Slow growth rates are the most serious hindrance to timber management, so we need to focus on crop tree growth rates to manage a forest in a business-like way.  Because of the tremendous variation of soils and slopes etc.  some sites can grow more volume per acre.  On all sites though, the key is to get your crop trees to grow at their best rate.  You can grow more trees on a good site, but individual trees should grow at similar rates on most sites. 


ONE GOOD TREE IS BETTER THAN TWO MEDIOCRE TREES

An important concept in crop tree management is that its better to grow one good tree than two mediocre ones.  One good tree is usually better that five poor trees. 

Back to plantations:  Forest owners should look at the future of their plantings and understand the value of growing large, high quality trees.  They need to "see" the future stand of two foot diameter - healthy trees, spaced about forty feet apart - tall and straight and magnificent.

There is very little income in pulpwood harvesting or even producing sawlogs from the thinnings.  The big rewards come from the good veneer quality trees, and the sooner we get there the better!  Every management decision needs to focus on that final crop, and fortunately, all the valuable multiple benefits of forest management fit nicely into this aggressive business oriented approach.

Right from the start we should think about growing the best trees at their optimal growth rate.  If planting today, don't plant more that 400 trees per acre.  This is a ten foot spacing.  Realizing we are going to end up with about one in ten being a final crop tree, we still have plenty to choose from.  (If you have an existing young plantation with trees closer than ten feet apart, you are losing money everyday, and risking several types of catastrophe by growing a crowded stand - you need to start thinning immediately!!)

Small trees are easier to eliminate than large trees.  At ten to fifteen year of age, the obvious cull trees can be cut while they are still small.  A few hours per acre will handle this work that should also include the first step pruning on crop trees.

When trees average eight to ten inches ( twenty to twenty-five years old) a commercial thinning should take about half the trees, attaining a fifteen to twenty foot spacing.  This would leave about 160 trees per acre.  All crop trees should be pruned up to seventeen feet if possible.  This harvest should generate income, though the first thinnings must not be motivated by current profit. 

At twelve to fourteen inches diameter ( age thirty something) fifty trees per acre can come out to create a twenty foot spacing.  Sawlogs  and sawbolts will produce much more income than cordwood.


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