Are woodlot questions on-topic?

Question

I manage a few wooded acres at the back of my property for firewood. I have some questions related to this acreage that are probably on-topic:

• tree diseases
• diagnosis
• plant identification

My feeling is that these are on-topic because the only difference between these and other questions is the distance from the plant to my house. (And, to some extent, attitude and intensity of management.)

I have other questions about management that I'm not so sure about:

• "What's the best way to thin this area to promote [X]?" [photo attached]
  • (Which is really just a landscaping / plant spacing question on a slightly larger scale -- a couple thousand square feet instead of a couple hundred square feet.)
• "How should I be managing this coppice?"
  • (Which is really just a pruning question, but with slightly different goals and attitude.)
• "How can I make my slash rot down faster -- or what's a good use for this by-product?"
  • (Which is probably a hugelkultur, mulch, or compost question.)

Answer 1

I don't see any reason for them to be off-topic, but there might be the possibility that it is too localized. Let me put it this way: I probably wouldn't close it (as a mod) or vote to close it (as a community member), but the question might run the risk of not attracting answers because not many people would have experience with projects on that scale and because of that, it could be construed as being too localized to your specific needs. This only applies to the landscaping questions, as I think questions on diagnosis/diseases/identification won't be all that different from what's currently being asked.

However, it would be terribly unfair to not ask those questions because I feel they'd be a great addition to the knowledge pool. So I suggest that you go ahead and post them and we'll see how it goes. You never know, there might be people lurking around that can answer your question and I personally would be interested in knowing more about large scale landscaping.

I guess we'll have to draw the line somewhere on the scale of the question. So how about an acre or two? Does that sound like a reasonable limit? Anything more than that would be closed immediately as too localized. So definitely no questions like "I work for the USFS and how do I..." :)