The Benefits of Managing Your Woods

If properly managed, a woods can provide landowners with a wealth of benefits. These benefits include both recreational enjoyment and periodic cash flows from timber harvests. In addition to the financial benefits of a well-managed hardwood stand, the forest also offers essential wildlife habitat. Furthermore, it can offer beautiful recreational grounds for activities like trail riding and camping.

Key Factors in Timber Harvesting

Many factors influence when and whether to harvest your standing timber, including species and quality. However, the number one question average timber owners know nothing about usually involves the size of their timber.

Is Your Timber Big Enough to Harvest?

The number of large, mature trees is the single most important factor in deciding whether you should harvest your timber. So, is your timber big enough to harvest?

Like any other agricultural good, there is a window of time during a trees life-cycle where it is prime for harvesting.

Before this period of time the timber contains a much smaller volume of lumber due to the nature of tree growth—as the diameter of the tree grows, its volume grows exponentially. In other words, a tree that is 18″ in diameter has much more volume than twice that contained in a tree that is only 9″ in diameter.

Beyond the prime harvest window, trees begin a slow, gradual decline, losing value and quality along the way. This stage is perfectly natural in the life cycle of a forest, but it has important implications for deciding whether your timber is ready for harvest. Although overgrown trees often yield a high volume of board footage, they frequently develop rotten spots and defects such as lightning scars or frost cracks, resulting in lumber of lower quality than that of prime trees.

For these reasons, Timber Works strongly encourages landowners to cut only mature, harvest-ready trees. A simple rule of thumb: if you can wrap your arms around the tree, it’s probably not ready to harvest.

A tree that an average person can wrap their arms around is too small to harvest. It should be left to grow.

Average hardwood growth is about 2″ – 4″ in diameter per decade. Therefore, even a small tree can reach a harvestable size during the average holding period of timberland.

Choose the Right Trees

Cutting timber with these principles in mind ensures there is a variety of sizes and ages within a timber stand. Proper management be the difference between obtaining a single harvest per generation from a stand of timber verses 3, 4 or even 5 harvests! Beyond the economic incentives of proper harvesting, maintaining a sound forest management plan also increases the health and vitality of a woods ultimately making it more enjoyable for both the land owners and the local wildlife as well!

Contact us today for a no-obligation assessment of your timber stand.