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Abstract
The lengthy process of planning and preparation that precedes the advertisement of a federal timber sale comes with significant costs in resources and time. After this process is complete, many proposed timber sales ultimately go “no bid” because the value of the prescribed harvest would be insufficient to offset the costs of operations. This problem demonstrates a need for preliminary analysis of the commercial viability of proposed silvicultural treatments prior to sale preparation and implementation. To conduct such an analysis for the Devils Hens Nest Vegetation Management Project, located on the Clinch Ranger District of the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests, FVS was used to model the prescribed treatments of 134 planning units over 97 stands (35 units proposed for coppice with reserves; 97 units proposed for thinning). FVS outputs of harvest volume were processed in Microsoft Excel to extrapolate values by unit acreages, make unit conversions, calculate weighted means, produce charts and graphs, calculate volumes and harvest percentages by product class, etc. Local guidelines were used as quantifiable thresholds for commercial viability: sawtimber harvest volume > 5 MBF/ac for conventional (ground-based) units; sawtimber harvest volume >8 MBF/ac for units that require advanced harvesting systems. As expected, coppice with reserves treatments tended to have greater commercial viability; all conventional units metthe criteria for viability, and only one advanced unit failed to meet the criteria. Of the units proposed for commercial thinning, 50 percent failed to meet the criteria for viability: 18conventional and 31 advanced.
Parent Publication
Keywords
forest management,
forest planning,
growth and yield,
vegetation dynamics,
habitat modeling,
carbon inventory,
landscape dynamics,
fire,
fuels,
climate change,
economics,
tree-rings
Citation
Elliott, Joseph. 2024. FVS modeling for the Devils Hens Nest Vegetation Management Project. In: Shaw, John D; Battaglia, Mike A.; Castle, Mark, [comps.]. Sixth Forest Vegetation Simulator Conference; 2023 March 7-9; Fort Collins, CO. Proceedings RMRS-P-81. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. p. 41-44.
