Relationship of species and season to sawmill by-product production: A case study

The goal of this study was to investigate the effect of species and season on lumber and chip cost, sawdust, and chip weight. Logs were processed through a small sawmill for a 4-year period and board volume, chip weight, and sawdust weight were recorded. A total of 14 species, with a sample pool of 602 data points (43 data points per species lumber and chip groups), were available for model building. It was found that chip weight was not influenced by season for any one species. Conversely, for mixed species (n = 43), the period of processing had a considerable influence on chip weight. Since the season of production didn?t influence chip weight for any one species, it is unlikely that a change in moisture influenced mixed chip weight. Instead, a shift in species composition over time was probably the cause of weight variation. Mill production capacity constraints were identified using the Pearson correlation coefficient. It was found that oak, pine, poplar, and mixed species all had negative relationships to one another. The negative relationships between these four species groups were attributable to the production capacity of the mill. All other low-volume species had, in general, a negative relationship to the major four species, although often not statistically significant. Hickory, beech, and birch were positively correlated with each other, which was probably a function of all three growing near one another and not a function of customer demand.

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