrix of stand conditions including early successional conditions post-harvest to closed canopy to open stands following mid-rotation treatments.

According to Wood, they have been applying the open pine style of management for approximately 30 years.

“The benefits of an open pine system are that the sunlight is able to penetrate down to the forest floor. That benefits your native seed bank, which helps your forbs and your grasses to flourish. That, in turn, affects wildlife because wildlife, from bees to birds up to large animals, are able to use that for nourishment,” says Wood.

He explains that the same grass and forbs are used as fuel during certain times of the year when they prescribe burn.

“That helps us manage for invasive and exotic species, and so it’s a full circle system,” says Wood.

Wood says they plan to continue working the land to get it back to its more natural state so they can continue to see forest health improvement with a goal of achieving straight, strong trees, a flourishing ecosystem, and clear water streams that aren’t filled with sediment or runoff.

Saving the Boggy Slough

The Boggy Slough is 19,000 acres (about the area of Cleveland, Ohio) of hardwood forest and wetlands. West of Lufkin, and not too far from the Winston 8 Tree Farm. The area includes some of the oldest and most ecologically significant hardwood forest habitats in East Texas. In 2013, the T.L.L. Temple Foundation purchased the property in fee from International Paper and agreed to donate a conservation easement over the entire property to The Conservation Fund, in an effort to protect the land.

Robert Sanders works for Temple Foundation in Lufkin as the Director of Forest and Wildlife Management at the Boggy Slough Conservation Area.

“Boggy Slough has a long history of wildlife and forest management, going back almost 100 years,” says Sanders, who explains that different conservation scenarios have been played out over those years. "Just recently, we began our open pine management system and really began to do a lot of work as far as management.”

Boggy Slough conservation is not a preservation area, it’s a conservation area, which means it’s a working forest.

“A working forest is a forest that’s harvested. It’s used for wood and paper products. But it’s a lot more than that,” says Sanders. “Here at Boggy Slough, we do it in a way that we don’t have to just clear cut an area, but we can go in and select certain trees, take those trees out and the remaining trees will produce regeneration. That regeneration serves as the next paper or timber products for the coming years.”

The process is not only a great timber income, but it’s also incredibly beneficial for wildlife habitat restoration, as far as game and non-game species, according to Sanders.

“When you’re managing an open pine system, it all comes together in a really good way, where it benefits the forest and the game animals on the property,” says Sanders, including white-tailed deer and eastern turkey, ducks, songbirds, and fish.

Developing Native Seed Sources – Getting to the Root of the Matter

Just like the Winston 8 Tree Farm, Boggy Slough works closely with the NRCS, as well as the Texas Native Seeds Program.

“The open pine system is the answer to a lot of our issues today that we’re seeing,” says Tyler Wayland, Assistant Director with the Texas Native Seeds (TNS) Program. TNS is a research and development program operated by the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute at Texas A&M Kingsville.

Wayland is helping with the East Texas Natives Project, which is one of six collaborative projects that falls under the TNS umbrella, with a sole emphasis on research and restoration in East Texas.

“Our program has partnered with the NRCS to develop regionally adapted native seed sources,” says Wayland, who is an advocate for the open pine system over single use or maximum production models.

“Studies have shown that land use and land trends are changing. We’re going away from single use systems like just cattle grazing or just timber production, and moving toward the ecosystem services,” he says.

Wayland explains that an open pine system promotes multiple use for things like timber production, wildlife, and recreation.

“We’re moving toward being able to provide value to landowners, not just for what they’re producing, but how they’re maintaining the land. So, when we talk about climate change and carbon sequestration, native plants and native understory is the foundation of that idea,” says Wayland.

“It’s the root systems, it’s the soil health, and it’s the filtration that these plants provide that is key.”

Both the Winston 8 Tree Farm and Boggy Slough conservation area are ideal properties in East Texas. A lot of that is due to the management and the philosophy behind that, according to Wayland.

“You’ll see a lot of similarities between the properties, so far as multi-aged stands, selective thinning, and management focus on multiple use, not just timber production. The difference between the two properties is that the Winston’s have been burning for quite a while. Boggy Slough, at one point, was a cattle ranch and it was harvested and went to cattle production. It’s been bought and sold a few times. Now that Temple has it back, they’re bringing it back to native habitats,” says Wayland.

The Winston 8 Tree Farm is an ardent supporter of TNS, according to Wayland. “They recognize the need for adapted seed sources for restoration, whether it’s pipelines, rights-of-way, energy transfer high lines—these are issues that affect most landowners and having seed available for that is important

Restoring Functional Longleaf Pine Ecosystems to Provide Sustainable Results

Jenny Sanders serves as the Coordinator with the Texas Longleaf Implementation Team, which has been promoting the restoration of longleaf pine on private and public forestlands in the state of Texas since 2010.

She works with partners like NRCS and other agencies and nonprofit programs to promote the open pine system, specifically longleaf pine.

“Longleaf and shortleaf are both native pine trees in this area of Texas and throughout the Southeast, Texas. Generally, longleaf needs a more well drained sandy soil and thrives on prescribed fire throughout their lifetime,” says Sanders. “This creates a great opportunity to promote understory vegetation and a diversity underneath the forest floor that really promotes wildlife and other species.”

Throughout the last 100 years through the advent of industrial forestry, there has been a movement to a more fast-growing productive timber industry, like loblolly pines, and what that’s led to is less emphasis on native pine species, according to Sanders.

“I think we’re learning now that those trees were here for a reason and the diversity of plants and animals that are characteristic of the open pine system really benefits drinking water, soil health, wildlife diversity, and things we’re learning to be more cognizant about,” says Sanders.

Working Together to Protect the Land

Between Simon’s partnership with the NRCS as well as the coming together of other natural conservation programs like the Temple Foundation, Texas Native Seeds, and the Texas Longleaf Implementation Team, the message is getting out that open pine, uneven stand management with fire is a feasible timber management system.

“It’s interesting and exciting to see that many landowners are starting to put more emphasis on the recreational value of their land – hunting, fishing, and just the aesthetics of a beautiful pieces of property, says Jenny Sanders. “And that’s leading to an interest in going back to open pine, native eco system. Specially the forested grass lands.”

Working to conduct prescribed burns multiple times a year to keep the mid-story foliage, such as bushes, tall grasses, and small and encroaching trees at bay, then utilizing the correct property management tactics has proven critical to returning function to the eco-system in places like Winston 8 and Boggy Slough.

And the positive impact of the timber management system is noticeable on the land, which is diverse, and clearly healthy with creeks that are see-through, indicating healthy soil. This keeps everything safe from wildfires, flooding, and overgrowth.

The NRCS has played a significant role in bringing together interested parties, highlighting the benefits of this open pine system, and providing information on resources available from federal and NGOs agencies to help landowners achieve this style of management.

Of working with NRCS to promote the timber management system, Robert Sanders offers, “NRCS has seen a lot of property and they’ve seen different management scenarios. Whether I’m working with NRCS directly or indirectly, NRCS staff provides some really good advice. Their employees are some of the most helpful people I’ve run across in my career.”