Mudd and Holland Consulting Foresters

Mudd and Holland Consulting Foresters Stewards of the Land Since 1959

Always happy to host a day of summer camp for LA Tech Forestry Students!
07/02/2026

Always happy to host a day of summer camp for LA Tech Forestry Students!

06/13/2026

COUSHATTA, La. – C&C Forest Products will invest over $21 million to rebuild its Coushatta sawmill following a 2025 fire, the company said Thursday in a news release.

JLJ Logging, James Sprayberry and Justin Sprayberry are one of the logging crews we use in out timber harvesting operati...
12/24/2025

JLJ Logging, James Sprayberry and Justin Sprayberry are one of the logging crews we use in out timber harvesting operations.

James Sprayberry operates the loader/delimber. Justin Sprayberry drives one of the trucks. Mark Sprayberry runs the sawhead and Wesley Adcock operates the skidder.

We are conducting a first thinning operation on a tract northeast of Vivian, LA. The stand is 18 years old and running 145 square feet of basal area per acre. We are thinning it back to an average of 65 square feet of basal area per acre. We are taking out approximately 38 tons of wood per acre.

The thinning will allow the residual trees room to grow and develop into high quality sawlog trees. The thinning will also promote excellent wildlife habitat by creating more browse. We will come back to this stand in 10 years and conduct another select thinning operation.

One of our management signs on the property belonging to Janet Johnson Creech near Keachi, LA. We have worked for this ...
12/11/2025

One of our management signs on the property belonging to Janet Johnson Creech near Keachi, LA. We have worked for this family for over 60 years!

Timber management involves many aspects, including ecosystem management for various wildlife. We had this tract of timb...
12/11/2025

Timber management involves many aspects, including ecosystem management for various wildlife. We had this tract of timber southeast of Kilgore which was planted about 20 years ago with some lower quality seedlings (although that was not known at the time). We marked the stand for a select thinning. Below we have some pictures after the stand was thinned. We looked to remove the forked trees, twisted trees and all trees with some defect. I thought it turned out rather well.

We opened up the canopy which will allow more sunlight to reach the forest floor. This aspect will promote growth of herbaceous material snd grasses. We will run a prescibed fire through the stand in the spring of 2027 which will burn up the debris on the ground and help promote the growth of deer browse and grass.

We appreciate Morris Timber Holdings and John Lightfoot working with us on this project. Before thinning and after thinning pictures.

We recently marked a stand of timber over southeast of Kilgore, TX. The plantation is about 22-24 years old. The first ...
12/04/2025

We recently marked a stand of timber over southeast of Kilgore, TX. The plantation is about 22-24 years old. The first thinning operation only took out the “down rows” and really did not thin the tract.
We are trying to clean up the stand for the next cut which will occur in 10 years.

The problem is, the genetics of these trees which were planted in the drier areas of East Texas, mostly west of Marshall, TX in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s and were referred to as “drought hearty” trees.

They were supposed to be a good tree, able to survive harsh, drier conditions. The trees tended to have a tremendous amount of forks and splits with a lot of twists, plus they tended to hold a lot of their limbs causing many knots in the bole. All defects in the trees.

The issue is the landowners planted these trees with the idea and hope that the trees would help fund future activities, such as school for the kids. The stands would be managed with systematic thinnings and would grow into high value saw logs. That did not happen. Now the landowners are hung with these inferior trees.

In this case, we are trying to take out the worst trees and leave some to continue growing while allowing for grass to develop under the trees and create a silvi-pasture setting. Cattle will be able to graze under the trees.

You can see the knotty trees, the forks and the twists in the pictures. We walk through the stand and mark the trees we want to harvest with blue tree marking paint.

I will share some pictures of the post harvest operation.

Address

668 Jordan Street
Shreveport, LA
71101

Telephone

+13182156782

Website

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