Treesearch

Reports sap production costs for small (500 to 1,000 taps), medium (1,000 to 5,000), and large (5,000 to 15,000) maple syrup operations that use plastic tubing with vacuum pumping. The average annual operating cost per tap ranged from $4.64 for a 500-tap sugarbush operation to $1.84 for a sugarbush with 10,000 taps. The weighted average was $2.87 per tap or $11.48 per gallon (assumes four taps required to produce a gallon of syrup). The average annual investment cost for a plastic tubing system ranged from $7.90 for a 500-tap operation to $6.03 for a 10,000-tap system. The average labor...

Production rates, break-even piece (tree) sizes/costs (BEP), and operating costs were compared for a Koller K-300 cable yarder, a cut-to-length (CTL) harvester, and an A60F Holder tractor operating at three machine utilization rates (MUR) in northern hardwood stands. At an average product price of $0.40/ft3, the BEP size at an MUR of 90 was 7.64 ft3 for the Koller yarder, 4.63 ft3 for the CTL harvester, and 3.74 ft3 for the A60F tractor, respectively. At MUR?s of 75 and 60 percent, the break-even piece size was 9.18 and 10.82 ft3 for the Koller, 5.64 and 8.31 ft3 for the CTL harvester, and...

Habitat characteristics were quantified in an empirically balanced uneven-aged northern hardwood stand in central New York. Canopy structure, wildlife trees, downed woody material, low cover, and richness and abundance of understory vegetation were assessed. High vertical structural diversity and low horizontal patchiness were associated with the single-tree selection system. Downed logs and wildlife trees were spatially well distributed, and cavities at a range of heights and sizes were documented. Application of a selection cutting decreased total canopy closure, but maintained high...

Contains 18 papers and 16 poster abstracts on the history of fire, fire ecology, fire and ecosystem management, and fire and the future presented at the workshop on fire, people, and the central hardwoods landscape.

A 10-year survey of vascular plants was made of Rock Creek Research Natural Area, a 77-ha deep, narrow gorge of old-growth Hemlock-Mixed Mesophytic Forest located in Laurel County, Kentucky, on the Daniel Boone National Forest. The study documented 350 specific and infraspecific taxa in 223 genera and 93 families. Thirteen are nonindigenous naturalized species. Vascular plants include 6 Lycopodiophyta, 25 Polypodiopyta, 5 Pinophyta, and 314 Magnoliophyta; 255 are annual, biennial, and perennial herbs and 95 are woody vines, shrubs, and trees. Seventeen rare and special interest species...

A list of publications by Northeastern Research Station scientists and cooperators in 1998.

Lumber yield nomograms developed during the last 30 years have limited use when predicting the volume of rough lumber required to fill a particular cutting bill. Inaccuracies occur when nomogram yields are applied to situations in which processing technologies differ from those used during data collection, and when a variety of lengths and widths are specified in the cutting bill. Inaccuracies can occur when predicting yields for more than two lengths, cutting for a single width, or predicting yields based on the longest length rather than on a specific cutting bill. Most importantly,...

The Forest Inventory and Analysis Program serves important public interests by providing credible data for informed public forest policy debates as well as feedback to the forest-based economic market. This feedback, which affects timber price expectations, helps ensure resource sustainability by promoting better investment decision making within the forest products sector. Industry's use of FIA data is illustrated by the types of analysis performed by Boise Cascade Corporation. Key needs include more timely and consistent data across all forestlands, improved spatial resolution, and...

The process of moving toward an annual inventory in the Pacific Coast states began with educating the individual states as to what might be involved in the annual system. The states and some industry groups voiced concerns about inventorying unproductive or reserved lands on an annual basis. The states in particular were concerned about the ability to estimate periodic change with an annual system. The discussion presents these concerns and other possible problems that the Pacific Northwest may face when moving to an annual inventory system.

Geographically accurate Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data may be useful for training, classification, and accuracy assessment of Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) data. Minimum expectation for maps derived from Landsat data is accurate discrimination of several land cover classes. Landsat TM costs have decreased dramatically, but acquiring cloud-free scenes at optimum seasons for vegetation discrimination is still problematic. FIA plot locations determined from hand-held GPS units can vary ± 5-20 m. Landsat pixels can also vary ± 25 m. These spatial inaccuracies restrict the use of...