Economics of Harvesting 4" DBH trees.

[jayfed]

It appears that from a marking and harvesting perspective within a pole / sawlog stand, a few 4" trees near other larger trees is a doable concern. Whether it's really economical is highly debatable.  A pure pole stand seems to be a more optimal area of operation if the leave trees are marked and the harvesting equipment is geared towards smaller diameter stock. Trucking's main concern is probably the handling if there is a noticeable amount of small material which rarely handles well unless there is a small diameter spread among the sticks.  At the mill end there is likely little concern if there is a biofuel outlet.  If they did not have this biofuel option, I wonder if they would even want the 4-3"material. Until last year, 4" trees were considered operational trees and were not marked.   I spoke to one of the company foresters this week and even he thinks that the multiple-stage economics of the 4" wood is dubious.  To me, the 4 " limit makes the marking almost drudgery.  When I worked with Mead in the days of cable skidders and marking down to 8 "( if that tree was close to another tree), I could mark 40 acres a day. Along came the personally 'dreaded' 6" marking because of mechanization.  My marking acreage went down to 20-25 acres a day.  Eventually, I could see some benefits to the 6" marking, yet I thought the woods were taking more of a beating with the larger and heavier skidders damaging more roots. Now I am lucky to get to 17-20 acres a day on flat ground.  Thanks for the comments, folks!   Jay F.

[jrdwyer]

I'm in the land of chansaws and grapple/cable skidders. Timber harvesters are just starting to make an impact with several of the timber buyers and loggers.

With a selective harvest, I obviously mark the pulpwood that will be  destroyed by the larger sawtimber when it is felled. My current limit is 6" DBH due to the fact that those with the timber harvesters can cut them profitabliy. If you go below 6",  the merchantable height is generally too short. Even with clearcuts, 6" is generally the economic limit in this area for hardwoods. Not a true clearcut when all is done, but it is reasonably close in most stands.

Our pulpwood markets are pretty weak with only two papermills and one takes chips only.

I have had light selectively marked timber sales with valuable sawtimber where the high bidder doesn't even mess with the pulpwood that is marked.  I attempt to get some of the poor quality pulpwood sized trees, culls, grapevines, etc. through TSI.

Prior to timber harvesters, I use to limit marking to 8" DBH and even then the smaller stuff was often left in the woods.

[SteveB]

I think it's reeally good to make sure the small stuff that should be cut is cut.  man of the degraded stands we harvest today are the result of poor forestry practices including high grading and diameter limit cutting.  If it's diseased or old and suppressed it should go, even if it's small.  Mind you, people can't be expected to do silviculture work for free while harvesting.  If it's too small to be economical to pull out and use (basically won't be scaled), there should be some type of payment program (ie. per/ha improvement fee) paid to loggers to fall small crappy stuff.  If I was writing up a contract for my woodlot to be harvested, I would make sure that it is very clear that even the small unacceptable stuff is cut.  It has to be set up so that payment isn't made unless everything that you wanted cut gets cut.  On crown land in any place i've worked in eastern canada you are required to cut eveything that's marked... or else.  I know that the large heavy handed companies working on crown land arent' too popular sometimes, but the fact that you can tell a contractor the he's either getting on the float to go back and clean up the second half of the job he didn't properly finish, or he's going home (and not to another crown job) is a good thing.  I know the rates aren't great, but you can't sign up to do a job, do half of it, and then say that the rate's too crappy to do the rest properly.  Most in the game should be experinced enough and plann ahead to look over the land ahead of time (not when the machine's sitting idle at 100$/hr) and make the decision wether they can economically do the job properly (as always, good planning, including that done on the part of the logging contractor is key).  Of course, the comany managing the forest should also be plannign ahead enough to give the loggers a good idea of where they're going next so that everyone can plan ahead appropriately (too many times this is where everyone looses money).  Weather is hard to plan around, but you can at least always depend on weather being unpredicatble, ane the one thing you can count on is plan B (and C-Z) being used form time to time.