VARDAMAN VIRTUAL FORESTRY COMPANY

The Most Direct Link to Knowledge Workers in the Southeast Forest Economy

"IF YOU START THE PLANTATION RIGHT, POOR MANAGERS CAN'T KEEP YOU FROM GETTING RICH; IF YOU MESS IT UP, SUPER MANAGERS CAN'T EARN GOOD RETURNS"

Jim Vardaman has been a forester nearly 60 years, manager of his own company 50 years, and a forestry investor 40 years. From all this experience, he's learned no greater truth about making money growing trees than his quote in the headline.

One reason it's true is that, as long as the sun shines and the rains fall each year, a tree adds a new sheath of wood on top of its dimensions at the end of the previous year. You cannot stop this biological compounding of volume. Before you know it, a little seedling that you could once put in your pocket is 50 feet tall and weighs half a ton. All this occurs naturally without any "management" at all.

Another reason is that modern plantations, those producing high returns by incorporating the steps discussed below, are planned in detail in advance using computerized growth-and-yield models. They are about as natural as cotton fields. Internal Rate of Return (IRR) is not a biological concept, and a satisfactory IRR can be produced only by management. Man must get the process started in the right direction before turning it over to Nature.

Successful establishment of a plantation is much more difficult than is generally realized. We have described below the necessary techniques for two main classes of sites.

1. Choose seedlings with improved genes. All seedlings come from sexual reproduction, so there are runts and giants in every lot. You can see this the first fall after planting. But the runts and giants with improved genes are bigger than those without, and your initial deposit in the compound-interest account must be as big as possible.

2. Use large-size seedlings. Those grown at low densities in the nursery bed are much larger, and your first deposit must be a dime, not a nickel.

3. Till the site with a subsoiler. You must eliminate all compaction, provide soil that can be easily penetrated by seedling roots, and lay out rows to assure proper spacing.

4. Plant seedlings deeper than they grew in the nursery and oriented vertically so that their roots can reach as much moisture as possible. Since you will never be able to make up for excessive mortality, you want 90-95% survival every time in spite of spring droughts.

5. Space seedlings to accommodate future growth, for you can never move them. Early strong competition between them will reduce the base for compounding, the size, volume, and value of those to be removed in the thinning, and most of all the income from the harvest. (See nearby article on tree weights for explanation of one impact of size on price.)

6. To improve survival and early growth, release seedlings from weed competition (the worst there is) early in the first spring. Every patch of soil is headquarters of a "plant zoo," and each year the life cycles of the species in it are like the many acts in a three-ring circus. The Southern Weed Science Society has identified more than 350 species, and one-third of them may live on your land. On average, pines complete percentages of their annual growth on this schedule: April 39, May 19, June 15, July 12, August 8, and September 7. Consequently, your primary targets for control are the early developers, and it takes much work to identify them.

7. Control woody vegetation. In addition to all techniques described above, regenerating cutovers requires control of woody vegetation (primarily hardwood trees). If the preceding timber harvest removed only a few pines that had been left to grow under the prior system of selective cutting, the woody vegetation remaining looks like and is a jungle; hardwoods are in complete control of the site. Regeneration requires mechanical site-prep of the kind described in our issue of 15 July 1997. This is expensive, but the tract will otherwise produce little.

If the situation is not as bad, but in the judgment of an experienced forester, hardwood seedlings and sprouts seem likely to seize control of the site before the planted pines can do so, control with herbicides is essential before planting. Otherwise the entire planting cost will be wasted.

If as is often the case the timber harvest was heavy and left the site relatively clean, seedlings should be planted before site-prep and then released from herbaceous competition as set forth in 6. above. When you tally surviving pines after the frost browns up other vegetation on the site, also tally any hardwoods that seem likely to become part of the canopy. Then analyze the situation with a growth-and-yield model, and if a hardwood-control program will increase IRR, schedule it for late summer of the second year. The hardwoods won't have much effect on the planted pines before then.

Finally, don't be in a big hurry to re-plant a cutover. If Pales weevils are still in the stumps and roots of the harvested trees, they may kill all your planted seedlings when they emerge. If in spite of control of herbaceous vegetation as described, all seedlings die during the first summer, your loss may be $50-75 per acre. Delaying regeneration so as to do it right will cost only the annual rental of the land, perhaps $30-40 per acre.

NOW FOR THE GOOD NEWS: Once you've installed the plantation according to these steps, your worries are over. Nature is in full control; nothing can stop the internal compounding. (Casualty losses from fire, insects, or weather can stop it, but these are rare and can be nearly eliminated by diversification.) Superb management can produce maximum incomes at ages 12 and 22 when the timber is sold, but reasonable results can be obtained by soliciting sealed bids for it.

We at JMV&CO will install your plantations according to the procedures described above. If you ever need first-rate science and execution, you need it then. We will also calculate the IRR produced by each step and show you why all of them combine to produce the maximum on total investment.

We will go one step further. In future issues of the Green Sheet, we will describe each procedure in such detail that you may be able to follow them without our help. On the other hand, the "label" on our instruction package will contain this warning: DON'T SKIP A STEP OR TRY SHORTCUTS. IF YOU TRY TO SAVE A NICKEL AT THE START, YOU WILL USUALLY LOSE A BUNDLE AT THE END.