Peter Ellis wrote:Looking at your video (it was not working for me earlier today) I have to say that your forest looks to me like fairly young secondary growth. Mostly young trees, pretty open canopy or you would not have so much understory brush. My inclination would be to get in there and clear the understory, cut out any unhealthy looking trees of whatever size or variety, and then go through and very selectively choose the useful/productive/beneficial trees that I was going to keep. Once the keepers were identified, I would think about what I was going to do with the rest. Firewood? Mushroom culture? Construction projects? Take the time to figure out what to do with which before the cutting starts .
Then when I started cutting, I would work the plan, with the trees going to whatever their assigned purpose, trying to work as efficiently as possible. I might layout a grid pattern and work section by section, doing all of the felling and hauling out of one area at a time. Figure what progression through the layout would be most efficient in terms of overall effort. For example, you might not want to start by the creek and have to try and haul trees back through all the other trees. It might make more sense to start at the front, so each section further back you were dragging through more open terrain.
It might make sense to do all the way across the meadow side, plant some of your food forest trees in a couple of those sections to get them started and then keep working the back sections pulling them out through an open section at the front where you don't plant food forest yet.
I would think about productive understory trees, like hazelnuts and pawpaws that will benefit from your existing trees. I understand some serviceberries also like the understory and some say they are tastier than blueberries.
I would definitely consider running goats or pigs to clear much of the underbrush for me and convert it into useful products. Permaculture always seeks a yield.
Using electric fencing, as demonstrated by Polyface Farms, could make that more possible than you might expect.