Treesearch

The objective of this review is to compare the cost of coppice and longer rotation poplar harvesting technology. Harvesting technology for short rotation poplar has evolved over the years to address both coppice harvest and single-stem harvest systems. Two potential approaches for coppice harvesting are modified forage harvesters and modified mulcher-balers. Both of these systems effectively handle multistemmed feedstock. Total harvesting cost to roadside likely ranges from $11 to $15 Mg green. The most significant harvesting constraint with coppice systems is the requirement for dormant...

Transpirational drying and in-woods production of microchips potentially improve the economic efficiency of energy production from forest-derived feedstocks, but yield materials with moisture contents, bulk densities, and particle size distributions that differ from more conventional feedstocks. Ongoing research suggests that transpirational drying reduces the moisture content and wet-basis bulk density of forest biomass, and may affect chip size distribution. In-woods microchipping produces smaller chips and has little effect on moisture content or bulk density.

There is a need to understand the current state of the logging industry. Many U.S. woods sector full-time jobs have been lost in recent years. When the forest products industry rebounds from the current market slump, will the logging workforce be ready and able to respond? This paper utilizes publicly available data to examine variables important to understanding the current trends in woods sector employment. Southern US data is also examined to address where loggers live and work, their wages, and the potential impact of population growth and land use on the industry.

Emerging markets for biomass have increased the interest in producing microchips in the field. As a component of a large United States Department of Energy (DOE) funded project, microchipping has been trialed on a limited scale. The goal of the research was to evaluate the production, cost and chip characteristics of a mobile disc chipper configured to produce microchips. Multiple test loads of Southern Pine were chipped and analyzed during the study. The chipper was modified after each test in an effort to obtain an “ideal” microchip that met a narrowly-defined specification. This paper...

In addition to its standard suite of mensuration variables, the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program of the U.S. Forest Service also collects data on forest health variables formerly measured by the Forest Health Monitoring program. FIA obtains forest health information on a subset of the base sample plots. Due to the sample size differences, the two sets of variables have traditionally been analyzed separately. However, the analysis of forest health indicator data can occur in conjunction with not only other stand characteristics (mensuration variables such as live-tree volume),...

A Tigercat 845D tracked feller-buncher equipped with a shear head was evaluated while performing a clearcut in a 15-year old Loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) plantation and a 18-year old natural stand. Mean density of the plantation was 573 TPA (Trees per Acre) while the natural stand averaged 328 TPA, with a slightly higher density of 390 TPA in the study area. Total cycle time was not significantly different between the two stands and averaged 66.8 seconds. The feller-buncher harvested an average of 6.3 trees per min and 7.1 trees per accumulation. Productivity of the feller-buncher in the...

Sequestration of carbon (C) in forests has the potential to mitigate the effects of climate change by offsetting future emissions of greenhouse gases. However, in dry temperate forests, wildfire is a natural disturbance agent with the potential to release large fluxes of C into the atmosphere. Climate-driven increases in wildfire extent and severity arc expected to increase the risks or reversal to C stores and affect the potential of dry forests to sequester C. In the western United States, fuel treatments that successfully reduce surface fuels in dry forests can mitigate the spread and...

Restoring the function of riparian forest ecosystems has become a primary objective of many land management agencies throughout the central hardwood region, and consequently, much emphasis has been placed on planting native hardwood tree species in former bottomland agricultural fields. However, there is little information providing successful restoration techniques in old-field riparian ecosystems, especially in the Ozark highlands ecoregion of Missouri. Objectives of this study were to examine the efficacy of two herbicide and three cover-crop vegetation management treatments on the (1)...

The growing interest in using woody biomass for energy offers a potential opportunity to commercially remove cohorts of small-diameter trees (

Among terrestrial environments, forests are not only the largest long-term sink of atmospheric carbon (C), but are also susceptible to global change themselves, with potential consequences including alterations of C cycles and potential C emission. To inform global change risk assessment of forest C across large spatial/temporal scales, this study constructed and evaluated a basic risk framework which combined the magnitude of C stocks and their associated probability of stock change in the context of global change across the US. For the purposes of this analysis, forest C was divided into...