A harvesting guide for uneven-aged northern hardwood stands

This paper describes a cutting guide for northern hardwoods designed to take into account the uncertain growth of forest stands, and the fluctuations of product prices. It illustrates the potential for increasing markedly the returns from selectively cut northern hardwood stands. In this guide, the state of a stand is defined by the basal area per acre in pole timber, small sawmill timber, and large sawtimber. Given a particular stand state and price level, the guide suggests either doing nothing, or cutting the stand into another state. Under the assumptions made, the guide maximizes the net present value of returns over an infinite horizon. The suggested regime results in an average yield of 2.7 ft2 per acre per year of basal area, and a residual stocking of 118 ft /acre. The average interval between cuts (cutting cycle) is 9 years. When a cut is made, it practically never includes pulpwood, but only large (15 in. ) sawtimber, and more seldom small (11 to 15 in.) sawtimber. Volumes cut vary from 1400 to 15,000 bft per acre depending on stand state and price level. Stand values obtained by applying the guide are much higher than those yielded by the traditional Lake States marking guide. They are also generally superior to those obtained with a deterministic optimization model.

You must be logged in to download any documents. Please login (login accounts are free) or learn how to Become a Member